The world is a marketplace with millions of sellers and buyers. It has gone from selling services to selling yourself as a brand these days. But it so happens that most people are confined to regions they live in and often miss out on this global opportunity. The best part of selling your services outside your country is the currency difference. For e.g. I live in India and sell my services to countries like the USA that bring me payments in dollars.
There are millions of platforms that have dissolved this gap of geographical boundaries. They have created a place where a person from any country can work seamlessly for a client from any other. All of them have a common format. You register, offer a sample of your services, and wait till you attract decent clients. And the platform takes a certain amount as commission in return.
Where should you start?
Fiverr is a popular place where beginners can join and offer their services. It gets its name from the fact that when it began, all the services were for 5 dollars. Hence five-er. The best part about providing services directly is that there are no middlemen who will eat up your hard-earned money. And believe me when I say it’s pretty decent to get clients. You just have to put genuine effort into your profile. Think of it like this.
Would you buy services from you if it were you?
How to trust these places?
But how do you trust these sites? What if you do the work and clients don’t pay. Don’t worry. Fiverr takes money in advance from the clients. So when you start working on a project, the money has already been paid by the client and once you complete it (when the client says), Fiverr will transfer it to you. Pretty simple.
Get me started!
When you register on Fiverr, you are essentially a buyer. You can find options to Switch to Selling by which you will become a seller. Every service is called a Gig on Fiverr. So you start by creating gigs. Be as descriptive as possible by adding formatted text, nice infographics, and even videos when needed. Fiverr also allows you to create packages for your gigs. You can create basic, standard, and premium plans for your gig, based on its complexity, features, or delivery times. Here is a sample.
Be your best version
Fiverr adds “I will” to your gig title. Hence all the gigs on the platform look uniform and give a positive vibe all around. Being polite to clients is the first thing you have to learn and it starts with the first line of the text you add to your gig this way.
First Impressions
Be sure to choose a nice username as this is what gets displayed to the client. Please refrain from making usernames like cooldude69 as these don’t look professional at all. Lol. I know I won’t buy from that dude.
Track your progress
As a level 1 seller you can only create 7 gigs. Be sure to use that limit up. The more the merrier. You can even view how your gigs are performing from the seller dashboard under the Gigs tab. It shows you the impressions and the number of clicks each gig got. This gives you an idea of which of your gigs is popular or in-demand right now. You can keep adding more to that gig or even focus on the gigs which have low click-through rates. A quick thing you can do is switch to the buyer profile and search for some something and see if your gig shows up in the SERP or not.
Your first client. You will always remember this person
An order starts when a buyer messages you with the requirements they have. You have to be very quick at replying because your response rate shows up on your profile. This shows the client how responsible you will be if they decide to hire you. After the initial conversation, if you have managed to answer all the queries of the client and understood all their requirements, the buyer creates an order for your gig. At times the clients have customized requirements for which you can create custom orders for them. This shows up as a button in your chat window itself.
Once done, you have the specified number of days you have mentioned in your gig to complete this order. You can deliver before the said time too. An order is complete when the buyer marks it as done from their side. Till then, the buyer can keep requesting revisions until they have been provided what you promised.
If in any case, you have completed an order and the buyer has not accepted it, Fiverr marks it as complete after 3 days and you get the money. Oh and please don’t try to trick Fiverr by sending personal numbers or emails etc. Fiverr has a strict policy regarding this and it’s pretty easy to get banned in such cases.
Ka-Ching !!!
A big part of being polite is for Tips. I’m kidding. No am not. Yes. Fiverr allows the buyers to tip the sellers if they liked their work. Foreign clients tip very generously. The tip value sometimes goes to 2x of the gig amount even. Pretty cool right? But that is not it. There are reviews and ratings too. Whenever you are done with an order, Fiverr asks the seller and the buyer to provide feedback and rating which shows up on each other's profile. This is important as buyers prefer clients who have credibility. Not just that, you can even ask your clients to recommend you to other buyers if they liked your work. So every work you deliver is one step closer to your next one.
Keep it coming
Be sure to impress your clients as they keep coming once they like your work. The initial phases of getting a client are tough. But once you get rolling the orders keep coming every other day and soon you will have to stop taking orders due to overload. Don’t worry Fiverr has an option for that too. You can limit orders if you have too much work from the dashboard. Now you know am telling the truth, else why would Fiverr have such an option. LoL!
Fiverr needs money too
Last but not least is the commission part. Fiverr takes 20% of the order amount. So when you price your gig be sure to keep that in mind. For withdrawals, you have PayPal and Payoneer. Both charge a certain amount per transaction. So be sure to withdraw in bulk to avoid these charges. Also, it takes a certain amount of time for the clearance so be patient regarding it. You can track your transactions on the Earnings tab.
Skills and Courses
There is one last part called skills on Fiverr which basically are tests you can take to showcase that you are certified at what you are saying. Again this shows up on your profile which adds to its credibility. Fiverr has courses you can take too but they are way too costly. I would prefer not to go there if you are a beginner.
In summary, Fiverr is a great place to be. It allows you to make money sitting in your bedroom. All you have to do is impress others with your skills. Again this forces you to upskill. The amount of work you can get and the money you can make are unlimited. If you have time to browse as a buyer you will see people create crazy gigs. Here is a sample. So don’t wait. Jump in now and let your work take you everywhere around the globe.
P.S. Some clients even go so much to offer you jobs if they like your work. So you never know — your next job might just be in your dream country.
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