No good will come of this

Hey Fiverrtastic readers and Fiverr community,
           I'm here today to talk about a few things. First off I'm kinda irked with how Fiverr's new pet project is literally destroying once productive sellers. Some people aren't getting any orders at all thanks to version 2. I haven't got steady orders in days and the orders i do get are few and far between. I have got 4 orders in a week and 1 cancelled because he misread my gig! The algorithms suck and the analytics are a way for Fiver to place a scarlet letter on productive sellers. Seriously, if you were to go into Walmart and You see a digital scorecard that said Jane does 300 transactions a day but out of that 300 she has to get 60 manager overrides would you think differently of her capabilities? Or if it were a call center and the automated message said the caller who will answer your call takes approximately 15 minutes to finish your call. Would you hang up only to be bounced around to another possibly less qualified support staff. Seriously, buyers are going to start avoiding sellers who had a significant number of cancellations, even if it's not their fault. Even if they haven't had many cancellations over the course of the current year. What happens when people quit selling? What happens when people don't buying? Fiverr don't make payroll and they'll need to start looking elsewhere like advertisers for their site or more investor seed money.

      We as sellers should be praised for what we do and not chastised for what we don't. There should be an option on Fiverr where we can transfer the gig to another qualified seller. What a million dollar idea Fiverr will never listen to! Just like Professor Puppet's idea of allowing people to be able to order gig extras and multiples in one gig. It would sure save all of us a hell of a lot of time and actually get even higher dividends. I have been on Fiverr almost 3 years and I literally have to look on other freelance sites for work. Why because Fiver can't decide if I'm a level 2 or a basic seller. Oh that's right their robots can't. The humans have no control over "levels" they have control over who becomes a Top Rated Seller.

         Another thing that's bothering me is people on the forum are talking about hackers. If you get a suspicious email promising larger sums of money to work outside of fiverr report it immediately. I also want to address all the spammers in my Facebook page...stop spamming other peoples posts. You spam my post I will ban you. If I like your gig I'll post it for everyone else to see. Lastly, I want to send a word out to my moderators and content creators. Lately the page isn't as active as it should be...that's my fault too. I want to tell you all that I don't mind you promoting your own gig or promoting anything Fiverr related. I really do not appreciate when the page isn't active and then people start promoting thier own gigs and not others gigs. It's Fiverrtastic because we look for gigs on Fiverr that are original, mind blowing and "fantastic". So please everyone I do not like any kind of spam. With that said I got orders to complete. Surprising I know. Until next time have a Fiverrtastic day.

I will not sit quietly

 Hey Fiverrtastic readers,
To all who read this thank you it's amazing that you support my blog. What you read may shock you, disappoint you, or downright piss you off. So be warned. Over the last week I have been force fed the new Fiverr and at first it was ok. I actually wanted to try it out. When I did, I liked it but I knew that it needed some changes. It had a few things that needed tweaking but for the most part it was "actually different than the rest of the gig sites". In order to revolutionize the microjob industry and compete with other gig sites Fiverr had to change like they did.

 Here's what pisses me off though Fiverr and it's Top Rated Sellers, (not saying any of them are bad I'm friends with quite a few on Facebook) are literally making this new Fiverr not so Fiverrtastic. Last time I checked they were making 20% of everyone's sales. What would happen if their 1.8 million gigs turned into ohhhh i don't know 250,000 gigs? maybe 100,000 gigs? or maybe even under 25,000 gigs. That's quite the decline right. With that kind of decline their website wouldn't do so hot. Ok so why is Josh going off on a tangent. Maybe because I have been a successful level 2 seller since levels came out and lost my level badge for a 2nd time in a year now. My level badge allows me to make more revenue and without a badge people don't take me seriously. Considering I've been on here almost 3 years and don't have top rated seller status. 

I was told I don't have unique enough gigs and that a few of my gigs have too many negative feedback. Ok, the whole concept of a good Fiverr seller is to have a variety of gigs not fall into one niche. I can name 10 sellers off the top of my head who probably sell only one specific service, but yet they're "unique". Most of My  negatives were given to me by buyers who have not used Fiverr in more than 6 months, buyers who frequently gave negative reviews, or bought multiple services only to use their favorites. I am literally growing tired with how Fiverr is starting to treat people if they aren't top rated sellers or customers. I have the same percentage as an inactive Top Rated Seller right now. Not going to name names...that's not how I roll. If he came back selling green screen videos for extra money, he would still be a Top Rated Seller or come back as a Level 2 seller.

I am growing tired because now every message I get from customers I have to hustle to get gigs. When I had a levels badge it spoke for itself and people would just order and if they had questions they would ask me. I am also growing tired with the Fiverr storefront crap. Sorry but if they are going to reject every damn banner I submit, when I put time and effort into creating them, they can go punt. Here take a look at the rejected banner I made and give me your thoughts.

 (I own the rights to all the pictures and I created them myself...yet they were rejected. Conspiracy quite possibly...too damn picky ya that's what i'm aiming toward!)

I will just leave the banner part empty and it can look like the original Fiverr page I'm used to. All I can say is this much...if you prefer the old Fiverr those days are gone!!! The platform has changed and honestly I feel like I'm on Pinterest or Facebook...but with cheap services. Maybe I'll get used to it soon and stop my bitching, but for now things just aren't what they used to be. Fiverr used to have it's own thing where people wanted to actually know what it was...now i'm not sure what it is. The next blog will be sooner than you think and have a Fiverrtastic weekend.

You spin me right round

 Hey Fiverrtastic readers,

Do you have a new website and need some help getting it some exposure? Maybe you have an article that needs a little spinning. Are you looking for someone to spin your article and all others have failed miserably. This seller has sold over 7700 orders on his article gig alone and the gig is literally unstoppable. If your article has original content and you’re sick and tired of all of the other article spinners doing a terrible job and still getting $5 try his gig. The sellers name is mikemeth and he is a top rated seller with 99% positive feedback. This sellers credentials are unbelievable. He has been on Fiverr 3 tears and has sold over 20,000 orders. That in itself is an impressive feat. If you want to order from someone who is a skilled SEO professional look no further than mikemeth. Don’t let any of the negative feedback steer you away they might be his competition just trying to ruin his reputation. This seller is the one you go to if you want help in article spinning, backlinks, and live blog comments. mikemeth is the type of guy companies look for to help make their website grow and expand. Don’t hesitate and check him out today.

mikemeth here’s where I get kinda brutal and give my humble opinions about your gigs. You need to maybe try adding a few newer gigs. You have been active 3 yrs and while you have some very impressive stats maybe you should try offering different services too. I also notice that none of your gig extras are more than $20. Maybe you should try to find one gig where you can offer a higher gig extra. Sometimes people like to see what “more” money will get them. Another thing I noticed is not all of your gigs have videos. A video and good graphics make a gig worth checking out. When Fiverr irons out all the kinks in the next few weeks the sales pages on version 2 will look great so just be prepared.

mikemeth I also want to mention that you have some really nice gigs and I am excited to see how well you will do when Fiverr makes the change. You have the better gigs compared to everyone else so just keep doing what you’re doing.This sellers services are worth way more than one gig especially his gig where he will spin and submit Article to over 1200 article directories, top gig 200+ backlinks for $5. Check him out today what do you have to lose but $5 right? Until next time have a Fiverrtastic day.

The new Fiverr

                                                                     (Version 2.0)


Hey Fiverrtastic peeps,
Today I am going to review the new Fiverr. After being on the waiting list I finally got to try it out and for the most part it's quite interesting. I like a lot of features but then there are a lot of features it's lacking. Maybe if one of the guys at Fiverr actually reads my blog...crossing my fingers on that one...things may change a little. Ok so here are the positive and negative things about it in no particular order. (I'm updating this blog because I actually think they read this)

Positive features
1) It keeps track of your priority tasks and actually has a time clock set on each one and not just express gigs...kudos to that. I love being kept on track I'm a hardcore procrastinator.

2) I like the analytics feature. In some ways it can really help and really hurt a seller...only time will tell how well I do. 

3) I like how the gig's are organized with the tile set up. it has a clear look to it. I can't wait until the storefront feature comes out. Hmmm I think I will need to hire a Fiverr seller for my banner. I have a few in mind.

4) I like how it shows all of your sales info and it's all right in front of you. You don't have to go to the revenues tab. I'm a creature of habit so I still go to the revenues page.

5) It has a more modern look like Pinterest or Etsy with the tiles. If this is what some of the seed money paid for kudos to your web developers. Give them a raise. Soon all the other gig businesses will be out of business trying to compete.

Negative features (here's where I may get brutal Shai,  Micha, Natalie, and whoever else in charge of what goes on at Fiverr.)
You did away with a lot of the stuff that made Fiverr awesome over the last year. And a few of the things I am going to mention have been around since Fiverr has.

1) Where did the collections go? it's now called saved gigs and i really don't want to re-save gigs i had previously collected. If the collections are there I can't find them. Collections made Fiverr so cool because if you built up a lot of collections and a large following it could help you get noticed more. It was a way to manipulate the algorithm because if you put one of your gigs in your collection people would notice you.

2) In the requested gigs in the newer version a seller can't answer a job unless he has 95% gig rating or higher. It also limits how many sellers can answer a job. I admit that a few of my gigs are low 90's percentile but most of them are 100% or high 90's percentile. I will never reach top rated seller and I am trying to get back up to high 90's but I have plateaued at 93-94%. 

3) It's much harder to find a seller now because the sorting feature doesn't work as good as it did. (I swear these guys read the blog because things changed the next day). There used to be a feature where you could sort by rating and percentage,  by newest gig, by haz video, Express gig, and auto sort. Now it's back again but it's not as easy to use as the previous version. Now it's all jumbled in my humble opinion. If I were a buyer and had it on "Auto" I would buy something within the first 20-30 gigs and that may be giving unrated and new gigs a chance but what about veteran sellers?

4) Orders that were cancelled and are no longer active are still sitting in the priority gigs. I'm not sure if that is a glitch...but it's kinda irritating. Maybe it will get fixed.

5) The search bar seems to act wacky too because it doesn't find all the gigs you're looking for. I can find most of my gigs if i search by keyword but could a customer? It seems like unless someone is updating all the time and active every hour their analytics will go to the toilet. Still kinda confused how all of this works but I do know that a lot of the veteran sellers are going to be left out of the loop with version 2.0. Analytics are great but the algorithm is a tad off.

Overall Fiverr v2 is decent, but it's not for everyone. The basic consumer or seller will not catch on to it right now. It's not a get up and go kinda thing. Try it and see if you like it. If you don't you can always switch back. I have been switching back and forth a few times now.

Until next time have a Fiverrtastic day. :)

criticism is a dish best served cold

Hey Fiverrtastic readers,
Many of you are Fiverr sellers or avid fans of Fiverr. Well I want to talk to you today about being your own best or worst critic. There are times when a client may give us a bad review and we have to fight tooth and nail to have it removed or have it reversed. I look at it as a learning experience. Obviously the client has an issue with you or your work and nothing short of extortion will change their minds. What I say to that is to not sweat the small stuff and just have fun. Every client is different. Explain to buyers that results are not guaranteed and mention a buyer beware clause in each gig. Tonights blog is more of an advice blog than anything else. Never take what a client says to heart and never compare one client experience to another. All clients are different and the majority of buyers on Fiverr are nice. Until next time have a Fiverrtastic day.

To suspend or not to suspend...that is the question...

Hey Fiverrtastic sellers,
Ok so lately I have been giving advice on what to do and not to do to have some sort of success here at Fiverr. Knowing when to suspend or delete a gig can be something extremely huge. It can mean the difference between late orders and unhappy buyers or happy buyers and even more revenues. It's not rocket science it's customer service and some people are good at it while others have no business doing it. You just need to determine which type of person you are. 

Here are some do's and dont's when determining whether to suspend or delete a gig:

Don't let your gig count get too high. Sometimes this doesn't make the gig look popular it makes you look like your just not taking care of business. Not going to name names but having 100 orders or more is more than ridiculous. I will not wait 29 days or more for an order unless I really need to.

Don't allow a gig to go too long without an order. Try updating your gigs frequently and if that doesn't work it's time to clean house and put up new gigs. Some gigs work and some gigs don't. Save the gig info and video. You may be able to bring it back some other time.

Do ensure that at least 95% of your buyers are leaving some sort of feedback. Make sure you're not always getting an automatic thumbs up.

Do leave good feedback whenever you can if a buyer leaves a raving review.


Until next time have a Fiverrtastic day. Stay safe everyone and happy gigging.

How to manage late orders and angry customers

 Hey Fiverrtastic Readers,
Ok so this was supposed to be a daily blog. That was my goal over the course of the next year. Although I have not royally failed...I have not been able to complete fresh, daily content. My orders on Fiverr are building up significantly and I am becoming more busy than what I ever have before. I guess when you're good at a skill people just want to order bigger projects and they keep coming back. So here's what I'm going to promise...for now on this blog will be semi-daily if not daily. I have made readers wait weeks on end sometimes for new content and that's not fair. I want to discuss a really cool handmade goods seller on Fiverr in the next few days and I have plans for other seller features as well. So without further ado let me give you some advice on how to handle late orders and angry customers.

5) Do not take on jobs that are beyond your skill set. If you can't do the job decline it because in the end you will either be cancelling or getting a negative review. If worse comes to worse find someone who is qualified and have the buyer offer you a finders fee for helping them find the other seller.

4) Do not leave negative feedback when a client leaves negatives. If anything say something positive about the experience and leave a thumbs up. BE HUMBLE.

3) Try and get all the details of the job in the first few conversations. If you are unsure what the client wants message them again. If the deadline runs out...Don't cancel. Message the client first and ask if they want the order completed and delivered with the intent of an IOU. If they are a regular customer they will understand.

2) Be friendly, courteous, and welcoming. No matter how many times a customer messages you or orders off you always welcome them with open arms. This has it's own boundaries though. If a customer leaves a negative review, late cancels, acts rude, demeaning, or abusive you have the right to not accept their orders. Furthermore you have the right to report them. If they order off you out of spite and they are unbearable to deal with have Fiverr cancel the order administratively. Support loves to deal with customers.

1) Never take out your anger on another customer or family. Work life stays in the virtual world. Once you leave your desk do not think about work until you are near your computer again. Set office hours or set a timer on your phone or computer if you need to. Never overwork yourself.

Until next time have a Fiverrtastic day.

Taking a vacation when you need one

 Hey Fiverrtastic readers,
        Sorry I took so long to get back to you with a blog. Kind of got a lot of gigs going on. It's also harder to come up with fresh content than I thought but I will try and maintain a daily or semi-daily blog for here on out. I wanted to do 365 blogs in 365 days but I think that even if I blog once every other day I will have a lot higher fan base than before. I have already noticed a slight increase in likes and fanpage activity on facebook.

     Today I come to you to talk about something everyone who works as a Fiverr seller should do. We should all take the time to take a vacation. Fiverr is just like any other job and there is not time to clock in or clock out. You set your own pace and your own hours based on your orders. So basically you have to alert your new incoming clients and regular customers when you plan on going out of town or plan to go on a small vacation. Suspending some of your gigs may work too but it can drop your sales and rankings. So it's much easier to just update your main page with a reminder stating you will be out of the office so to speak. Believe me everyone needs a break...I'm on my second attempted vacation soon because my first one I work through at least 3-4 days of it. Don't subject yourself to a working vacation. If regular customers and other clients really like your work they will wait or they will come back...rest assured you won't lose out in the end. Until next time have a Fiverrtastic day. 

She's called herbandesign

Hey Fiverrtastic readers,

So recently I came across this Level 1 seller who's been on Fiverr  a year. she has some really nice gigs and wanted me to give her gigs a little bit of a shout out. I checked her gigs out and she has this really cool custom word puzzle gig . Her user name is herbandesign as it says in my blog title. She is a designer with a lot of potential to go far here on Fiverr. I sent her some interview questions and she sent me the answers back. Check it out below.

-Tell me a little bit about yourself:

I’m a creative introvert which is trying to come out of her shell I love the field of education and working with children. I am very interested in the effect of play on learning. Hence the gigs that I do.

-Where did you first hear about Fiverr?

My sister went to a seminar about making extra money online and they told her about fiverr and she told me about it and I signed up it took me about a month to get my first order, was just trying to see if it worked and it did I am now a level 1 seller.

-Where did you come up with your username?

Well the idea for my user name came to me before I heard about fiverr I like designing and I’m a girl and I live in the city hence herbandesign.

-How do you promote your Fiverr business?

I don’t do much promotion I just wait until people order this is my first attempt at promoting my gigs.

-Do you sell your services through other websites or other places besides Fiverr?

No

-How many customers do you get a week?

I get about 2 customers every three week most inquire more than they order.

-What do you do when you’re not doing Fiverr gigs?

I am a multimedia technician so I do instructional design and I create crochet earring.

-How do you occupy your time outside of Fiverr?

I surf the net create my earrings and go out with friends

What words of advice do you have for other Fiverr sellers?

      1) Advertise your gigs

      2) Communicate every step of the ways with your buyers

      3) Try both sides buyer/seller to see how the complete thing works.

     4) Go above and beyond if you can

-If you could do anything else right now would you? Or would you still be a freelancer/small business person.

I would still be a freelancer on Fiverr because this suits me well because I’m a night person I work well at nights.  I would like to increase my sales so I can also travel.

-How long do you plan to do this before you decide to move on to another phase in your life or are you happy doing this?

All things come to an end eventually but for now I’m happy doing this I enjoy the reaction of the different people you work for when you complete a job.
  
herbandesign I got some ideas to make your gigs even better and help your sales out. If you're skilled at graphic design you should either offer graphic design services for small businesses or offer them for educators. Your crosswords and your other gigs are very nice and I think if you had other gigs you would get noticed more. Next, don't forget to update your gigs often. The more you're on Fiverr or the more you update your gigs the better. Another suggestion is to possibly do gigs in other expertise. Like you could try video testimonials, animation, writing services, and other stuff. Just explore all the different options that you could sell and have fun with it. If you need anything I'm here for you. Until next time have a Fiverrtastic day.