Fiverr was designed to provide users with the ability to buy digital services from an array of world-class providers.
Founded in 2011, it's grown rapidly, with over 8,000,000 “gigs” being bought through the platform in 2015 alone.
Whilst this might sound great, the big question is whether you can make money with it, too.
To answer this, I have found it best to consider the overall scope of the market, and where you're able to make any progress with it …
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Having spent the past 5 months working with a number of people on the platform, the one thing I have found which determines if someone will be successful is how they're able to position their offer.
For most people – and women are particularly bad at this – they will basically list what they're able to “do” with some examples of previous work.
Perhaps this will work well for high-level photographers, but for everyone else – it's a recipe for disaster.
People want to know how you're going to move their business / life forward, not what you're able to do.
For example, you may be a “world class surgeon”, but how does that translate into the type of treatment you can provide to patients? What's your specialty? What have you done before that other surgeons would not touch?
In the Western world, we've reached a time where social media has pretty-much debunked the “faceless business” myth – people want to know who they're dealing with, and want the very best services to be delivered direct to them .
To this end, when considering what you can do with the platform, there are a number of steps to go through:
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1. Lead With YOUR Experience
The first BIG thing I found is to lead with your experience.
If you don't have any experience, you need to just say that you're eager to learn – the idea being that people will use your services because they want to help you improve etc.
Every time I've seen someone who's been successful on the platform, they always lead with their experience over everything else.
The best providers on the platform are very specific with what they're offering, because they will always mold it around the expertise they've developed in the “real world”.
A big mistake of many different people is to simply try and sell a service because they think it's popular (SEO / WordPress desgin etc) – this is a very BAD way to do things, and will typically inhibit growth as you'll not provide very good results.
Whilst the initial rush of making money might be good, bad customer reviews will kill any aspirations you may have. Thus, it pays in the long run to focus on what you're actually able to do (not what you think people want to pay for).
2. Look At What's Selling
Some things will be more popular than others – whilst you shouldn't “copy” other people work, it's always healthy to see what's popular & what isn't.
In terms of the way you do this, there are two methods:
- Look At Popular Accounts
- Look At Popular Products / Services
The first method is to try and identify any popular “accounts” on the platform, and “reverse engineer” how they have been so successful. This typically opens the door to looking at the various popular “markets” through which they've been selling their gigs:
- Click onto Fiverr
- At the top, select one of the “topics” from the navigation bar
- Select a sub-topic (make sure both are fairly popular (Digital Marketing> Social Media Marketing)
- From the left menu, select “Level Two” + “Top Rated” from the “Seller Rating” section
- Also input at least $ 100 into the “Price Range” section
- Make sure the listings are ordered by “Best Selling” and start clicking on the ones that appear popular
- If you find anything that looks appealing, click onto the “profile” of the seller
- This will give you an overview of their entire portfolio of gigs
The second method is to look for any products / services which are generally popular. Whilst you should not be generic in what you're offering, you need to be able to consider the “language” through which your audience may wish to communicate.
- Click onto Fiverr
- At the top, select one of the “topics” from the navigation bar that appeals to your experience
- Select a sub-topic which further appeals
- Ensure the listings are ordered by “Best Selling”
- Scroll through and look for the small number after the start rating
- For example, you may have 5 stars + “1k”
- The “1k” represents the number of people who've bought the gig and left a good review
- It directly denotes the popularity of the gig, and thus whether it's something to consider
As mentioned, both of these methods are only really to be used to gain a “lay of the land” – some base level research designed to give you further ideas as to what's popular on the platform.
3. Create Your Own IN-DEMAND Offers
After doing the above, you need to consider creating an “in-demand” offer.
Demand is a loaded word; the key is that most people simply want to know what you are going to do for them .
The problem is most people will simply try and tell you either what they “do”, or what they think you want to hear. This does work.
What works is having a system which allows you to “offer” your services in such a way that people instantly understand the fundamental benefits for their business.
For example, one of my Fiverr profiles specializes in computer repair.
Computer repair isn't the most sexy, nor the most abundant market now. Back in the 90's, being a “PC repair” guy meant big money … not in 2018.
Thus, in order to craft an “in demand” offer (because computers are still used – even more than the 90's – just in different ways), you need to go with where the “demand” is:
- Worpress repairs
- Cloud VPS provisioning + management
- Shopify fixes
Now, although these are okay – the BIG issue here is that there's not much demand for them. People don't “want” to buy them.
What people want to pay for are the reasons “why” they're using the aforementioned software packages – traffic, growth + sales.
Thus, you wrap whatever you're doing in the packaging of “growth” …
- 5 New WordPress Theme Tweaks To Boost Conversions By 20%
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- Create A SAAS Subscription Business With Cloud VPS
- Increase Shopify Sales With These 3 Theme Tweaks
There's obviously an art to this – if you're able to do it effectively, you're able to attract orders from a huge number of buyers.
4. Understand What People Are Buying
Obviously, people buying a fix / upgrade – but at it's core, you need to appreciate that most people will not be willing to send you money for mediocre service; they want exceptional.
Exceptional does not mean “quality” – it means “results”.
Thus, when considering the process of working with clients (if you get orders), you need to do absolutely everything to push their business / life forward.
As explained above, things like wrapping the offer in underlying results (for them), going the extra mile to help them understand what you've done or just doing more than expected – if you treat your clients with respect and energy, you'll start receiving decent reviews.
These good reviews are what * should * perpetuate the growth of the service.
5. Ensure The “Back-End” Is Handled Properly
If you want to get into the big leagues, the absolute key is to ensure your business is able to handle increased numbers of orders.
Whilst it may be nice to get 5 new orders, if you want to sustain your momentum, you have to think about what handling 500+ orders will look like.
To this end, one of the best things you can do is focus on how the “back-end” of your business is managed.
Such things as integrating Trustpilot, creating a YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc are all small things to keep clients in your “loop” (and thus have the ability to continue delivering your “in demand” services at a later date) .
In the sales world, it's known as a “funnel” – the deeper the client goes, the more valuable they become.
Obviously, you have to respect everybody's ideas etc – but from a purely pragmatic perspective, you need to be able to consider how you're going to keep “recycling” the buyers that Fiverr brings.
If you do this effectively – which may include everything from setting up a CRM system to integrating email marketing campaigns into your services – you'll end up with exponential increases in sales.
The way you handle this growth is dependent on your experience / temperament – but the core is that business is out there if you're willing to focus on demand.
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As mentioned, I earned $ 2,500 in my first month with my friend on Fiverr – and have since worked on a number of offers across two of my own profiles.
If you follow the above steps, you'll be ahead of 98% of people starting on the platform.
