Freelancer Tips

Fiverrcast Episode 28: Selling Your Service as a Pre-Made Product

By
Fiverr Team
|
March 15, 2016

Transcript

Adam: Hi there and welcome to Fiverrcast, the podcast for sellers, by sellers. I’m Adam AKA Twistedweb123 and today I’m flying solo with special guest Chris AKA Dietmad. Welcome to the show, Chris. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, today?Chris: Hello everyone. My name is Chris Overton. I am a seller on Fiverr and I’ve been selling for about – I think about five years and I think – I believe I was one of the first of my kind to sell sort of a diet and a workout kind of plan.Lots of people do it now but I was one of the originals, yeah. So I started on Fiverr about five years ago and it was mainly to support myself as I’m an actor and I’m very much into fitness and health and I have a very specific way of eating and working out. I thought I could put this into practice. When I first heard about Fiverr back in 2011, I thought, “Oh god, I could definitely do something here.” I kind of want to share my ways of doing things and that’s exactly what I did. So yeah, I live in London and that’s me.Adam: So when you looked at Fiverr and you kind of looked at the health and fitness side and thought, “I could definitely offer something here,” what did you decide to offer from that?Chris: First of all, I looked at Fiverr and there was nothing else like what I wanted to sort of do and I work out and I eat a certain way. I had been for a long time before I started to sell my diet plan and my workout plan.So I wanted to present it in a kind of a fun way that would capture attention. So I just kind of wanted to put what I already did into a kind of plan that was most importantly easy to follow because I believe what I do is easy and fun as well. I still – to this day, I’ve been doing it over 10 years now and I still have a lot of fun doing things the way I do them.So yeah, I just kind of wanted to put that into a simple plan that could appeal to anybody and everybody. So whether you’re 16 and you’re just starting in the gym or you’re still – you know, you’re still going at it and you’re 80, 90 years old. I just kind of wanted it to appeal to anyone and everyone, male and female.Adam: So the reason we’ve got you on the show today is because we’re kind of looking at different business structures that you can apply to Fiverr and today we’re kind of looking at how you can find success on Fiverr with a premade product. In your case, you’ve gone ahead and created this premade product in the sense of a diet plan. So when it came to looking at Fiverr and you looked it up and you thought, “I can do this fitness stuff. I can do this diet stuff,” what made you decide to go with the premade product and to choose that kind of business route?Chris: Well, for me, there was kind of no other way to do it really. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and it did suit the way I was going to do things. I mean not every business, not every person on Fiverr would be able to do a premade plan or a premade product. It doesn’t work for every business.There are a lot of people out there that do templates. So they will – instead of doing like a completely bespoke thing, they will have a template and they will just kind of fill in the gaps.So that’s kind of like halfway there to a premade product. But for me, I kind of wanted something that I could deliver very quickly. So I knew it would take a long time to set up and it did. It took me a good – I would say a good three to six months to get every single thing that I’ve got in place and ready to go. But I really wanted to do that. That was really important to me that I could – if I got an order, I would be able to deliver it really quickly and I can. I’m very fortunate that if I get an order, I can kind of deliver it in around about 10 seconds.I do still to this day from – that hasn’t changed for me since day one really. I’ve always been able to deliver exceptionally quickly. That was my aim really.Adam: Yeah, I imagine that’s one of the major benefits to having the premade setup or the premade plan and I think what it sounds like in your situation is that with your lifestyle where acting is your main profession, as something you want to get into, the premade plan allows you to have that residual income over time with very little time actually putting into it, yet you’re still getting the benefits out from that.I must say – as you say, you’ve been on it since 2011 and we’re talking almost five years later. You’re still selling that premade plan well. It’s still selling to this day. So even though it took that three months of hard work and getting everything together, collecting together and making this good product, you really reaped the benefits from putting in that initial time because we’re talking as I say years and years down the line and it’s still selling.Chris: Yeah. I didn’t know if it would ever last. I didn’t really expect that it would take off. It kind of did. I didn’t – I think when I first did it, I couldn’t believe I got my first sale. I was like, “Oh, wow, someone has actually bought it.” Then the next stage was, “Oh god, like someone has actually left a positive review and said it’s really good.”So I knew it was good. I just didn’t know if it would work on a – selling it on a website like Fiverr. So I was initially quite surprised and then it kind of went in stages for me. I became like a level one seller, a level two sellers, and then a top rated seller. That was kind of a big deal and it kind of all changed for me when I became a top rated seller and then I became featured. So I’m very fortunate. That really sort of gave me a boost. I’m very lucky that it’s still selling and I think part of the reason for that is because of how I deliver that, because of the fact that it’s already set up. So there are people on Fiverr that do amazing things but it would take them quite a lot of their day to do just one order. I could – and I’m very lucky, the fact that I could deliver hundreds of orders and it wouldn’t take too long, so yeah, I’m very fortunate that came off for me and all the hard work at the beginning has sort of paid off.Adam: So it’s worth mentioning with the premade products. Sometimes it can go really well. Sometimes you can maybe like list something and you found that sales may not go as you expected or may not go as you hoped. What would you say is kind of the attribute to your success for this model?To me, it kind of sounds like the amount of effort that you put into that content initially and really bought it to the table as a finished, polished product. Would you agree with that or would you say that something else maybe led to that success?Chris: No, I totally agree with that. I think – I put so much hard work into the design of the plan and the videos. I think it’s accessible to people and the plan is easy to engage with. It’s aesthetically-pleasing and you get a lot of information and you can just sit there reading it.So I would like to say as well, I did really think about making it kind – like Dietmad kind of like a brand. I think – you know, and especially as more and more – you know, over the years, I think having a brand is really important but also I think the one thing I must say is the customer care. I’m a genuine guy and I really do genuinely care about each and every single person that buys my plan. I really do. I really want people to get as much as I get out of it because I know – it’s tried and tested on so many people and hasn’t all been plain sailing.If anyone out there that sells a lot will know that you can’t please everyone. You wouldn’t expect it but it’s the way you handle that. It’s about being fair and trying to treat your customer like you would want to be treated if you bought something. So I think it’s really, really important to try and make sure every single person that buys your plan is happy and that takes time.Like, that’s probably the most time-consuming bit of having a premade product because yes, you can deliver it in 10 seconds but sometimes it takes a lot of time to make sure that a customer is happy. They will have questions. They will have expectations that haven’t been met and it’s about solving those problems in a really nice way. That is a big attribute as well.Adam: I think you’ve hit quite a lot of nails on the head there because there was actually a time on Fiverr when I sold a premade product where I actually – I went out and I bought or purchased the master resale rights to a bunch of like 50 WordPress templates or something. I had the full resell rights to sell them and I thought, “Hey, I’m going to put them on Fiverr. I’m going to see how it does.”Now I think over maybe about a two-year period, I got about a hundred sales or maybe about 50 sales from that and it more than paid for itself what it actually cost me to buy. But it didn’t connect with the audience in the same way that your premade product did. I think you’ve highlighted a lot of important areas there where you talk about the branding and the fact that it’s customized to you, where if I went out and I bought like an ebook and I just put it on there to sell, it kind of looks – it doesn’t look like it’s my writing or my brand that’s kind of pitching it forward, whereas we see you on your video.We see you matching the brand of your username and we can see a complete valuable product as opposed to something that’s potentially being purchased elsewhere and just resold on again.The other thing that you talked about as well where you talked about the customer care, I think it’s extremely important and I know from seeing other people that often when they go ahead and they create a new product or something that they’re going to pre-sell, that they often give out evaluation copies or – which are at a reduced price or free versions to friends or families or just people to kind of critique them and give them feedback because you may know that the content is good. You may fully stand behind your content but it’s not at the end of the day all about the content. It’s about as you say how it’s ingested by the reader, if it’s fun, if it’s easy to ingest or if people look at it and going, “Well, the information is there but I don’t feel drawn into it. I don’t feel connected to it.”So when you’re talking about having the customer care and things along these lines, I think your model has actually fitted very well into the Fiverr platform because you’ve only got that $5 lead-in which is relatively a very small risk for the buyer. So the buyer can take that kind of risk on a new service or a new premade product, which they see linked to your brand. If they like it, fantastic. If they don’t like it and they’re willing to give you feedback as to why, you could kind of maybe resolve with that buyer where you’re refunding them but you’re getting that feedback and altering your product or you could discus with that buyer and see what else you can do.But from the buyer and seller point of view, it’s not like you’re offering a $200 ebook or a course where they kind of have no let’s say kind of preview into what you’re going to offer and how you’re offering it. So you’re kind of – you’re always getting that information to dynamically alter and improve what you want to offer and I just think overall everything you’ve kind of mentioned there kind of ticks all the boxes of what I say you should do when you’re offering a premade product.You’ve got good, unique content related to your brand. You’ve got the good customer service where you’re understanding the product and how it’s being taken on by others. You’ve got the swift delivery as well which allows you to snowball quickly. If you were delivering – say you had 10 orders and you were delivering 10 orders over 10 days, that’s a very slow period where it’s not really – like ranking up or happening quickly whereas the fact you say you’re delivering in 10 seconds, you are getting feedback by – from that hopefully on the minute. So any people browsing or coming across your Gigs are going to see all these feedback from the last couple of days whereas on some premade products you may see on Fiverr or being sold away from Fiverr, the feedback may be from years ago because they’re very sporadic in fulfilling those orders.So obviously for you, this has worked out very well and people listening to this may kind of think, well, this is great but you’ve got a clear work plan here and you’ve got the video guide after that. What can I kind of offer as a premade product? What would work for me in regards to this model?Now, what would you kind of suggest to those people who are kind of thinking about how they could turn what they do into something premade?Chris: Before I go into that question, I will just – there are a few points that I will sort of touch on that you spoke about, because I thought you made some good points there that sort of relate to what I do.One of them is pricing. I think that’s crucial for me. I’ve been with Fiverr for a long time and I would say I’m a patron to it. So I’ve seen it really evolve and the Gig extras was a very new thing. For me, I thought about that. I thought, “How can I draw people in?” and it was just not an option for me to sell – it has got to be cheap. That was a really big thing for me that it would be cheap and people will get a lot of value for money.So everyone – the feedback I always get is wow, you get a lot of your money and that’s what I want people to have, the value for money. So I’ve sort of gone for the high sales, low cost. I want high value and low cost. So I sort of want anyone to be able to afford everything that I offer, which is I offer my whole bundle for $25.Adam: I think as you say actually, that’s a really good point to compliment because where I touched upon the quick delivery, some – there are other business models available in the other way of going about things. But when it comes to premade, if you have a hundred people view your Gig and it’s based at $5, and they buy it, you have a hundred feedback let’s say. Whereas if you had one Gig based at $500, a hundred people view it and only one person buys it. In regards to your premed product, when someone comes on that page, they’re just going to see one feedback.While yes, you’ve made $500 from that sale, the chances are when it comes to a premade product, that’s not going to help you further down the line because as the days go on or the weeks go on, that feedback is going to look older and older and it may kind of deter the newer buyers coming on and thinking, “Well, this product hasn’t been sold for two months. Is it still worth buying?” Whereas because you’ve got that low lead-in, it’s being bought regularly and your premade product is never kind of expiring or kind of looking out of date because it’s always regularly looking purchased, looking active and looking relevant.Chris: Yeah, definitely. That’s such a good point. It’s something I’ve not actually ever thought about before. Yeah, just going back to the customer care thing. I think it’s really important to mention. I mean how many times – we’ve all had – bought products and not being satisfied with it and we’ve wanted answers or we’ve wanted resolutions.So I think it’s so important. If you’re a seller on Fiverr, you must consider customer care and you must be the shop owner. You have to be the shop owner. You have to be responsible of your customers.Adam: I think that’s – as you say, especially important for a premade product when it comes to customer care. I remember when I was featured on the blog as a super seller, one of the advices I gave about having positive feedback was anytime I ever set up a new service or a new Gig, I never actually marked an order as delivered or complete when I sent the order. I always said – you know, cut the days early and waited to hear the feedback to kind of reassure myself that this is what they’re looking for, what I’m producing is good. I think that’s even more important with a premade product because if you put it – let’s say you get your first sale in. You put your first sale out there and the person – you close out the order. The person comes in and says, “I don’t like it. It’s terrible.” They will leave a feedback, a negative feedback saying, “Content is absolutely rubbish. It’s terrible,” blah, blah, blah.It’s a hurtful negative feedback. The issue you’ve got there as a premade product, what you are delivering doesn’t really change. So if someone orders my logo design Gig and doesn’t like it, buyers can look at that and go, “Well, that was their iteration for their logo. I like his portfolio. Maybe my iteration can be different. My taste is different,” et cetera, et cetera.But when it comes to premade, you’re kind of always delivering the same thing. So if you get a negative feedback, especially as a new kind of seller where you’ve just started the Gig, it can really impact those future sales because people already understand this content doesn’t change.So I mean – I think there’s a tipping point where it kind of goes from you set up, you get the feedback to reassure what you’re doing is good, et cetera, et cetera. Further down the line, you still have that customer care but you know that if there are any issues, you have full confidence in your product that other people like it. You don’t necessarily have to change a thing or swap things around. But you deal with that customer in a friendly manner. But when it comes to those initial sales, you really need to be responsive to the feedback you’re getting in regards to the content and be open to changing or developing that content further.Chris: I would lose sleep over someone maybe potentially giving me a negative feedback. I really would because I have the opinion, I have the view that you need to price a negative feedback. For me, I always have the attitude like a negative feedback is like – like a thousand dollars. If you have a negative feedback, it doesn’t look good on your page. So that’s why customer care is so important to me. I do put a price on the negative feedback and it can cost a lot. If you have loads and loads of negative feedback, who’s going to buy it?Adam: I agree. I mean in regards to me though, when it comes to – I do receive negative feedback on certain Gigs that I have. It’s a small percentage but – such as my logo design Gig receives a few negative feedbacks because what I deliver is very subjective to the taste of the buyer. But that service is always changing for who ever is ordering because it’s a different logo, different designs, et cetera, et cetera.I can kind of take that feedback on the chin because I understand not everyone likes everything and it’s always down to taste. But when you say you put a price on that, I think that’s completely true when it comes to premade products because it’s those early stages where you need buyers to understand your content is good because as I say, it never changes.So a negative feedback, obviously I don’t like receiving negative feedback either. I mean I have also lost sleep over a negative feedback before. But it’s a lot less of an effect to something that’s more dynamically changing as a service to kind of a premade product. I think that’s why if you ever go across any landing pages or sales pages where they’re selling programs or ebooks, you will always see on those kinds of websites that they do have in their case a money-back guarantee to kind of handle that because when it comes to being premade, bad publicity can be very damaging and kind of maybe shorten the lifespan of the time you can offer that service.Chris: It’s difficult because if they don’t like that, then there’s not much else really.Adam: But one thing I was thinking about in regards to expanding the structure and you mentioned a little bit earlier, you know, you can’t necessarily have a lead-in of say $200, $300, $500, et cetera, because we’re kind of talking about the lower risk to get them to buy the premade.Now, one idea I kind of had about expanding this was you have the low-priced premade product such as the $5 workout plan and it completely depends on your situation and if you want to do this. But you could expand that further and have your premade products and then have your custom upsell.So in your case, you have your premade product which is the work plan and it’s the video series based on that. Then your custom upsell could be something like your virtual fitness coach or be – you know, have a virtual conversation or consultation about health and fitness and over Skype or something where you maybe charge $100 for an hour’s consultation.So then you have the ability to offer that custom service for those who want it but you price it at a premium. So it makes it worth your time given your current lifestyle where you’ve got a lot going on. You can’t really sell your premade at a hundred. But if someone turns up and says, “Hey, I want to talk to you for an hour on Skype about a personal plan or I want to get down with you and have a custom offer in this way,” do you think there’s a potential for something like that?Chris: Yes, certainly and it’s definitely something I’ve thought about in the past. But again because of the other things I do in life, it’s quite difficult to justify sometimes even an hour. But it’s certainly something I could and would do. I get a lot of messages on Fiverr daily kind of asking a similar sort of thing.So yeah, it’s definitely something I am open to and there are – there are loads of different ways to sort of expand this. But I think keeping my video fresh and up-to-date, I wouldn’t – it wouldn’t be too long before I change that and made – humor is a big thing that works on Fiverr. I’ve put a lot of humor – well, I hope some people find it funny anyway. Might just be me but I’ve got two Gigs, my killer abs Gig and my diet and workout plan.The killer abs Gig I think I learned a lot more from Fiverr and that came second. I put a lot of humor into that and the first video as well. I think that’s really important, just to make it interesting, to make it fun. So I would certainly develop this home page – you know, my Gig page video even more and try and make that more interesting.So there are lots of different ways I could do but yes, certainly, I have definitely thought about doing the one-hour consultation or something like that. Yeah, because I really do believe I can change any body type. Every single person in this world has a six-pack.Adam: So by the sound of it then, it sounds like there are kind of two different routes that you would go for expansion with one being looking to expand the literal service where you may have your presold or your premade and then your custom upgrade or your custom extra.But on the other side of looking to expand that is looking at expanding your brand. So you have your base Gig. You’ve got your brand. It’s Dietmad at the moment. Your base Gigs become successful. You kind of create yourself as a mainstay, as health and fitness on Fiverr. Then that leads you on then to create maybe other health and fitness-related Gigs that may also be premade. So the expansion comes from basically building up that brand where you can offer more Gigs and rather than people looking at your profile and go, “Well, this guy has got 10 different Gigs about different health and fitness. What’s going on here?” they will look at your profile and go, “Wow! Dietmad offers all these different services. There are so many great ones that I can choose and pick from there.”The kind of essence of that is having the good brand behind it because if you visit someone’s profile and maybe they’ve got 30 premade products and they’re a new seller with – or I should say 20 premade products. They’re quite a new seller with little feedback. It really doesn’t have the kinds of – you know, the same weight or the kind of potential as expanding that from your brand first has.Chris: Yeah. That’s a really good point what you said about – you know, the 20 Gigs. I didn’t want to have to loads and loads of Gigs. I could have done like – you know, kind of the same thing but just a different Gig. I don’t – I think spreading it out isn’t always necessarily a good idea. I mean a lot of people do very well with that, people that do like birthday videos and stuff like that.But I think if you have – to me, one good, powerful Gig is a lot better than 20 kind of average OK-ish kind of Gigs. So I’ve always really believed that – to keep those Gig numbers low really and just to make it sort of quality over quantity.You’ve got to sort of establish yourself first. I think a lot of people on Fiverr don’t establish themselves and then they do – they make 20 Gigs and it’s never going to work. I think it’s really important to establish yourself. It’s hard on Fiverr. It’s harder now than it was before simply because there are a lot of Gigs out there.There are so many Gigs. I mean the last time I looked, there were millions. So it is hard to stand out. So I suppose I can see the logic. People think, right, if I spread myself thin in terms of – if I make more Gigs, I will be seen more. I wouldn’t be tempted especially if you’re a new seller to do the same thing but times 20. Just try and put all your effort into that one Gig and make your profile look fun and video. You have to have a video. Not every Gig needs one but I think it’s really important. If you can get some sort of video, it definitely helps the sales I think.Adam: I think that’s true. I think videos definitely in – with regards to or depending on the product, very much do help the sales and in your kind of scenario where you are the branding and I mean you’re selling health and fitness and you’re on video showing that you are indeed fit and healthy. I don’t think you can have any kind of better sale than that, that is showing that you are – the result of your product.I want to kind of go back and kind of talk about what other kind of services or products this model could kind of work well for.Chris: It’s a tough question there because it doesn’t work for everyone. But like I said, there’s a lot of ways you can kind of make a template and a lot of people do. That’s certainly nothing new on Fiverr. So many people do that. They have a strong template and they just fill in the gaps.So a lot of people do like, I don’t know, birthday videos and maybe something that’s already prerecorded whether that be a voiceover. They just sort of very cleverly slot in names and messages and things like that.Adam: For me when it comes to premade, it comes down to – before you decide to do anything premade, you have to choose a route. Route one is kind of like a service-based premade option, like you say having templates where you may offer to send someone a happy birthday and when someone orders, you just – you know, rather than saying happy birthday to Chris and then plug that into your premade file. So you’re not singing all over again.But then you have the other side of the premade which is more about the product and the content and the information. Now that’s where I think that this model could be expanded to anyone because anyone in any field usually has information that someone else is going to find interesting or they’re going to find valuable.So I mean if I were to list different elements for example, when I look at website coding, people who do website codes, they may think to themselves, “Well, how do I sell a premade product?” Think about the information.So you go ahead and maybe create a seven-part video course on – WordPress is very popular at the moment. How to set up and install your own WordPress website. Let’s say you’re a voiceover artist. If you want to go a bit more productly and think about, “How do I sell premade voiceovers?” well, think about it. What do people like to order? They maybe like to order popular kids’ songs if you are more of a singer with your voiceovers or they may need loads of different words that they can kind of splice together for different occasions or they may need sounds effects. You’re kind of prepackaging things that you can put together.You kind of look at kind of another option and you can kind of – you can go in so many different routes with it where it’s not so much what kind of service or industry can I make premade but rather thinking about what can – like the structure of what’s premade. So you look at ebooks, creating content for ebooks. You look at video courses as you have done. You then have got like a diet plan or a plan of action or a checklist if you like.So I mean I’ve seen Gigs before where people say, “I will give you my checklist for starting a Kickstarter campaign.” All it simply is, is people who are looking to be interested in starting a Kickstarter campaign. They order from this person and then they receive a checklist and they’re like one to ten of everything you need to do.So think about going outside the box. Let’s say you’re in social marketing. I will offer a checklist of setting up a Facebook advert that converts. I will create a checklist of creating a Twitter profile because again, not everyone understands these things.So I think you can kind of cover pretty much anything. It’s just about figuring out what you can make premade from that. So as I say, you’ve got the video courses, ebooks, checklists and plans, prepackaged products for your niche. So with the voiceovers, you can pre-sell those as voiceover clips. With stories you can maybe pre-sell those as stories. With videos, you could pre-sell it as video effects. I think there are a lot of different kinds of possibilities there for that.Chris: Well, there you go. I think you’ve just inspired everyone who’s a seller on Fiverr. Yeah. It was a hard question for me but I think you’ve completely answered that. Yeah, there is a lot of scope when you break it down like that and you – if you think about your own product, if it’s something you’re passionate about, there’s definitely information that goes with that.So yeah, definitely the ebook and the video course route. I think only – if you’re passionate about voiceovers, you will be listening to this now thinking, “Oh, well, I could do this and this and this.” You know your own market, I think. I know the health and fitness market very, very well. So I know what I could do and yeah, I think you’ve – I think you’ve just inspired everyone there Adam.Adam: It’s almost like making the product first and then plugging the content in. So if I were to break down your Gig, I say, “Right, I want to make a plan. What do I know about health and fitness? I will make a health and fitness plan. I want to make a video series. What do I know about WordPress? I will make a WordPress video series.”For me that’s the key of doing the premade product is to kind of go backwards in how you do it. Think about what you literally – you know, what that product would be like. What sort of format or how that is and then plug that content in afterwards.Chris: Yeah. I think for me, it was simply my life basically. That’s what I’ve done. I’ve put what I do in terms of eating seven days a week and what I do at the gym. I’ve put that – I put my life into a plan. So it might be one of those things where it’s staring at you so close in the face that you can’t even see it.So you might be doing something day in day out and then you really stop and think and you go – I don’t know, if it’s a hobby or something like that. They always say you can – your hobbies can easily become a career because they’re the ones you care about. It’s something that you care about the most. For me that was definitely true.Adam: So we’ve kind of covered today all the kind of ways you can go about doing premade products and the benefits and obviously you have reaped a lot of benefits from this in the sense that with five years down the line and you’re still selling well.But it has also got to be said that there can also be downfalls to this type of product or this type of business plan. Now what kind of downfalls have you faced over that period?Chris: OK. I’ve definitely had my fair share of downfalls. But the biggest one – and it really hurt a little bit actually. It was really annoying and thank God someone pointed it out to me. But I was on Fiverr selling and putting all this hard work in and selling away and I didn’t know. But someone messaged me and said, “Look, this guy is selling your product.” I was like, “Oh my god. I hope that’s not true.”So I clicked on it and it was. There was a seller selling my products that I’ve made, that I put all the work in, and the worse thing was he had a profile, this person did, with my picture on. It was my picture, my body, and the – to get even worse, there was about 12 positive reviews on it. So I don’t know. For every 10 sales I do or 5 sales I do, I will get one positive review.So God knows how much that person had made and I thought, “Oh, that was so annoying,” and I had no control over that. So unfortunately, that is something you don’t have much control over. I at least get three requests a week on Fiverr asking if they can use my diet plan on their website. Can I use this to sell on – as my own? The answer is always no. It’s mine. I created it. It’s copyright.So that hurt and that was a – it was a bit of a blow and kind of a realization there. I have taken it further in some cases which was hard to deal with but worth it in the end and was able to be resolved. I won’t go into too much detail about it. But I did take action and I was able to take it further on one occasion. But I saw the other day on Google – I don’t know how I came across it. Someone was selling my diet plan on another website and you just think, oh god, I can’t – there’s only so much you can do about it.But yeah, it’s – that is a big downfall. If you got a premade product, someone can easily take that and sort of sell it and that has been the case. So I just do my best to stop that from happening and I just think it’s – you know, think of something original yourself. I just think that’s so low and I believe in karma anyway.Adam: I think that is probably – from an emotional point of view as well, the fact that you’ve put in so much effort and time into that product. It has got to be quite damaging but also from the actual – the whole logistics of it. It can be very damaging to a premade product because essentially with your premade product, the information within the mystery if you like within is key. It’s the product that’s being sold.So if that’s kind of taken away and blown out there or sold elsewhere, that can really be damaging. But I think when you say you’ve taken things further sometime and you kind of – you kept abreast of the situation, to make sure that you are kind of protecting your rights, protecting your content, it’s probably the right way of going about it. I mean one thing that I probably recommend there which is a bit of a – it’s not really programmed as such but it’s my program I had going on, is potentially – Google has a system called Google Alerts where you can subscribe to Google Alerts where you basically say, “Hey Google, if you index or find any websites or pages that are similar to these terms, shoot me an email.”What you could be tempted to do is set up a Google alert for your username or try to set up a Google alert for your picture if your picture is used elsewhere or set up a Google alerts for random things like my workout plan or a Google alert for little parts of your description. So you can maybe have Google notify you if someone tries to copy your description or any parts of your profile.Now I actually say it can be quite difficult monitoring or – not so much monitoring but take – getting other websites to take action and bring that down. But at least having the pre-warning, being preplanned about that does mean that even if – you know it’s on a website and you have no control over it. The next thing you can then look to do is maybe to improve your product.So let’s say for example you had just the workout plan and over about a year, let’s say the workout plan had unfortunately been resold elsewhere and been distributed and with a good – quite an easy search, you could find it elsewhere. You have then improved upon your plan by offering the video guide on top of that or the video course on top of that. Then if you’re – if that kind of gets a little bit more out there, in the future you can maybe add the next sale of the premade.So you’re becoming pre-warned of what’s out there. Do you want to tackle that or fight that to have it brought down? But also taking that as a heads up, as I need to keep my product fresh or my service fresh, so even though people are taking it, they still can’t replicate or mimic what I’m offering right now.Chris: Yeah, the Google Alerts thing. That sounds great and definitely something I will be looking into. So thank you for that. That’s really good and I think that will help a lot of people that sell a premade product.Adam: So if you were to give one piece of advice, one takeaway when it comes to this business model, what would that be?Chris: I’ve probably already said it but customer care. I do everything – well, I will give you a few pieces of advice because there’s a lot I’ve learned from five years on Fiverr. Customer care is the number one for me. Look after your customers. Your customer care has got to be equally as good as the product that you’re selling.Yeah, and copyright. See if you can copyright it as – even if you just write “copyright” on it somewhere, that will help. It’s better than nothing and take your advice Adam. Look at Google Alerts and just make something that is interesting. It’s fun and we all like to laugh. So if you can put a little bit of humor or a little bit of your own personality in it and make it stand out. I like to try and make mine stand out because of it being a brand and being a little bit funny and educational but also fun to do at the same time.So think about it as a brand. Think about all the top brands in the world. Why are they so successful? Why are they so good? People buy into people and people buy into brands. So think about that. Think about how you can make it accessible, easy, but also fun. That’s my – those are all my tips.Adam: Well, that’s all we have time for today. Thanks Chris for joining me. Remember you can check out Chris’ Gigs on Fiverr at Dietmad. Our jingle was created by Customdrumloops and this episode was edited by Dansha. Thanks so much and speak to you next week.Transcription by: Transexpert

Fiverr Team
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