Redd: Hello and welcome to Fiverrcast, the official Fiverr podcast for sellers by sellers. My name is Redd, also known as Reddhorrocks.Adam: And I am Adam AKA Twistedweb123. Today we’re joined by special guest host Ron. Welcome to the show Ron. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?Ron: Hi everyone. Glad I’m here and thanks for having me. My name is Ron and I’ve been a Fiverr seller for probably about three years, maybe between two and three years, and I do primarily video spokesperson types of work, video spokesperson services and my site name on Fiverr is Websitevideo and it has been a great ride and I’m glad I’m here to share what I’ve done, the lessons learned, best practices and all that kind of good stuff.Redd: We’re certainly really glad you’re here because you’re the perfect person for our topic today. Our topic today is growing with your Gigs and what we mean by that is finding an entry point in your service or your Gig that allows you to build on it and for you to also build your abilities, your skills and your equipment from there. So Adam, why don’t you start us off today?Adam: So yeah, what we’re basically talking about today is how you can get started on Fiverr and set up that base Gig. Now often when you’re looking to set up a service, you have a look at your competitors and see what else is available and that can be quite daunting because you notice top sellers with all-inclusive packages, with all these great equipment and you may think to yourself, “Well, if I’m going to set up and start, I need to match that.” It’s not so much the case of that as a new seller. As a new seller, you need to try and work out what’s the most basic thing you can offer and then progress from that.Ron: Yeah. I would say with – just to add on to that Adam is one of the things I like to do is I like – I’m working with a few sellers right now who are just starting and kind of helping them through the – shepherding them through the process of getting started on Fiverr and I always tell them start with your minimum viable Gig. It’s basically in the – with $5, what is it that you will do for $5?Whether it’s say voiceover as you were talking about, is it a certain minimum number of words using the equipment that you have on your desk? Because I think the most important thing is just to get out there and just do it. Just get your Gig out there and yes, you have to worry about your competitors and what they’re offering. But with that phrase, the first step in a marathon or whatever or the – to complete a marathon, you have to complete the first step kind of thing. So get out there. Get the Gig and start it and then as you start to get sales, grow from there.Adam: So what we’re saying is then when you look to set up your first Gig, think about the grand picture, the main aspect you want to offer overall, but then break that down to what’s feasible right now with your equipment and your abilities. Then set that to kind of start off with and progress from there.Ron: Exactly. That’s a good point whether it’s voiceover or what I do with videos because when I first started, I had a cheap camera that I think it may have had an internal microphone in it but the light was bad and funny. I was looking on my computer a couple of weeks ago and found some old videos and this was like two or three years ago and I thought, “Oh my gosh, it was horrible.” But that’s good because I just got out there and I started. I agree with you. Whether it’s voiceovers, logo design, whatever it is, just think of the grand scheme and bring it down to using your current equipment that you have and just doing it.Redd: Yeah. So I think one of the important things is you have to start with how much you can afford to charge and by that, I mean like how much time you can put into one Gig, one $5 Gig, with the equipment that you’ve got without necessarily spending a fortune on gear and then trying to work your way down to where you are able to reinvest more money, better equipment, so that you can charge more for a more professional service.I think a lot of people, they really do. They try and jump in right away to like being top tier and everyone has to work through it. Everyone has to work through the tiers. So one of the things to do with that is to start off your base level, to go ahead and say, “OK, I’m going to charge this much money for this. This is what I’m going to do. From here, how can I then start to add on to that?” Like, getting your base point, your initial entry point and then starting to build on there. It is good. An important thing is to have your end game in mind, to say, “OK, this is what I want to get to and maybe in four months I want to go here and in six months after that I want to go here.”I still do that. I have upgrades to my Gigs that I am planning on doing that are timed out so I’m making another change in January. I’m making another change in May and that’s just how it goes for me. Do either of you have like a set timeline in your head or do you just kind of like go with it based on the market shift?Adam: For me I kind of go with it based on the market shift because you have the common saying of Rome wasn’t built in a day and I think it’s important first of all as well – you highlighted a good point. When you come into the market is you don’t want to go out there and say you want to be a voiceover artist. Even if you were to invest in let’s say a $500 microphone, you don’t want to do that if you actually set up the Gig and then realize maybe that service isn’t quite for you or maybe you aren’t going to get the best benefit out of that service for you.So I mean what I love to do when I set up a new Gig is to strip it all the way back, make it as simple as possible and make it as easy as possible for me to do. So if I were a brand new seller and I wanted to do voiceovers, what I would probably likely do is I would get a laptop and I would use the in-built microphone.Now some people may say, “Well, this other seller is out there offering higher quality audio. Why would they go for me?” When it comes to voiceovers, the unique selling point isn’t necessarily the quality. It’s the voice being used. So what I can do is I can offer a service such as I will record a raw voiceover which means no editing, no fuss, no muss. Just my voice for $5. If the user likes my voice, they’re going to pay for it. They’re going to maybe get to edit it elsewhere and cleaned up. But as I get better and I improve more, I can then maybe start to invest in better microphones, bringing that onboard and allow me to enter the market without having kind of the overall expenditure to get in there, simplifying it as much as possible.Ron: I would agree Adam because one of the things I see from my side with the spokesperson Gigs that are out there, I see a lot of spokespeople who are – because I guess the demand is high. There are a lot more spokespeople on Fiverr than there were let’s say two years ago but one of the things that – what you just mentioned is what a lot of them are doing. There are a few new sellers I’ve seen who come on and you could tell they’re not using the thousand-dollar camera that I have. You could tell that the lights are just not there but they still have that – I guess that presence on camera.So when someone goes there, they’re starting out with the raw possible footage if you will and they’re using a camera that they have. They’re not using a specific kind of microphone. They’re just using what they have around the house or what have you and buyers are going to buy them not necessarily because of the quality as you were saying but it’s because they have a certain on-screen presence or they have a certain value-add that no one else has on Fiverr because they’re doing something that’s unique to them. Then as they start to work up the Fiverr seller ratings, the levels, then they can invest in more equipment, better equipment, better editing software, all that kind of thing.Adam: So Redd, when you originally asked about the timeline and how do I track that, to be honest with you, the way I would track any service that I’m creating isn’t necessarily about me saying, “Right, I will give it six months and I will do this and I want to be here.” It’s a case of I may track and monitor that to see how much revenue that brings in and then amend the service accordingly.So some services you may set up and you may kind of be there a month later going, “Wow, this was a big hit.” Reinvest into that and improve that or I may look at others that have been sitting around for about six months and they kind of get moderate sales, not enough to upgrade but having 30 slots on Fiverr, I don’t necessarily want to pull them and to still bring in their own kind of revenue just not as much as any. So I’m quite – I’m not that harsh when it comes to my own Gigs with outlines or goals on them because I have so many kind of slots available.Redd: So Adam, when we’re talking about upgrading gear, upgrading equipment, upgrading your Gigs, how does that relate to logo and graphic design?Adam: Well, logo and graphic design is actually – it’s quite relatable because first of all there are two elements to it. There’s the actual front end element that the client will see such as you using better software, more expensively-licensed software to make it easier for you to create a logo. But more importantly, behind the scenes, there’s the self-learning.Now you could enter logo design as someone who is just messing about in the computer a bit and you make nice graphics or images or you could enter it as someone who has maybe come back from a degree or some kind of course. But the thing with so many services whether it’s logo design or another industry I’m in with web development, it doesn’t really stand still. So it’s important that I take the time to reinvest in my own service as well as my equipment to make sure that I’m offering the best possible service.So with logo design, I may let’s say for example buy Adobe Illustrator as one of the bigger logo design softwares that I might use but I may also go on a course or take an online course or buy a design book to teach myself new and upcoming trends and techniques. So I’m investing in the backend as well as the front end.Redd: So I think that’s a really important point. I feel like it’s not just about whether or not you have the best gear and whether or not you have the right presence and whether or not all of that. I think what you’ve said is really important. You’re constantly striving to learn and grow and improve your skills and expand your skill set and I think that a lot of the times it’s very, very easy to get kind of pigeonholed into what you do.Like for example for me, with just doing voiceovers, like I could take a voiceover class. I could maybe learn a new accent. I could do this. I could do that. But for you too, like there’s so many new techniques and new programs that you’re learning.I think it’s – that’s what – in my mind when we talk about reinvesting and growing with your Gigs, I think it’s really important to remember that you can also grow yourself and grow your experience and grow what you know. That’s a really interesting point that I think a lot of people don’t think about.Ron: I also think that what’s important is I always approach my Fiverr business as a business and so rather than it just being me Ron, spokesperson on Fiverr, I look at it as this is my business and right now that actually is my business because this is what I’m doing fulltime. So when I look at it, if you’re going to run a business, how would you do it? You would reinvest your profits into training for your employees. You would reinvest it to watch market trends as Adam was saying.You would go ahead and reinvest it in better equipment and one of the things that I noticed is – I would bring in kind of the idea of looking at where the market is going and where your customers – what your customers are demanding and a good example of it is this. I noticed that for the past year I started getting a lot of orders where the person, the buyer would say, “Hey, can you wear a medical coat or medical jacket like a doctor coat? Because I have a pharmacy and I want you to do a spokesperson commercial for my pharmacy,” or someone has a supplement. So they want me to wear the medical coat.So what I did was I ordered one on Amazon.com and I created a new Gig which was I will be your medical spokesperson. Right now I’m in the process of doing – because I’m getting a lot of HVAC heating, cooling and air conditioning companies. I’m getting a lot of let’s say electrical type of small businesses, that type of thing. So I ordered a blue electrical kind of workman’s shirt and so now I’m going to be – I will be your electrical, plumbing, whatever, spokesperson. So I think it’s a combination of training yourself. It’s also a combination of the gear but it’s also reinvesting into different ideas and following what your customers are demanding. Where is the demand going?So I think it’s all of that and it really comes down to thinking of your Gigs, whether you have one Gig or whether you’re a new seller or a top-rated seller, thinking of your Fiverr Gigs as really your Fiverr business.Adam: Yeah, I think we’ve touched upon a really great point there as well which I think a lot of sellers looking at top-rated sellers like us may not realize and the fact that we are always improving and adding to our businesses.So when you look at either of our profiles and you maybe want to offer a similar service, you may think to yourself, “Right, I need this high quality camera. I need this high quality microphone. I need the different outfits. I need the business attire,” so on and so forth and already setting up a Gig as that is going to have such a large outlay.But we didn’t all start off like that. We all had smaller equipment, less objects, less items and we’ve built from that. So when you’re trying to set up your Gig or think about the new service you want to get into, it’s very, very important as we’ve said to draw that all the way back and then grow with what’s available. Otherwise if you’re putting in more money than you’re actually taking out, what is – you want to be your Gig is actually becoming more and more difficult for you to do.Ron: So Adam, I like that point and I think that one of the things that I wanted to mention was that – try to figure out also what differentiates you. So for instance, if you’re a new seller and you’re discouraged, we were talking about if you’re a voiceover artist or a spokesperson for a video. You may get discouraged because top-rated sellers, they have the best equipment and everything else.Well, let’s say if there was a niche market. Let’s just say – and this is just an example, a random example. Let’s say if you wanted to do – you want to be a spokesperson and you worked out a lot and you were kind of like a bodybuilder. Why not – you may not have the best equipment. But what do you offer that no one else can? I mean I try to keep myself in shape but I’m not Arnold Schwarzenegger or any kind of bodybuilder type.But if you are, that’s a niche that you can go into and people are going to flock to you for supplements and other things. They may say, “You know, you don’t have to have the best camera or the best microphone because we’re looking for the guy who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger or the woman who looks like Ronda Rousey,” or anyone else who works out a lot.So try to find a niche and then how do you differentiate within that niche and start small and then grow from there.Adam: Yeah, in the same way that you said you started going – buying out the outfits to match the customer requests. There may be people out there who are nurses or doctors and they come on to Fiverr thinking, “What can I do?” Well, take a part of that and turn it into the Gig. So as we said, you’re using what you’ve got available to you as opposed to having to put yourself out there and just create the Gig initially.Ron: Exactly.Redd: So we’ve talked about a little bit about like how to get the entry point, how to reinvest in yourself, how to get more gear. So when you’re looking at taking the – say that you’ve gone ahead and you’ve done this and you’ve purchased your gear and you’ve upgraded. How do you then take that and change your Gig to reflect the upgrades that you have made? How do you roll that out to the customer?Adam: For me, the biggest way I did that, it wasn’t quite overnight and it was over let’s say maybe a month and what I started to do was I started to offer the service upgraded. So let’s say for example I am doing video and I buy an HD camera. I still start to offer the HD camera as my basic Gig just to get a feel for the fact that the users like it. It’s what they want. It’s what they’re happy with and then I slowly start to move that myself on to an upgrade or increase the price as it comes and for me that’s important because you may upgrade your equipment or you may upgrade your gear.But if the response or the feedback you’re getting back isn’t maybe as positive as you want it to be, then I would find it difficult to start to charge more or to increase prices if the buyers were responsive to that. Whereas if I upgrade to the HD and a lot of buyers liked it, I would then maybe look to alter that.Ron: I guess I thought my core Gig – I was a spokesperson. So I kind of saw that as a natural development, meaning that the higher quality camera – like someone shouldn’t have to purchase standard quality versus high def. I kind of looked at it. It was a natural progression but what I would do is when it came to – I kind of saw it as a way to improve my Gig overall so that when I was – when someone would go out and look for a spokesperson, they would see that as I grew and I became – the quality became better, that would be my differentiating factor. That would be where I was most competitive and that’s what I did.Now when it comes to the Gig extras, that’s where I – a lot of times when I reinvest into myself or reinvest into technology or what have you or techniques, usually I add those to the Gig extras. So I kind of look at my core spokesperson as I try to – I want to make that as – the quality as good as possible when it comes to the video and the audio quality.Then when I have other software upgrades or I learn a new technique, which I’m kind of doing now with kinetic text and these kinds of things, those I see as Gig extras that I can add on to the core.Redd: I think one of the other things to really remember too when you’re doing this, when you are putting in these upgrades, is to make sure that you’re also subsequently upgrading your Gig video and your samples because say that you switch from a low resolution camera to a higher upgrade. Your Gig video is probably going to have been for a time done with that old equipment. So one of the things too to always bear in mind if you are deciding to implement these upgrades is to allow yourself the time to regenerate like proper and effective samples so that your clients know exactly what they’re getting for the new clients.So your old clients are going to be like, “Oh, wow, cool. Everything got better.” But then your new clients might not purchase from you if you had one kind of level of gear but might if you had another. So I think it’s really important to display the actual gear that you are using within your Gig video.Adam: Yeah, I think that’s a really important point. I don’t offer Gig videos as a spokesperson, et cetera. But one of the services I do offer is to review your website which involves me recording your website as I talk through it and I mentioned that to do that, I use a high quality microphone and I use a HD screen recording.But my actual Gig video at the time when I initially changed that was my original Gig video that was recorded on a laptop camera, very low quality, quite pixilated and I will admit it. It took me some time to replace that. But when I did, I started getting a lot more sales from the fact that the new video was high quality and you’re right. It makes complete sense. So when you start offering a better service or you have better equipment, it’s important that that is broadcast to the user in places such as your video even if you aren’t necessarily offering a predominantly video service.Ron: Yeah, Redd that’s a great – I agree because – just a real quick example. I had my spokesperson video and everything else and I got a question from a buyer and he said – this was probably about a year and a half ago, two years ago and he said, “I really like your presence on camera and everything else but your sound quality, your audio isn’t as good as some of the other spokespeople.” I was like, “Hmm.”So I went ahead and I haven’t updated my Gig video in forever and I thought that’s strange because I have better equipment now. Then I remembered that I never replaced my Gig video. So everyone going to my page was seeing my old camera, my old technology and so ever since then it was lesson learned to make sure that I’m constantly – if I get something new or a new technique, make sure I update the Gig video or Gig description, all of that.Adam: I think it’s also important with the content of the video as well is because when you’re maybe adding new extras as you say, if in your video, you’re talking about specific extras or specific details, I think I fell afoul again before where I’ve changed something and I’ve not actually updated the video to say that. So it’s a little bit confusing to the buyer as well.Redd: This is also why I really recommend when people are creating Gig videos, to not – if you think there’s a potential that your price point might change, don’t mention it in your video because then you just have to redo the whole thing or just that section. It’s just better to keep it even keel and that’s what your Gig description is for. Just refer them to that.So Adam, what do you think about taking multiple services you offer and kind of like interweaving them so they complement each other and using that as a way to grow more sales?Adam: I think that is key to fast tracking your success on Fiverr where you may have one Gig and you may focus on that, selling that, improving that, grow that, buy more equipment, et cetera. But that becomes quite difficult when you’ve only got the one Gig. However if you have multiple Gigs that are all broken down to the minimum basic level, you can then use them to complement each other, upgrade them together and continue complementing each other.So to give you an example, let’s say I have two Gigs set up. One was for logo design and one was for website banners. The user hires the logo design from me. I can then sell them the website banner using the logo I made or let’s say I offer article writing and I have another Gig that is blog publishing. I sell them the article but then I also use the other Gig I have to sell them the fact I’m going to publish it on the web in whatever location.So from that, as I’m improving myself and I’m improving my Gigs, both the services are complementing each other. So if I make a lot of sales on say the web publishing, I can then use that revenue to improve my article writing and then as the article writing is improving, I can then use revenue from that to improve the web publishing and the crossover with each other. So as I’m improving one or as I’m improving both of them, overall the service I’m offering is improving.Redd: Right, and then also like – there’s nothing stopping you from cross-promoting those services within each Gig. So say you do deliver your logo design. You say, “Hey, by the way just in case you need it, I also offer this service. Maybe you should check it out for the future,” stuff like that.Adam: Yeah, exactly. So you’re essentially – you’re combining all of the – as many Gigs as you can together where they all complement each other so you’re fast tracking your success because it all works nicely. So the buyer who comes to you who actually will say – you know, wants the logo or wants the article, you can then take their focus and put it on to another one of your Gigs and as you’re going around that, you’re basically using – rather than just focusing on improving just one sole Gig, you’re using that to improve your whole profile or as Ron says, your whole business overall.Otherwise, you maybe fall into quite a pitfall which I fell into previously where you have your profile and you have a really great selling Gig but all the other Gigs around it aren’t really that big or aren’t selling that well. So if anything was to change and all that time and money you’ve invested in that one Gig, if that were to change, you then got say 10 or 15 other Gigs that aren’t at the same level or aren’t at the same par because you focus so much on just improving the Gig as opposed to improving your business overall with your Gigs.Ron: One of the things I like about that Adam is by doing that approach you just outlined is you’re establishing a better relationship with your customer. You’re adding value versus just selling something. It’s more or less all your Gigs complement to the point where they naturally will lead into the others.So you’re building a strong relationship with the buyer versus just, “Hey, thanks a lot. Here’s your video, your logo. Have a great day and remember to give me five stars.” That kind of thing. You’re actually establishing a relationship with a customer which is important for a long term viable business.Adam: Yeah, I think you’re setting that buy-in trend as well where the buyer may come to you and they may order an article and then if you don’t upsell or cross-reference or anything, they may leave. However, if you upsell or you do the article and the post-publishing, when they come back to you in the future, they may not order the article. They may say, “Right, let’s do what we did last time straight out the bat.” Article, post publishing and then you’ve altered that buy-in pattern where they’ve gone from ordering your basic quantity of your basic service to ordering higher up which again is going to fast track you.Redd: Well, I think these are all awesome points and I think we’ve done a really great job covering our topic today. So I want to say thank you very much to Ron for joining us. You can find him on Fiverr as Websitevideo. Our jingle was made by Ryan. You can find him as Customdrumloops. We were edited today by Dansha.Don’t forget. If you want to ask us any community questions or if there’s anything you think we should be chatting about, go ahead and post a message on the Fiverr forum which you can find at forum.Fiverr.com. Thanks so much and we will see you next week.Transcription by: Transexpert
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