Follow Me While I Make A Fiverr

Fiverr.com is a freelancing site with a twist. Most freelancing sites offer a list of gigs posted by contractors who are looking for someone to perform a certain job or service. As a freelancer, you visit these sites, look over the posted jobs or gigs, and offer your services by bidding on the job. And jobs can range from $5 to thousands of dollars, or even a long-term full-time position.

Fiverr.com on the other hand, is a list of services and contractors can buy the specific services they need.

The other big difference, of course, is what makes Fiverr.com so intriguing - the service provider can only charge $5 for the gig. Not $5 or less and not $5 or more - which eliminates the price wars you have on other freelancing sites.

Basically, then, here's how it works:

The service provider (ME) lists the service they're willing to offer for only $5 and a contractor (The Buyer) pays five bucks to hire the freelancer providing the service - ME!

What makes Fiverr.com so attractive, for both buyers and sellers, is that silly little five dollar price tag.

On the one hand, five bucks is really nothing these days. Like I said, you can't even get a good cup of coffee for five bucks anymore. So the idea of spending $5 for some type of service sounds like a real bargain. It's the whole $9.99 VS $10.00 thing. Nobody thinks twice about spending $9.99. But if the price tag says $10.00, they start whipping out the ol' calculator to see if they can afford it.

The first time you visit Fiverr.com you'll see that the offers are extremely diverse and unique. If you've always thought it was just a site for people to trade Internet Marketing services, think again. Millions of people visit this site because it's a cheap source of entertainment and fun. Where else can you get somebody to sing 'Happy Birthday' to your Aunt Martha using the voice of Kermit the Frog - for only five bucks. Or a picture of a pretty girl with your name written on her backside - for just five bucks!

On the flip side of that five dollar bill, the people who are providing those $5 services know that what they're selling is basically an impulse item, like you see at the end of the check-out lines in grocery stores. As long as they're attractive somebody, somewhere is going to be interested in snapping them up. Maybe a lot of somebodies.

The question is, at five bucks a pop...

The key to making money at Fiverr.com is to have an attention-grabbing offer that you can deliver in a short period of time.

The buyers pay $5 for a service. Period. Of that five dollars, after fees, you make $3.92.

Let's face it, if it takes you one hour to deliver on your promise you're only making $3.92 per hour. Depending on where you live, that might be a lot of money. But here in America that's less than half of minimum wage.

However, there are two ways of looking at it:

Fiverr.com as a source of income: If you're using Fiverr.com for the sole purpose of generating income, then you'll want to create an offer that's as efficient as possible. Something you can deliver in a matter of minutes so you can handle multiple orders each day.

Fiverr.com as a marketing tool: If you're using Fiverr.com to promote your writing business or your link building business or whatever service you have, then the income you generate with your gigs is less important than the promotional possibilities. Offering your service for just $5 when the regular price is $15 is a great way to get your name in front of new clients and let them try out your product.

Read How To Make Money With Squidoo And Fiverr

You can't even imagine everything people will do for a five dollar bill! And it's just as impossible to imagine that people would actually pay money for some of these offers. But that's the beauty of Fiverr.com - What's five bucks?! If the offer is unique enough, and intriguing or entertaining - or even just useful - most people won't even blink when they hand over a five dollar bill!

Here are just a few of some of the ways people make money with Fiverr.com:

• I will take a picture of myself dressed as a fairy holding a sign with your website, company, message or name on it for $5


• I will put you message on my eyelid or under my eye for $5


• I will give you an intuitive message from the Universe in response to 1 question for $5


• I will use telepathy to communicate a message on your behalf to the galactic civilization residing in the center of the Milky Way galaxy for $5


• I will keep your secret for $5


• I will promote Your Message in a Trick Ping Pong Shot Video for $5


• I will create a hand designed Christmas card and mail it on your behalf for $5


• I will write a professional resume cover letter for you for $5


• I will write a letter from Rudolf the red nosed reindeer to mail to your child for $5


• I will translate up to 400 words from English to Norwegian or opposite for $5


• I will get You 1000 to 6250 LinkedIn Connections From Real People Who Can Add Value To Your LinkedIn Network... for $5


• I will put 50 flyers in study rooms in my college library for $5


• I will wear your product and take photos for $5


• I will do a video testimonial for your product/buisness for $5


• I will make whatever message you would like in lego bricks

While looking at that list you might wonder why someone would be interested in a video that shows their name being spray painted on the moon, or their message being written out in Lego bricks, or what would be so attractive about having your message included in a trick ping pong shot.

Some people will pay $5 for these gigs strictly for the entertainment value. But these days, a lot of these gigs are being purchased by webmasters, too. It's not easy creating interesting, intriguing, engaging content and if you can contract a funny promotional video for just $5, why not? Heck, buy 5 or 6!

Read How To Make Money With Squidoo And Fiverr

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Today is November 26, 2011 and I've just officially entered my first 4 Fiverr.gigs. You can enter up to 20 gigs at a time but 4 is a good place to start. As I said, I've done a good bit of research on Fiverr.com and I've entered a gig or two before just to see how it works, but I've never actually used it to try to make money.

Well...

There's a first time for everything!

All Gigs and a Running Total are listed further down the page.

You can list up to 20 gigs at Fiverr and I'm thinking 'The More, The Merrier", right? So I created 2 more last night and I'll be adding more today in between working on a gig I already have.

All Gigs and a running total are listed further down the page.

OK, so I'm up to 6 gigs right now and I'm going to try to get the full 20 on there by the end of the day.

Promotion Currently, I'm just working Twitter. It's still the holiday weekend so there's not much sense in devoting a whole lot of time and effort to promotion today. But tomorrow I'll write it up on my blog and I'm going to write a couple of guest blog posts for a couple of sites I write for.

So far I've booked a total of 12 gigs and I've quickly learned that you really need to be organized if you're going to run multiple gigs. I'm not really sure about the Fiverr dashboard yet, it's still confusing me. So last night I set up a spreadsheet to track gigs.

I'm also not really great at spreadsheets! But at least it's a system, right?

Timing is everything at Fiverr if you want to maintain that 100% rating. I'll be working my tail off today to make sure I get everything done in time but for right now it's still fun. If you find yourself starting to fall behind though, or you just need a break, you can suspend your gigs until you catch up.

I updated my gig list below so you can see which gigs are selling and how many and how fast, etc. So far, I'm up to 12 - that means $48 in my pocket! And I'm starting to get some comments from satisfied clients - that helps a lot!

I will add your blog RSS feed to my Twitterfeed and Tweet all updates for one month to more than 2600 loyal subscribers This gig will take about 10 minutes to complete. I'll just have to scan the blog and make sure it's not offensive and add the RSS link to my Twitterfeed account. I think it's attractive because I'll give them the slot for 30 days. And I can list as many feeds as I like so there's no limit on how many of these gigs I can accept and deliver.

I will review your product with 5 backlinks on one of my Squidoo lenses This will take about a day to complete and it's attractive because it gives the buyer some high quality backlinks. I included an upsell on this that states that the lens remains in my possession unless the buyer pays an additional $50 AND I get to include a link back to my own site. Everybody wins with this gig.

1 order as of 12/13/11

I will format 5 of your articles into a KILLER ebook that you can use for freebies or giveaways This gig will just take a couple of hours since the buyer has to provide the actual content. But a lot of people don't know how to format an ebook or don't want to take the time. This will take me a little more time but it gives me a chance to promote my ebook writing and creation service.

I will write and publish a keyword targeted product review article and link to 5 products on your own review blog or website at BestReviewercom This gives the buyer 5 good contextual backlinks and it gives me more content at Best-Reviewer.com, where I earn money on Adsense clicks. Again, everybody wins!

1 order as of 12/13/11

I will send you a list of 100 SEO article titles I gave a 2 day lead time, just in case it's a tricky keyword. But coming up with 100 SEO article titles is a piece of cake for most niches.

1 order as of 12/13/11

I will write two unique 450 word SEO articles This is definitely a Loss Leader! And if this takes off, it won't be up for long. But I'm trying to beat out the competition on Fiverr with this gig, just to get the ball rolling.

56 orders as of 12/13/11

I will write an original, 500 word Review Article for a Click bank Product This is pretty easy for me. All the Click bank products have a sales page. I'll just have to read it, pull out some bullet points and write a quickie article.

6 orders as of 12/13/11

I will write 2 killer testimonials for your product, service, website or blog Another easy gig. Just read the sales page and write a blurb that talks about a couple of features and benefits.

I will write a 450 word SEO article and submit it to your Ezine Articles account This is a good Gig and I hope it sells well. A lot of people have trouble getting their articles approved at Ezine, but I can always get mine to pass. Plus, a lot of people hate submitting their own articles and I'm trying to promote that as one of my services.

17 orders as of 12/13/11

It's been a very exciting and enlightening week! I've booked 22 gigs this week, which is really surprising. All of my gigs are in the Writing category and the competition is stiff. At Fiverr the gigs are listed in order of popularity and if your gig is Featured that means a lot of people have given it a Star - which means they've bookmarked it as one of their favorites.

Since my gigs are still so new I don't have a lot of activity yet and I'm not even close to being Featured. Which is why I'm so surprised I've booked those 22 gigs already - in just the first week.

How am I handling the business? Well, fortunately, so far I've been able to just work the Fiverr gigs in among my other writing commitments.

But this morning I woke up to 6 new orders at Fiverr! And I'm sure there will be more coming in throughout the day. It's going to be a bumpy weekend but I've got plenty of coffee!

And I'll have my other clients taken care of by the end of the day today, anyway, which means I'll be able to spend the weekend - as planned - on Fiverr and Squidoo!

I'm starting to get special requests from the Fiverr buyers, too, and I've had a couple of people ask me to start writing for them full time. However, at these prices, there's no way I'm going to commit to a full-time gig. That would be insane!

But that does lead to an important question....

Obviously, I can't keep writing for $5 a gig - that's just ridiculous when you consider I usually make at least $20 per article and right now I'm typing my fingers to the bone for a fiver.

So why am I even messing around at Fiverr.com?

I'm using it to promote my business! Now all I need to do is decide what KIND of business!!

I do have an idea. It's something I've been kicking around for about 6 months now but I just couldn't think of a way to get it started. My biggest problem was going to be promotion - getting enough traffic to make it worthwhile. Getting started on Fiverr was just 'something to do' over the holiday weekend but now I realize it's perfect for what I've been planning. It's the exact target audience I'm looking for and by the time I get my project ready I'll have plenty of buyers who already like my writing.

So yeah - there's a method to my madness. There better be, right? Because it seems pretty lame to be doing all this work to clear $4. But trust me - it's going to be awesome! I'll keep you posted!

OK, maybe you think I'm nuts doing all this writing for $5 a pop. But any good business person knows you never go to market with just one product - especially if that product isn't profitable. Of course, I have an upsell!

I've already had a lot of repeat buyers on Fiverr and for those of you who can't read between the lines, what this means is -

I am essentially using Fiverr to develop an extremely targeted list - for free. I'm not even paying for Aweber because I can send my promotional links right along with their articles when I deliver!

I've set up a sales page, specifically for Fiverr clients, and I'm offering them special pricing.

I have 2 different packages and each is set up so the buyer actually saves a little money over the Fiverr prices and I actually make a little more than the $4 I'd make on a Fiverr gig.

If they buy these packages the money goes straight to my Paypal account. Fiverr doesn't get a cut and I don't have to pay as much in Paypal transaction fees.

It's a win/win situation for me and the client.

And that's just the first upsell. There WILL be many more to come!

I'm not really sure how to include this update today, how I should categorize it. So I'm just starting a new category labeled 'WOW!'

Earlier on this lens I have a big, red box telling you to let any existing clients know about your Fiverr gigs. Otherwise, if they find out about it on their own - and you're charging them more than $5 for that same service - they might get a little upset.

Well, here's what I woke up to first thing this morning...

I do a good bit of writing for a certain client but it's not anything regular. He doesn't order often but when he does it's usually a pretty big job. Haven't heard from him for a month or so and I know he's pretty busy. But I wanted to give him a nudge anyway, just to make sure he knows I'm still out here, so I sent him to my Fiverr gigs.

Turns out, one of them was something he'd been thinking about doing anyway, but not for a few more months. And my gig gave him the excuse to get the ball rolling. So this morning I booked a bundle of articles with this guy and I start writing next week!

I don't have a total dollar amount on this gig yet but it will be a minimum of $270 a week - for quite a few weeks. So I'm going to low-ball guess-timate this at $2,000. I'll include it in my running total as I bill it out.

Now, I know what you're thinking - at a crumby 5 bucks per article she'll be dead before she finishes that order. But trust me, these articles are going for more than $5. Remember, the Fiverr gigs are just a way to introduce people to my writing. They're just a starting point. The articles for this client will be just a little bit longer - about 2 paragraphs - and he's paying almost twice the price of the Fiverr gigs. The money is going directly to my Paypal account - so no Fiverr fees. Plus, the articles are all on topics I'm familiar with so the research time will be minimal.

I think the word I'm looking for here is - Cha-CHING!

So how's that for progress? Less than 2 weeks into it and I'm at around $2,500.00 already. Not too shabby. But I wonder how much finger transplants cost? 'Cuz mine are worn down to the nubs already!

Thank goodness you can pause your gigs! Otherwise I'd be in big, big, BIG trouble right now. They started coming in faster yesterday afternoon so I made a couple of changes.

First, I suspended a few of the gigs that weren't selling anyway. And then I went in and edited the gigs I left open so I could extend the lead time. I think I took them up to 3 and 4 days instead of just 2.

Otherwise, if I'd just left them all stand, I'd never be able to get to these upsell orders I booked. And I definitely don't want to be late on those!

All in all, it was a pretty good week. The first full week I made $100 on Fiverr. We're at the end of the second full week now and I'm up to $583 - PLUS let's not forget I've also got that really big order out there that I'm not even including in the tally yet.

So, yeah. Yayyy!

• The buyer pays $5 when he places the order and it goes into Fiverr's cofffers. After you complete and deliver the order, the buyer has 3 days to accept it. If he immediately approves of your product, then the money clock starts ticking. If he doesn't do anything, then 3 days later the money clock starts ticking.


• Once you're credited, you have to wait 14 days to gain access to your money. There's a clock on each transaction on your dashboard to help you track this. When the 14 days is up, you can immediately transfer the money to your own Paypal account. No waiting time! So, if the buyer immediately accepts delivery you have to wait 14 days for your money. If he doesn't you can wait up to 17 days. Either way, unless there's a dispute of some sort, you WILL get your money.


• The buyer pays $5. Fiverr keeps $1. You make $4 - BUT - Paypal keeps $.08 of every $4. In the end, you clear $3.92 per gig.


• Each order is listed separately on your dashboard and each has its own clock to help you prioritize. If you deliver on time, with no complaints, then you have a 100% satisfaction rating which is visible on all your gigs. Obviously, it benefits you to keep this at 100%!


• You can communicate with buyers throughout the entire process, asking and answering questions when necessary. This is all done on your dash. However, once the buyer accepts delivery the conversation appears on the front page of that particular gig. Which means everyone who sees your gig can see what goes on. Nothing to worry about, really, if you're delivering on your promises - on time. In fact, it helps when your buyers leave positive comments so other people can see how great you are!



• Each time you deliver your order to the buyer, remember to tell them to leave a comment on your gig if they liked it. When people leave comments or 'star' your gig, that counts as activity. And the more activity you have the closer your gig moves to the top of the list.

Read How To Make Money With Squidoo And Fiverr

Today's my first payday at Fiverr! Yayyyy!

So far I've made $336 total with all of my gigs combined. $252 of that has already been earned and I'm waiting for it to clear.

Don't forget - it takes 14 days for your payments to clear after you deliver your gig.

The $80 balance is for gigs I still have to deliver. You'll also see that I have my first $4 available for withdrawal. That's from the very first gig I delivered and it just moved over to the 'available' column this morning, which means I've been at this for at least 14 days now!

Today, it's only $4 available but now that I've finally hit that 14 day mark the money will just be constantly rolling over into my account. To withdraw you just click the button and transfer to your Paypal account.

Read How To Make Money With Squidoo And Fiverr

Maintaining that 100% rating is important, obviously, because it helps buyers feel more comfortable handing over their five bucks. But it's not as easy as it looks.

It also helps to have lots of comments and activity on your gigs. Active gigs attract buyer attention and Fiverr rewards activity by moving your gig up the list, closer to the top.

Lots of activity and a good rating can also earn you Featured Seller Status, which means your gig has a pretty flag on it and it's right there on the very first page. I haven't been able to find out exactly what you have to do to qualify for this status yet. I think it's just an arbitrary decision made by the PTB at Fiverr, but I'm still researching.

Here are some of the strategies I've been using, in no particular order, to keep my 100% rating and keep my gigs active and make a bunch of money.

I started with 9 gigs, just to attract attention. As orders started picking up, I suspended the gigs that weren't getting any orders. You might want to leave all your gigs open, but mine all involve writing articles of some type. The gigs I suspended would have been time consuming and weren't popular anyway.

There's a category for 'Express Gigs' which means it's a gig you can deliver in under 24 hours. I had 2 of my gigs set up as Express to attract some attention. And yes, it worked! To mark your gigs as 'Express' just use '1 Day' in the box when you're setting it up. Caution: Don't do this unless you're prepared to deliver or you'll risk your 100% rating.

After I started booking my upsell offers - as well as more gigs, I realized I needed to do something to better organize my time. I have a few hundred orders due in about 3 days now!

I didn't want to suspend gigs because I still want new clients coming in, so I just extended the lead time on the gigs I still have open. Instead of 1 or 2 days, I moved them out to 4.

I still have plenty of orders coming in and it gives me some time to work on the upsell orders I took.

You WILL run up against very demanding, rude buyers. Remember, their attitude is not directed at you personally. They're just jerks and that's the way they do business.

Some of these buyers will try to manipulate you and your gig and you'll feel like you have to deliver whatever they want or they'll complain and you'll lose that 100% rating. DON'T! These guys are jerks!

When you first set up your gigs, cover all the bases. Before you publish it, look at it from every possible direction to make sure you won't be blindsided.

For example, one of my gigs is for two 450 word SEO articles. I had a buyer give me one keyword - 'snap back hats' - and then he told me just to do the research and write 10 articles for him. If you Google that keyword you'll see that there's not a whole lot you can say, other than 'Snap back hats are hats with snaps in the back'.

The buyer obviously knew he wasn't going to be able to find anybody else to write this crap, and I wasn't about to spend hours trying to come up with something interesting to say that would take up almost 5,000 words. I'm NOT a fiction writer!

When I informed the buyer that he'd have to give me some idea of what he wanted he told me to 'do the research'. I just messaged him back and pointed out that my gig was for article writing - not research.

You can dispute gigs. I've had to dispute and cancel a few gigs already. Sometimes the buyer doesn't give you enough information to complete the gig, or it's something that you just can't do. You are NOT completely at the buyer's beck and call and you DO still control your own business.

If you 'Dispute' a gig and it eventually gets cancelled, it doesn't affect your rating. I disputed one gig because the buyer wanted me to write fiction and I just don't write fiction. When I disputed it and offered an explanation he apologized and sent me 4 new keywords.

And you have the ability to communicate with buyers, too, via a message box on the gig. Each gig is a potential new, long-term client, so do whatever you can to work it out.

Flat-out cancelling a gig hurts your rating!

If you dispute a gig, the buyer is given 3 days to respond. He can either work it out with you or he can cancel. If he cancels, he gets a refund and you'll see the $4 come back out of your total. If he does nothing, after 3 days the gig drops off your list and the $4 is deducted.

I spend a few minutes a day looking at new gigs, especially in the writing category. The most popular gigs are those that will help with SEO - article writing, link building, social networking, etc.

Look to see what your competitors are offering. I pay special attention to the featured gigs, too, regardless of their category. What can I offer to compete with them so I can get into that featured spot, too?

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of the popular gigs have a longer lead time. Makes sense! Once those orders start backing up, you have to move that lead time out so you can deliver on time. Once I saw that happening on the featured gigs, I didn't mind moving out my own lead times.

As a seller, you'll have a page where you can manage your sales. Your gigs are listed based on delivery time. So the first gig has to be delivered first, and on down the list. When you click through to view that particular order it tells you exactly how many hours you have left before you have to deliver.

Always look to see the times on your next few gigs. Make sure you're not going to miss a delivery time if you go to bed or if you stop for dinner or if you want to go out to a movie. The clock never stops ticking!

Read How To Make Money With Squidoo And Fiverr

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