Fiverr Community Forum

A video spokesperson should have the right to be selective and protect their image

Fiverr Site
#1

Most people ordering our service are legitimate business owners, startups or affiliate marketers and drop shippers, who pour their heart and soul into their business, and I absolutely adore making videos for them.

However…

There are MANY people, who order a spokesperson video for their business, because they would be embarrassed to show their face on their websites. Most of the time even their profile pictures and names are fake for this very reason! They basically build quick cheap website, find PLR blogs and sell affiliate products they have never even seen in real life - you know the new ‘laptop lifestyle aka get rich quick automating niche social media accounts’ kind of way…

Then there are those people, who literally scam people out of their money… No way am I going to have my smile scam people out of their retirement plans…

Then there might be preferences we have. For example, personally, I am vegan, and I would rather not say how amazing someone’s new sausage roll or leather jackets are. I might not want to film a political video or a religious video… I have this stated on the gig’s page and in the requirements section. There are MANY buyers who skip over that. I even had orders from fetishists “move your hair seductively in front of your face” “Throw a cake in your face” “Make video of feet dear please”, so I cancel, so my completion rate goes down, so I lose my badges, so I have to delete my 15 of my gigs, because I am only allowed 7 now… so I get less orders… you get the point)

Are we allowed to make video commercials for awesome businesses without having to lose our dignity please? We show our own face alongside a business, and there should be an exception for us. I used to be a top rated seller here for 3 years, I lost my badges, because I decided to protect my image, for the sake of those good businesses that do have my face on their front pages.

My suggestion: let us approve the orders. Let us have a button saying ‘accept or decline’. Let us keep our image, most of us are actors. I am a professional working stage actress, but maybe one day I will feel like acting in a movie and someone will dig up my video about erectile disfunction pills from a badly designed website with comic sans as their font, because I was too afraid to cancel that one time… Can you even imagine explaining to Ellen Degeneres that Fiverr only allows you to cancel max 10% of the offers? Kidding aside, if you’re worried, you could add an extra section to our profile: “chances of getting approved by this seller: 70%”. You can still count our cancellations too, but only if it’s after delivery or after we actually engage with the buyer in messages after seeing their website or script…

I was away from Fiverr for this reason, but you know what? I love this job, I love editing videos, it is a creative outlet for me. I would like to keep doing this without losing self respect, that’s all I am saying. Fiverr pretty please, think about us spokespeople :slight_smile:

Have a good night everyone!
Love, Patty Sway

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#2

That sounds yuk, Patty - sorry you’re getting this type of client.

First - you can ask CS to cancel orders that ask for things not included in your gig. Ask them to cancel without affecting your stats and they’ll often do that.

Second - double your basic pricing.

@lenasemenkova - anything to add?

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#3

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#4

Thanks for your tips coerdelion. What I mean is that I would like to be able to decide, whether I want to represent a business with my face. Or for Fiverr to let us have a slightly higher margin for cancellations due to this image dilemma. If I was a writer, I would not have as much to lose, because nobody will know it’s me. With video presenting, I guess I could get a wig and play with makeup for those less professional websites :wink: Or just remove my host gigs and only do editing of footage. I am thinking about this actually. Just thought I would give it a last go and throw this suggestion out there :slight_smile: I will definitely thin about removing basic pack from my gigs, and just have a higher starting point. Good idea, thank you!

1 Like
#5

I hope I’m not prying here. I notice you don’t have a seller level, despite having over 800 reviews. Were your most recent demotions because you had to cancel lots of unsuitable orders?

I’m sure your customers love you, too. You’re very good at your job. :slight_smile:

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#6

My cancellation rate is always around 80% - 85%, not enough for any level :wink: I got demoted back when they implemented the 90% rule for ‘order completion’. Every month one level down… Thank you so much ahmwritingco <3

EDIT: I meant to say my completion rate is 80%-85% - I am not THAT selective haha

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#7

That sucks. :confused:

You certainly make a compelling case.

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#8

@ coerdelion Congrats on becoming a mod!

I don’t think fiverr ever lets us approve orders unless out of sudden the minimum gig price you can have becomes, like, $500.

There is no easy or 100% effective solution to this. Things that work somewhat are:

  • raising your prices;
  • adding “PLEASE CONTACT ME BEFORE THE PURCHASE” to your gig description;
  • adding a clause to your gig description that says “I won’t do X, Y, Z”;
  • canceling orders through Customer Support and explaining why the topic is problematic to you. I don’t think “I won’t advertise a sausage roll because I’m a vegan” will cut it.* But “I believe the service is a scam because…” might.

*Adding a clause “no meat products ads” + contacting CS and referencing it actually might work.

I thought about adding “no politics or religion” to my gig description but there is a word limit and I can’t squeeze it in. Plus, religious/church-sponsored events are mostly cookouts, concerts, parties, and things so I don’t mind doing those.

Politics I still won’t do. I don’t watch my local political news to keep my sanity and there is no way I’m getting into someone else’s.

In short, it’s fully within your right to decline any project. But you might want to take a more active approach to limit undesirable topics and sketchy clients in your queue.

PS A few projects I canceled through CS that had no effect on my stats were:

  • Creating a $100 bill with someone else’s face on it. It was presented to me as a joke and I even got the joke but tampering with bills unless you add “souvenir” or “sample” across it is highly illegal in my country.

  • Ad for the uterus cancer awareness rally that was ordered 3 hours after I found out that my mother was diagnosed with it. The buyer was very understanding, no hard feelings.

  • A project that involved creating a few pages for what looked like a potential insurance fraud.

  • Everything to do with 2016 US election (or any election for the matter).

  • Projects that were not in English when the buyer refused to provide a translation and confirm that the said translation was accurate.

1 Like
#9

Thanks Lena! I am so sorry about your mom! <3 I am glad they understood! As to projects not in English, I have been doing free translations all the time, because I was afraid to cancel or ask for an extra payment… But now I added this in my instructions “If you ordered a video in Spanish or Polish, please submit a script in that language, NOT in English” :slight_smile: I have also added “agree” multiple choice requirement with a tiny contract, that my image cannot be used out of context in a way that could paint me in bad light. I have removed most of my gigs now and working on new ones. I have decided to go with your and Coerdelion’s advice and raise the prices for my word count, justified by the fact I have been reading from a prompter for 6 years now, and so you can’t really tell I am doing it (my videos from 2016 don’t compare to the ones I film now), I have a much better lighting, green screen and camera and editing effects than when I first started on here :slight_smile: I removed the highlight of text from my gig description, and only kept it on “message me first” and “check my FAQ” so I hope by keeping it as the only highlight it will work :slight_smile: I have never even considered asking CS to cancel orders so thank you guys for that! Definitely something I will do! I probably could have still had my TRS badge if I did that from the start! I had some very ‘reasonable reasons’ to cancel in the past hehe. The only issue I will always have is the modifications, for example, when a client wants to change their contact details after I had already filmed or even delivered, I find it impossible to ask them to pay more… I know I should, but I just don’t know how to stand my ground I guess… But that’s on me not on Fiverr :slight_smile:

Funny thing about being vegan (well I am not a full on strict vegan, verging on it) but I got a casting for a TV commercial, and I had no idea what it was for, I told th casting director I can’t continue with the casting when I saw it was for Danone yoghurt, and she convinced me to do it anyway so they have me in their books for other projects. I got the damn part and had to say no to 10 000 Euros. That is 20 months of my room rent hahaha what I would do for cows is beyond me.

Thanks everyone for your advice and I hope you have a great day! I will see if I can pay it forward on here and also help someone out :slight_smile: