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Conversations that go nowhere


lisamareebirch

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What a week!

I have had plenty of lovely gigs, but since putting up some writing ones (as opposed to reading/editing that other creatives tend to buy), my inbox has been way too noisy.

I am hoping I’m not alone here, but essentially the conversations go like this:
-I want to purchase your gig for this thing (OK)
-Send me samples (Done)
-You need to know I will run everything through Copyscape (I wouldn’t know how to plagiarise anyway, so go for it)
-Why are you charging too much?!/Why are you charging too little?/Actually, I now want research as well, but I don’t know what the topic will be yet. (ARGH!)

I don’t want my response rate to go down, so I reply even when they have ended the conversation with a thank you or they have been obnoxiously rude (I’m a teacher, my rudeness scale is quite broad). Am I doing the wrong thing here?!

Despite all this, I have had a few really good gigs from the Buyers Request boards, as well as some ‘cold calling’ direct to my inbox.

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Eventually you get used to it. I’m not a writer but I get tons of messages that are more annoying than those. You could try using ready made responses to some of the more common questions.

I get very long winded biographies and am expected to read them when doing so would take me 20 minutes. I’m not sure what people are thinking who do that.
I send a prepared response to those that say what they are looking for is not in line with what I offer.

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Not to make light of your hectic week, but that is pretty much the norm if you have a busy gig.

A few months ago I had to take some time off for a family emergency. I was gone almost a month. Prior to my month absence, my gigs were fairly busy. When I came back, my gigs died.

It took a lot of work and effort to get things back to where they were before my time off but Now that things are busy again, I vow to never complain about a busy inbox as long as there are a few sane ones coming my way. An empty or idol inbox usually means your gig is not doing well – I may sigh here and there from the crazies, but things were much worse when I would open my Fiverr account and there were no messages. A busy inbox – good, bad or indifferent – is better than an empty inbox.

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For prevention, every time you get a message, ask yourself: “is this something I could address on my gig description”?

Educating buyers is part of “selling”.

Example:
A buyer messages you, " I just want you to know that I run everything through Copyscape".

You decide that you can address that on your gig description, so you write:
Many buyers want to check out articles on google or Copyscape before they are used. This is a great idea, as it shows they care about the authenticity of the final product. I encourage everyone to do this! All of my work is original. It is important to me to provide you with a final product that you can feel good about.

Everytime you get a message, it is an opportunity to increase your sales by addressing it in your gig description. 🙂

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As a writer, you have to have those conversations. There are details to sort out and reassurances to make to the buyer you are legit and can give them quality work. I have had countless messages telling me the person had bad experiences or they will use copyscape to check my work. Comes with the territory as they do not want to get ripped off.

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