Don't Ask Other Sellers to Give You Work or For Advice - Here's Why

[paulmaplesden]

If you’re a seller considering messaging another seller for work, I have one thing to say to you:

Don’t. Not ever. Really. Never.

If you do, you could get your account suspended or banned - let me explain why…

You might think “where’s the harm in me messaging another seller to ask for advice or request work?” but there are a few issues with that thought:

• Other sellers don’t have any obligation to help you or provide advice (more on this below).
• Yes, you might be just one person sending a message, but there are many, many more people sending these messages to sellers every day.
• It’s against Fiverr’s Terms of Service to message sellers about anything other than enquiring for work.
• It’s spam - which means it’s bad manners.

Consider this:

• Sellers have to respond to all messages within 24 hours, or our response rate goes down.
• If that goes down too much, we can lose levels, which has other impacts.
• We don’t have the time to respond to you, as that takes time to do, which we could be spending earning money.
• We had to do the legwork to build up our business here on Fiverr, and we’re not just going to hand some of that business to a random seller who messages us.

To freelancers, time is money. Take a freelancer who earns $100 an hour. If it takes 15 minutes to reply to your question, that “costs” them $25 in lost work. If there are nine other people like you messaging them each week, and they respond to all of them, that’s $250. Our time is too valuable to do that.

As a result, when sellers message me looking for work, I have a standard response:

I am assuming you are contacting me for:

• How to get your gigs seen on Fiverr.
• How to earn more money on Fiverr.
• Me to provide you with work.

Randomly contacting other successful sellers on Fiverr is likely to get your account suspended. Instead you should:

• Review Fiverr Academy - https://www.fiverr.com/academy for advice on improving gigs, getting work, and promoting yourself.
• Post a question on the Fiverr Forum - https://forum.fiverr.com/ in the Fiverr Tips in the “Fiverr Tips” or “Improve My Gig” section.

Please do not contact me regarding the reasons above again. I am not able to help you.

You have been reported for spamming other sellers.

Paul.

I then report them. Harsh? Perhaps. Necessary? Oh yes.

If you really want advice from other sellers, and you value their responses and time, message them and offer to pay them for their advice. If they are in a position to help you, they will raise a custom offer, then you pay, and they will actually take the time to provide you with quality advice.

This approach will not work if you’re writing to them looking for work - just don’t do that, it’s a really bad idea.

So, to summarize:

• Don’t ever write to other sellers looking for advice or work.
• If you do, you are likely to get reported, which can get your account suspended or banned.
• As sellers, we will never respond sympathetically to these requests for advice or work.
• If you really want advice, and you’re willing to pay for it, make that clear in your message.
• We did the legwork and learning ourselves, we expect you to do the same.
• Use the resources listed below for advice.

Resources and Advice for New Sellers

• Seller Help Center.
• “Community” section of Fiverr blog.
• Read “Fiverr Tips” and “Tips for Sellers” on this forum.
• Ask questions in “Improve My Gig” or “Conversations.”

These are all really useful resources, use them and love them.

Thanks!

[balubfa12]

@paulmaplesden

What you said is absolutely right. Some sellers are wasting other sellers time. Long back i got few messages about how i got promoted as TRS and what i did to achieve this and regarding my gig images or some mockups etc…

That was a very frustrating situation when someone sending spam messages. All sellers are working hard to complete their projects on time. meanwhile, if we get spam messages like this it will affect the productivity and deviates the concentration of the sellers.

[catwriter]

Unfortunately, those who do that are unlikely to read this post.

Maybe you can put something like “Don’t ask other sellers to give you work” at the top of your post. Simple and to the point, and hopefully someone would read at least that one sentence. 😺

[arty182925]

I am getting that messages regularly. Got 2 yesterday.

Not sure if something change but, I got few times custom order from sellers and you can’t report that. Unless you email support with screenshots and stuff.

I don’t know why they think they will get work by messaging other sellers.

1. Why would successful sellers trust some random new sellers with their work.

2. If they are full and don’t have time to finish everything, they will ask some friend to help them who they can trust fully.

[paulmaplesden]

Unfortunately, those who do that are unlikely to read this post.

Maybe you can put something like “Don’t ask other sellers to give you work” at the top of your post. Simple and to the point, and hopefully someone would read at least that one sentence. 😺

“ Don’t ask other sellers to give you work ”

I changed the title 🙂

[balubfa12]

@arty182925

Yes, most of the sellers especially new and level 1 sellers are very active at forum and always their discussion is about Not getting sales or orders, Dropping Gig Impressions, or asking advice from senior sellers here.

There are many sellers here who are using gig and profile images stolen from the internet. There are many sellers who have same gig and profile images. So rather asking other sellers regarding their success story or orders or any suggestions, why don’t they start their strategy.

They can spend some time to read about social media promotion of their own gigs, they can create own profile images or own logo or gig images. i can completely understand if a person offering other than graphic design service and who need their gig images can use simple online tools to create their gig images.

Most of the sellers have no time to create their own branding and strategy, gig titles, gig description so on… but they can simply come and complain or request on the forum or asking help from other senior sellers.

“No Pain - No Gain” So I request all the sellers who are requesting for advice or work and disturbing other sellers, please take your time and create your own plan or strategy to how to market your gigs and get some potential buyers. Or if you have money to spend order gigs from other sellers to create your marketing strategy or design your logo or create a nice and unique gig image etc…

[Guest ehsan_i]

Well write up. Helpful article for new users in fiverr.

[coolwebdevelop]

Thanks for your helpful post.

[Guest arman_hossain1]

Thanks for your valuable tips …

[jahiduls]

thanks, I thought I have to ask another seller, how do I getting the order. now I understand what I wrong, so thanks again

[paulmaplesden]

thanks, I thought I have to ask another seller, how do I getting the order. now I understand what I wrong, so thanks again

thanks, I thought I have to ask another seller, how do I getting the order. now I understand what I wrong, so thanks again

If this post goes just some way to stopping sellers wanting to do that, I will be happy. (But, I harbor no illusions, I know that 98.24% of sellers will never read this, and of the 1.76% who do read it, half of them will ignore it!)

[legacine]

Your intentions are clearly good with this topic, but it is overly lengthy for people who want to ‘mek sells.’

It’s against Fiverr’s ToS to messages a Seller for any reason other than to ask about conducting business with that Seller. No other explanation is required beyond that.

Small as I am, I’ve had a few people ask me for work. It’ll never stop.

[paulmaplesden]

Your intentions are clearly good with this topic, but it is overly lengthy for people who want to ‘mek sells.’

It’s against Fiverr’s ToS to messages a Seller for any reason other than to ask about conducting business with that Seller. No other explanation is required beyond that.

Small as I am, I’ve had a few people ask me for work. It’ll never stop.

Your intentions are clearly good with this topic, but it is overly lengthy for people who want to ‘mek sells.’

It’s against Fiverr’s ToS to messages a Seller for any reason other than to ask about conducting business with that Seller. No other explanation is required beyond that.

Small as I am, I’ve had a few people ask me for work. It’ll never stop.

While, for the most part, I agree with you (I stated as much in the reply above yours), it shouldn’t stop us from trying to educate. But yes, it is a Sisyphean task…

[ssj1236]

Your intentions are clearly good with this topic, but it is overly lengthy for people who want to ‘mek sells.’

It’s against Fiverr’s ToS to messages a Seller for any reason other than to ask about conducting business with that Seller. No other explanation is required beyond that.

Small as I am, I’ve had a few people ask me for work. It’ll never stop.

While, for the most part, I agree with you (I stated as much in the reply above yours), it shouldn’t stop us from trying to educate. But yes, it is a Sisyphean task…

While, for the most part, I agree with you (I stated as much in the reply above yours), it shouldn’t stop us from trying to educate. But yes, it is a Sisyphean task…

Welp, you did try at least.

[raw_coder]

Thanks for sharing this. Very informative.

[eliasdawan]

well said & Thanks for giving this

[Guest uniquedesign9]

Thanks for sharing this tips and well said
Its really important and useful tips.

[theratypist]

So earlier today… (one of the many, but this is my favorite)

I immediately gave him the link to this post…hahaha.

Thank you for making this post! I find it a bit kinder that I send a link to this post instead of reporting them. hahaha. 😆

[chrimation]

Very helpful and useful post! Thank you very much

[jikidedel]

I feel guilty. Just a couple of hours ago out of my desperation, I messaged a few sellers if they could somehow help me find clients. I didn’t even know Fiverr had forums for this thing, and ironically enough, one of them introduced me here. And reading this post just makes me want to pity myself. Glad I didn’t get reported though because that would just absolutely suck. I hope Fiverr does something to introduce forums right off the bat for new users so that they don’t have to do this mistake ever again!

[catwriter]

I feel guilty. Just a couple of hours ago out of my desperation, I messaged a few sellers if they could somehow help me find clients. I didn’t even know Fiverr had forums for this thing, and ironically enough, one of them introduced me here. And reading this post just makes me want to pity myself. Glad I didn’t get reported though because that would just absolutely suck. I hope Fiverr does something to introduce forums right off the bat for new users so that they don’t have to do this mistake ever again!

I hope Fiverr does something to introduce forums right off the bat for new users so that they don’t have to do this mistake ever again!

Forum is mentioned in Fiverr’s Terms of Service, and all new users are required to check the box stating that they have read the terms and are agreeing to them.

What’s more, in Fiverr’s ToS is stated: “Please respect our members privacy by not contacting them with offers, questions, suggestions or anything which is not directly related to their Gigs or orders.”

In other words, by contacting other sellers to ask for work, help with clients, or anything not related to buying from them, you are violating the rules, and can get permanently banned for that.

[jeremyc1992]

I love your canned response! I need to craft my own to have ready for times like these.

I am a new seller and this just happened to me this morning. I was so excited to get my first message and I even went out of my way to reply back, but they ended up asking me to help them get work and in return they would do the same for me. They insisted we move our discussion over to Google Hangouts.

Here’s what I said to them:
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you unless we conduct business on Fiverr. I’m not interested in doing anything off the books or anything that violates Fiverr’s Terms of Service. But if your request is legitimate, I’d be happy to continue our discussion here.”

They left me their email and said if I ever wanted to “take them up on their offer” to reach out.

Should I report this? I didn’t see an option to do that from the app.

[mumtahina_suha]

Thanks for sharing your helpful tips.

[catwriter]

I love your canned response! I need to craft my own to have ready for times like these.

I am a new seller and this just happened to me this morning. I was so excited to get my first message and I even went out of my way to reply back, but they ended up asking me to help them get work and in return they would do the same for me. They insisted we move our discussion over to Google Hangouts.

Here’s what I said to them:

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you unless we conduct business on Fiverr. I’m not interested in doing anything off the books or anything that violates Fiverr’s Terms of Service. But if your request is legitimate, I’d be happy to continue our discussion here.”

They left me their email and said if I ever wanted to “take them up on their offer” to reach out.

Should I report this? I didn’t see an option to do that from the app.

Should I report this? I didn’t see an option to do that from the app.

You should be able to report it from the desktop version of the site.

The app is good for quick messages, but I wouldn’t use it for any kind of serious business.

[hmmuhith]

Thanks for your great suggestion 🙂