Four years today as a forum member - The highs and lows of my time on Fiverr

[eoinfinnegan]

Wow, scary how time flies when you are having fun.
Four years ago I had just begun selling on Fiverr having been a buyer for a couple of months. My gigs then were mainly just fun things and my idea was to find a place for a bit of pocket money doing things that were my hobby. I offered things like giving frank opinions on things, jokes for any occasion and things along those lines. I hadn’t considered the idea that Fiverr could be a good stream of clients for the services I actually offered offline.

Then I came to the forum and found a community of people offering professional services and I needed to find out more and figure out how I could add Fiverr as a proper income stream. It was then I found this post by JamesBulls (note the post is old so some things may be outdated and the post itself was cut-off when the forum changed platform) and realized that perhaps my attitude to Fiverr had to change if I was to get anywhere.

Attitude Change

I stopped viewing Fiverr as a just-for-fun place and looked at how I could make gigs that were offering something useful and that tied in with my off-Fiverr services. I’m not going to go into detail on those as I have before and there are many great tip posts already out there but suffice to say it took days to work out what to offer, pricing, etc.

Giving back

Because I had learned so much on the forum through reading I decided to begin writing some tips on things I knew about that would help people. That’s what a community like this is supposed to be like, you take what don’t know and add what you do know so others can be helped. It was a great moment for me when the guy whose post had helped me, JamesBulls, commented on some of my posts expressing how they were helping him and when I was able to offer him specific help on some things!

Everything in Moderation

I began to spend a lot of time on the forum, reading new info and writing responses to others and then was asked if I would be interested in helping out on the Forum Moderation team. I said yes, not really knowing what I was getting into but was delighted to get to know the Mods better and to be involved in ensuring the forum continued to be the great resource it was intended to be.
What you may not know about being a moderator is that it takes a huge amount of time and decisions made by moderators are carefully considered and discussed among the team. There’s no place for self-interest or prima donna-ing. It’s a lot of reading, editing, assessing and discussing which is unseen by other members and largely unrecognized, even by Fiverr. Here is where I would like to give a big shout-out to the long serving mods @fonthaunt and @annai80 who have probably had the biggest roles in making the forum what it is having been mods before I arrived and still committed to their roles today. The forum gets millions of views and has so many readers and contributors! It really is a credit to their commitment and that of the newer mods too.

Growing on Fiverr and moving up the levels

During my time on Fiverr, I was promoted to Level 2 as quickly as was possible. I then got to a point (late in year 2) where Fiverr was my biggest income stream and this continued to be the case for a year or so. With all the changes Fiverr implemented along the way, I saw improvements and the potential to take advantage of the new options (packages) and then with the introduction of Pro I realized that I was still of the mentality that Fiverr was a low budget platform. In a way it still is for many but there are also many buyers who are prepared to pay the correct going rates for quality work and good customer experience.
It was around then I introduced my consultation gigs for SEO and Marketing and that’s when things really took off. I put systems in place that made it possible to offer high-quality at a premium price as well as increase recurring clients who were each paying a considerable amount per month. Last year I got promoted to TRS and things continued to go well. It didn’t make a massive difference to sales or anything like that but it was still nice to have.

Eye off the ball

Late last year I had a few personal things going on (some good, some bad) and was so busy with orders that I couldn’t keep everything going. I was worn out and had issues to deal with. Work was always done but looking back, I see now that the quality suffered a little and my on-time deliveries went down. I had been neglecting my mod duties too and eventually agreed that I would stop modding until things calmed a bit and got back on track.
It was then I lost TRS due to being at 89% on-time deliveries on St. Level’s Day (evaluation day) although I had it back at 91% a couple of hours later! This should have been a wake-up call but I had other things going on and I focused on those instead, which in hindsight was still the right thing to do - it just ended up costing me level 2 and then level 1 which I still haven’t got back!

The Wake up Call

The wake up call finally came when two long term clients said they weren’t going to order again due to me having become less communicative. These were both clients I had been dealing with for over a year and that gave me in the region of $400/month between them. I couldn’t kid myself that I was managing everything any more and I had to apologize to them and told them to give me a couple of weeks to get back on top of things, which I did. I refocused, sorted out what needed to be sorted out personally and got back to keeping within my limits in terms of what I can manage. Both clients went to other sellers and bought there but after a couple of weeks, both came back and asked if I was ready to get going again. I was and I offered discounted services to both so I could prove things were back to how they were and even better. Both have again been ordering regularly ever since.
Since my levels went and during the time I lost focus, I really stopped getting many orders and messages from new clients. I relied on returning clients to keep my Fiverr income going.

To put it in perspective, a couple of months ago, my Fiverr income fell to around a sixth of what it had been! Thankfully that has been restored somewhat but I am still at around a third of what I was making at my Fiverr peak, so still some way to go.

Good to be back

A couple of months ago I began coming back to the forum more regularly again and began posting and reading again. It has been like a breath of fresh air in terms of my Fiverr work. Whether it is advice posts, rants, conversations or valid complaints about situations, the forum does offer the kind of support and encouragement that freelancers can’t really get anywhere else. I even missed the Mek-Sell posts although there seems to have been an increase lately so I will probably tire of them again soon 🙂

Future Plans

Since I got back to the forum I have been inspired again by some of the great posts from people. My plans are to do some major surgery on my gigs and add some new, more specific services to complement my consultation gigs. I have also started offering writing again which I have done on and off but that probably won’t last long as I was reminded of how irritating buyers of writing services can be… I like your services and you seem the best of the people I am talking to so if you do this order for $25 then I will order from you repeatedly and be a long term customer - the order value was $70.

In summary

It’s been a lot of ups and downs this past four years here and I am sure there’s plenty more to come but it has been great to have the forum community to share them and go through things with. So thanks to all of you for making the forum such a fun, insightful place and thanks to the mek-sells for being a constant source of entertainment too.

[lloydsolutions]

Wow, scary how time flies when you are having fun.

Four years ago I had just begun selling on Fiverr having been a buyer for a couple of months. My gigs then were mainly just fun things and my idea was to find a place for a bit of pocket money doing things that were my hobby. I offered things like giving frank opinions on things, jokes for any occasion and things along those lines. I hadn’t considered the idea that Fiverr could be a good stream of clients for the services I actually offered offline.

Then I came to the forum and found a community of people offering professional services and I needed to find out more and figure out how I could add Fiverr as a proper income stream. It was then I found this post by JamesBulls (note the post is old so some things may be outdated and the post itself was cut-off when the forum changed platform) and realized that perhaps my attitude to Fiverr had to change if I was to get anywhere.

Attitude Change

I stopped viewing Fiverr as a just-for-fun place and looked at how I could make gigs that were offering something useful and that tied in with my off-Fiverr services. I’m not going to go into detail on those as I have before and there are many great tip posts already out there but suffice to say it took days to work out what to offer, pricing, etc.

Giving back

Because I had learned so much on the forum through reading I decided to begin writing some tips on things I knew about that would help people. That’s what a community like this is supposed to be like, you take what don’t know and add what you do know so others can be helped. It was a great moment for me when the guy whose post had helped me, JamesBulls, commented on some of my posts expressing how they were helping him and when I was able to offer him specific help on some things!

Everything in Moderation

I began to spend a lot of time on the forum, reading new info and writing responses to others and then was asked if I would be interested in helping out on the Forum Moderation team. I said yes, not really knowing what I was getting into but was delighted to get to know the Mods better and to be involved in ensuring the forum continued to be the great resource it was intended to be.

What you may not know about being a moderator is that it takes a huge amount of time and decisions made by moderators are carefully considered and discussed among the team. There’s no place for self-interest or prima donna-ing. It’s a lot of reading, editing, assessing and discussing which is unseen by other members and largely unrecognized, even by Fiverr. Here is where I would like to give a big shout-out to the long serving mods @fonthaunt and @annai80 who have probably had the biggest roles in making the forum what it is having been mods before I arrived and still committed to their roles today. The forum gets millions of views and has so many readers and contributors! It really is a credit to their commitment and that of the newer mods too.

Growing on Fiverr and moving up the levels

During my time on Fiverr, I was promoted to Level 2 as quickly as was possible. I then got to a point (late in year 2) where Fiverr was my biggest income stream and this continued to be the case for a year or so. With all the changes Fiverr implemented along the way, I saw improvements and the potential to take advantage of the new options (packages) and then with the introduction of Pro I realized that I was still of the mentality that Fiverr was a low budget platform. In a way it still is for many but there are also many buyers who are prepared to pay the correct going rates for quality work and good customer experience.

It was around then I introduced my consultation gigs for SEO and Marketing and that’s when things really took off. I put systems in place that made it possible to offer high-quality at a premium price as well as increase recurring clients who were each paying a considerable amount per month. Last year I got promoted to TRS and things continued to go well. It didn’t make a massive difference to sales or anything like that but it was still nice to have.

Eye off the ball

Late last year I had a few personal things going on (some good, some bad) and was so busy with orders that I couldn’t keep everything going. I was worn out and had issues to deal with. Work was always done but looking back, I see now that the quality suffered a little and my on-time deliveries went down. I had been neglecting my mod duties too and eventually agreed that I would stop modding until things calmed a bit and got back on track.

It was then I lost TRS due to being at 89% on-time deliveries on St. Level’s Day (evaluation day) although I had it back at 91% a couple of hours later! This should have been a wake-up call but I had other things going on and I focused on those instead, which in hindsight was still the right thing to do - it just ended up costing me level 2 and then level 1 which I still haven’t got back!

The Wake up Call

The wake up call finally came when two long term clients said they weren’t going to order again due to me having become less communicative. These were both clients I had been dealing with for over a year and that gave me in the region of $400/month between them. I couldn’t kid myself that I was managing everything any more and I had to apologize to them and told them to give me a couple of weeks to get back on top of things, which I did. I refocused, sorted out what needed to be sorted out personally and got back to keeping within my limits in terms of what I can manage. Both clients went to other sellers and bought there but after a couple of weeks, both came back and asked if I was ready to get going again. I was and I offered discounted services to both so I could prove things were back to how they were and even better. Both have again been ordering regularly ever since.

Since my levels went and during the time I lost focus, I really stopped getting many orders and messages from new clients. I relied on returning clients to keep my Fiverr income going.

To put it in perspective, a couple of months ago, my Fiverr income fell to around a sixth of what it had been! Thankfully that has been restored somewhat but I am still at around a third of what I was making at my Fiverr peak, so still some way to go.

Good to be back

A couple of months ago I began coming back to the forum more regularly again and began posting and reading again. It has been like a breath of fresh air in terms of my Fiverr work. Whether it is advice posts, rants, conversations or valid complaints about situations, the forum does offer the kind of support and encouragement that freelancers can’t really get anywhere else. I even missed the Mek-Sell posts although there seems to have been an increase lately so I will probably tire of them again soon 🙂

Future Plans

Since I got back to the forum I have been inspired again by some of the great posts from people. My plans are to do some major surgery on my gigs and add some new, more specific services to complement my consultation gigs. I have also started offering writing again which I have done on and off but that probably won’t last long as I was reminded of how irritating buyers of writing services can be… I like your services and you seem the best of the people I am talking to so if you do this order for $25 then I will order from you repeatedly and be a long term customer - the order value was $70.

In summary

It’s been a lot of ups and downs this past four years here and I am sure there’s plenty more to come but it has been great to have the forum community to share them and go through things with. So thanks to all of you for making the forum such a fun, insightful place and thanks to the mek-sells for being a constant source of entertainment too.

A couple of months ago I began coming back to the forum more regularly again and began posting and reading again.

Happy forum anniversary. Great to have you back! 🙂

[miiila]

It is scary! I hardly realized I’m here for three years already. However, being somewhere for a while has its good sides, and one of them definitely is seeing more of someone again whom you missed seeing around. Love the post, and happy forum anniversary, Eoin.

[cyaxrex]

Wow, scary how time flies when you are having fun.

Four years ago I had just begun selling on Fiverr having been a buyer for a couple of months. My gigs then were mainly just fun things and my idea was to find a place for a bit of pocket money doing things that were my hobby. I offered things like giving frank opinions on things, jokes for any occasion and things along those lines. I hadn’t considered the idea that Fiverr could be a good stream of clients for the services I actually offered offline.

Then I came to the forum and found a community of people offering professional services and I needed to find out more and figure out how I could add Fiverr as a proper income stream. It was then I found this post by JamesBulls (note the post is old so some things may be outdated and the post itself was cut-off when the forum changed platform) and realized that perhaps my attitude to Fiverr had to change if I was to get anywhere.

Attitude Change

I stopped viewing Fiverr as a just-for-fun place and looked at how I could make gigs that were offering something useful and that tied in with my off-Fiverr services. I’m not going to go into detail on those as I have before and there are many great tip posts already out there but suffice to say it took days to work out what to offer, pricing, etc.

Giving back

Because I had learned so much on the forum through reading I decided to begin writing some tips on things I knew about that would help people. That’s what a community like this is supposed to be like, you take what don’t know and add what you do know so others can be helped. It was a great moment for me when the guy whose post had helped me, JamesBulls, commented on some of my posts expressing how they were helping him and when I was able to offer him specific help on some things!

Everything in Moderation

I began to spend a lot of time on the forum, reading new info and writing responses to others and then was asked if I would be interested in helping out on the Forum Moderation team. I said yes, not really knowing what I was getting into but was delighted to get to know the Mods better and to be involved in ensuring the forum continued to be the great resource it was intended to be.

What you may not know about being a moderator is that it takes a huge amount of time and decisions made by moderators are carefully considered and discussed among the team. There’s no place for self-interest or prima donna-ing. It’s a lot of reading, editing, assessing and discussing which is unseen by other members and largely unrecognized, even by Fiverr. Here is where I would like to give a big shout-out to the long serving mods @fonthaunt and @annai80 who have probably had the biggest roles in making the forum what it is having been mods before I arrived and still committed to their roles today. The forum gets millions of views and has so many readers and contributors! It really is a credit to their commitment and that of the newer mods too.

Growing on Fiverr and moving up the levels

During my time on Fiverr, I was promoted to Level 2 as quickly as was possible. I then got to a point (late in year 2) where Fiverr was my biggest income stream and this continued to be the case for a year or so. With all the changes Fiverr implemented along the way, I saw improvements and the potential to take advantage of the new options (packages) and then with the introduction of Pro I realized that I was still of the mentality that Fiverr was a low budget platform. In a way it still is for many but there are also many buyers who are prepared to pay the correct going rates for quality work and good customer experience.

It was around then I introduced my consultation gigs for SEO and Marketing and that’s when things really took off. I put systems in place that made it possible to offer high-quality at a premium price as well as increase recurring clients who were each paying a considerable amount per month. Last year I got promoted to TRS and things continued to go well. It didn’t make a massive difference to sales or anything like that but it was still nice to have.

Eye off the ball

Late last year I had a few personal things going on (some good, some bad) and was so busy with orders that I couldn’t keep everything going. I was worn out and had issues to deal with. Work was always done but looking back, I see now that the quality suffered a little and my on-time deliveries went down. I had been neglecting my mod duties too and eventually agreed that I would stop modding until things calmed a bit and got back on track.

It was then I lost TRS due to being at 89% on-time deliveries on St. Level’s Day (evaluation day) although I had it back at 91% a couple of hours later! This should have been a wake-up call but I had other things going on and I focused on those instead, which in hindsight was still the right thing to do - it just ended up costing me level 2 and then level 1 which I still haven’t got back!

The Wake up Call

The wake up call finally came when two long term clients said they weren’t going to order again due to me having become less communicative. These were both clients I had been dealing with for over a year and that gave me in the region of $400/month between them. I couldn’t kid myself that I was managing everything any more and I had to apologize to them and told them to give me a couple of weeks to get back on top of things, which I did. I refocused, sorted out what needed to be sorted out personally and got back to keeping within my limits in terms of what I can manage. Both clients went to other sellers and bought there but after a couple of weeks, both came back and asked if I was ready to get going again. I was and I offered discounted services to both so I could prove things were back to how they were and even better. Both have again been ordering regularly ever since.

Since my levels went and during the time I lost focus, I really stopped getting many orders and messages from new clients. I relied on returning clients to keep my Fiverr income going.

To put it in perspective, a couple of months ago, my Fiverr income fell to around a sixth of what it had been! Thankfully that has been restored somewhat but I am still at around a third of what I was making at my Fiverr peak, so still some way to go.

Good to be back

A couple of months ago I began coming back to the forum more regularly again and began posting and reading again. It has been like a breath of fresh air in terms of my Fiverr work. Whether it is advice posts, rants, conversations or valid complaints about situations, the forum does offer the kind of support and encouragement that freelancers can’t really get anywhere else. I even missed the Mek-Sell posts although there seems to have been an increase lately so I will probably tire of them again soon 🙂

Future Plans

Since I got back to the forum I have been inspired again by some of the great posts from people. My plans are to do some major surgery on my gigs and add some new, more specific services to complement my consultation gigs. I have also started offering writing again which I have done on and off but that probably won’t last long as I was reminded of how irritating buyers of writing services can be… I like your services and you seem the best of the people I am talking to so if you do this order for $25 then I will order from you repeatedly and be a long term customer - the order value was $70.

In summary

It’s been a lot of ups and downs this past four years here and I am sure there’s plenty more to come but it has been great to have the forum community to share them and go through things with. So thanks to all of you for making the forum such a fun, insightful place and thanks to the mek-sells for being a constant source of entertainment too.

These were both clients I had been dealing with for over a year and that gave me in the region of $400/month between them.

Personally, I’d let them go, then let them crawl back when they can’t find better for the same price. Usually works for me. It is also important to keep a communicative distance with some buyers. I have laid down the law a few times now and told people that ordering from me regularly is not the same as me being their employee/part of their team.

(That sounds rude, but it was necessary.)

I have also started offering writing again which I have done on and off but that probably won’t last long as I was reminded of how irritating buyers of writing services can be…

To be honest, I wouldn’t offer writing if I was just starting out on Fiverr. It’s too late now. However, I find it way less stressful working on a few newer platforms where the set up is completely different. That said, with a $25 price tag, you may avoid the grabs and insensible literary screams of most mek-buyers.

It’s been a lot of ups and downs this past four years here and I am sure there’s plenty more to come

Four years… That’s about the same time I’ve been here. Thinking about it, it’s slightly terrifying how much longer it feels. :thinking:

[qbo_xero_pro]

Best of luck for the future @eoinfinnegan

[vickiespencer]

Wow, scary how time flies when you are having fun.

Four years ago I had just begun selling on Fiverr having been a buyer for a couple of months. My gigs then were mainly just fun things and my idea was to find a place for a bit of pocket money doing things that were my hobby. I offered things like giving frank opinions on things, jokes for any occasion and things along those lines. I hadn’t considered the idea that Fiverr could be a good stream of clients for the services I actually offered offline.

Then I came to the forum and found a community of people offering professional services and I needed to find out more and figure out how I could add Fiverr as a proper income stream. It was then I found this post by JamesBulls (note the post is old so some things may be outdated and the post itself was cut-off when the forum changed platform) and realized that perhaps my attitude to Fiverr had to change if I was to get anywhere.

Attitude Change

I stopped viewing Fiverr as a just-for-fun place and looked at how I could make gigs that were offering something useful and that tied in with my off-Fiverr services. I’m not going to go into detail on those as I have before and there are many great tip posts already out there but suffice to say it took days to work out what to offer, pricing, etc.

Giving back

Because I had learned so much on the forum through reading I decided to begin writing some tips on things I knew about that would help people. That’s what a community like this is supposed to be like, you take what don’t know and add what you do know so others can be helped. It was a great moment for me when the guy whose post had helped me, JamesBulls, commented on some of my posts expressing how they were helping him and when I was able to offer him specific help on some things!

Everything in Moderation

I began to spend a lot of time on the forum, reading new info and writing responses to others and then was asked if I would be interested in helping out on the Forum Moderation team. I said yes, not really knowing what I was getting into but was delighted to get to know the Mods better and to be involved in ensuring the forum continued to be the great resource it was intended to be.

What you may not know about being a moderator is that it takes a huge amount of time and decisions made by moderators are carefully considered and discussed among the team. There’s no place for self-interest or prima donna-ing. It’s a lot of reading, editing, assessing and discussing which is unseen by other members and largely unrecognized, even by Fiverr. Here is where I would like to give a big shout-out to the long serving mods @fonthaunt and @annai80 who have probably had the biggest roles in making the forum what it is having been mods before I arrived and still committed to their roles today. The forum gets millions of views and has so many readers and contributors! It really is a credit to their commitment and that of the newer mods too.

Growing on Fiverr and moving up the levels

During my time on Fiverr, I was promoted to Level 2 as quickly as was possible. I then got to a point (late in year 2) where Fiverr was my biggest income stream and this continued to be the case for a year or so. With all the changes Fiverr implemented along the way, I saw improvements and the potential to take advantage of the new options (packages) and then with the introduction of Pro I realized that I was still of the mentality that Fiverr was a low budget platform. In a way it still is for many but there are also many buyers who are prepared to pay the correct going rates for quality work and good customer experience.

It was around then I introduced my consultation gigs for SEO and Marketing and that’s when things really took off. I put systems in place that made it possible to offer high-quality at a premium price as well as increase recurring clients who were each paying a considerable amount per month. Last year I got promoted to TRS and things continued to go well. It didn’t make a massive difference to sales or anything like that but it was still nice to have.

Eye off the ball

Late last year I had a few personal things going on (some good, some bad) and was so busy with orders that I couldn’t keep everything going. I was worn out and had issues to deal with. Work was always done but looking back, I see now that the quality suffered a little and my on-time deliveries went down. I had been neglecting my mod duties too and eventually agreed that I would stop modding until things calmed a bit and got back on track.

It was then I lost TRS due to being at 89% on-time deliveries on St. Level’s Day (evaluation day) although I had it back at 91% a couple of hours later! This should have been a wake-up call but I had other things going on and I focused on those instead, which in hindsight was still the right thing to do - it just ended up costing me level 2 and then level 1 which I still haven’t got back!

The Wake up Call

The wake up call finally came when two long term clients said they weren’t going to order again due to me having become less communicative. These were both clients I had been dealing with for over a year and that gave me in the region of $400/month between them. I couldn’t kid myself that I was managing everything any more and I had to apologize to them and told them to give me a couple of weeks to get back on top of things, which I did. I refocused, sorted out what needed to be sorted out personally and got back to keeping within my limits in terms of what I can manage. Both clients went to other sellers and bought there but after a couple of weeks, both came back and asked if I was ready to get going again. I was and I offered discounted services to both so I could prove things were back to how they were and even better. Both have again been ordering regularly ever since.

Since my levels went and during the time I lost focus, I really stopped getting many orders and messages from new clients. I relied on returning clients to keep my Fiverr income going.

To put it in perspective, a couple of months ago, my Fiverr income fell to around a sixth of what it had been! Thankfully that has been restored somewhat but I am still at around a third of what I was making at my Fiverr peak, so still some way to go.

Good to be back

A couple of months ago I began coming back to the forum more regularly again and began posting and reading again. It has been like a breath of fresh air in terms of my Fiverr work. Whether it is advice posts, rants, conversations or valid complaints about situations, the forum does offer the kind of support and encouragement that freelancers can’t really get anywhere else. I even missed the Mek-Sell posts although there seems to have been an increase lately so I will probably tire of them again soon 🙂

Future Plans

Since I got back to the forum I have been inspired again by some of the great posts from people. My plans are to do some major surgery on my gigs and add some new, more specific services to complement my consultation gigs. I have also started offering writing again which I have done on and off but that probably won’t last long as I was reminded of how irritating buyers of writing services can be… I like your services and you seem the best of the people I am talking to so if you do this order for $25 then I will order from you repeatedly and be a long term customer - the order value was $70.

In summary

It’s been a lot of ups and downs this past four years here and I am sure there’s plenty more to come but it has been great to have the forum community to share them and go through things with. So thanks to all of you for making the forum such a fun, insightful place and thanks to the mek-sells for being a constant source of entertainment too.

A couple of months ago I began coming back to the forum more regularly again and began posting and reading again.

I, for one, am so glad you did. Like @miiila, I missed you.

Personally, I’d let them go, then let them crawl back when they can’t find better for the same price.

Ahh, Andy, this is so you. 😉

Happy Forum Anniversary, Eoin. 🍰

[silberma1976]

Great, insightful share! It is nice to see how things are a Journey and on a continuum. So many want to get to a destination of TRS with full -time income, and to see how life happens, and things ebb and flow is a really great reminder to look at the long term perspective.

[sldesign937]

anniversary best wishes.🍰

[eoinfinnegan]

These were both clients I had been dealing with for over a year and that gave me in the region of $400/month between them.

Personally, I’d let them go, then let them crawl back when they can’t find better for the same price. Usually works for me. It is also important to keep a communicative distance with some buyers. I have laid down the law a few times now and told people that ordering from me regularly is not the same as me being their employee/part of their team.

(That sounds rude, but it was necessary.)

I have also started offering writing again which I have done on and off but that probably won’t last long as I was reminded of how irritating buyers of writing services can be…

To be honest, I wouldn’t offer writing if I was just starting out on Fiverr. It’s too late now. However, I find it way less stressful working on a few newer platforms where the set up is completely different. That said, with a $25 price tag, you may avoid the grabs and insensible literary screams of most mek-buyers.

It’s been a lot of ups and downs this past four years here and I am sure there’s plenty more to come

Four years… That’s about the same time I’ve been here. Thinking about it, it’s slightly terrifying how much longer it feels. :thinking:

I’d let them go, then let them crawl back when they can’t find better for the same price

Both did come back, one had gone for a pro for a higher price and then paid me to undo what he had done. He also paid me to block visitors from a certain country because he kept getting site visits and site messages from a guy the Pro seller had outsourced to…

I wouldn’t offer writing if I was just starting out on Fiverr.

I probably won’t keep it up but I am doing a lot of it for a number of clients so it seemed strange not to have a gig for it.

look at the long term perspective

Yeah, while I would prefer to have TRS status than not to, I am not going to build my life around trying to get it. This isn’t a lack of ambition, it’s a sign of priorities.

Thanks all for the well wishes!

[arcticdesigner]

Stories like this make me realize how much I need to improve in my positivity to get where I need to get. 🙂 Happy Anniversary and thanks for sharing this with us.

[ssj1236]

I’m just happy to know that you’re doing good. You’re an inspiration for us all.

[gig_freak]

@eoinfinnegan - Indeed, time flies. I remember being one of the meksel people here. If it weren’t for you and other friendly and helpful people like @woofy31, Lorna (no longer on Fiverr), Writer (which is no longer on Fiverr), @cyaxrex and many others - I would have been a meksell till this day… Also, I miss the old forum days, when we discussed many helpful things. 🙂

[eoinfinnegan]

@eoinfinnegan - Indeed, time flies. I remember being one of the meksel people here. If it weren’t for you and other friendly and helpful people like @woofy31, Lorna (no longer on Fiverr), Writer (which is no longer on Fiverr), @cyaxrex and many others - I would have been a meksell till this day… Also, I miss the old forum days, when we discussed many helpful things. 🙂

Oh stoppit you!

I would have been a meksell till this day

You were never a mek-sell, you listened when people gave you advice and had actual valuable skills to offer!

[misscrystal]

@eoinfinnegan - Indeed, time flies. I remember being one of the meksel people here. If it weren’t for you and other friendly and helpful people like @woofy31, Lorna (no longer on Fiverr), Writer (which is no longer on Fiverr), @cyaxrex and many others - I would have been a meksell till this day… Also, I miss the old forum days, when we discussed many helpful things. 🙂

Hi, I was just browsing through the things you have done for your clients and I’m very impressed. It’s all very excellent. Nice to see you here again.

[designinglorri]

Hello! I’m brand new to the forum. I’ve been using Fiverr for a few months, only one order. I was curious to see if success using this platform was something realistic. Glad to hear your tale of ups and downs with Fiverr to see another perspective.

[jakia_sultana]

@eoinfinnegan
Happy 4th anniversary to you on fiverr forum. 🙂

[eseandre]

This was refreshing to read and you have shared some germs here that will help others so keep up the good work and keep sharing

[geshkhou11]

awesome… best wishes

[mohdaamiraziz]

Congrats! :star_struck: I’m so happy to see you successful here, and thanks for sharing your valuable experience with us.

[apuchakraborty]

Good Luck @eoinfinnegan

[fastcopywriter]

Wow, scary how time flies when you are having fun.

Four years ago I had just begun selling on Fiverr having been a buyer for a couple of months. My gigs then were mainly just fun things and my idea was to find a place for a bit of pocket money doing things that were my hobby. I offered things like giving frank opinions on things, jokes for any occasion and things along those lines. I hadn’t considered the idea that Fiverr could be a good stream of clients for the services I actually offered offline.

Then I came to the forum and found a community of people offering professional services and I needed to find out more and figure out how I could add Fiverr as a proper income stream. It was then I found this post by JamesBulls (note the post is old so some things may be outdated and the post itself was cut-off when the forum changed platform) and realized that perhaps my attitude to Fiverr had to change if I was to get anywhere.

Attitude Change

I stopped viewing Fiverr as a just-for-fun place and looked at how I could make gigs that were offering something useful and that tied in with my off-Fiverr services. I’m not going to go into detail on those as I have before and there are many great tip posts already out there but suffice to say it took days to work out what to offer, pricing, etc.

Giving back

Because I had learned so much on the forum through reading I decided to begin writing some tips on things I knew about that would help people. That’s what a community like this is supposed to be like, you take what don’t know and add what you do know so others can be helped. It was a great moment for me when the guy whose post had helped me, JamesBulls, commented on some of my posts expressing how they were helping him and when I was able to offer him specific help on some things!

Everything in Moderation

I began to spend a lot of time on the forum, reading new info and writing responses to others and then was asked if I would be interested in helping out on the Forum Moderation team. I said yes, not really knowing what I was getting into but was delighted to get to know the Mods better and to be involved in ensuring the forum continued to be the great resource it was intended to be.

What you may not know about being a moderator is that it takes a huge amount of time and decisions made by moderators are carefully considered and discussed among the team. There’s no place for self-interest or prima donna-ing. It’s a lot of reading, editing, assessing and discussing which is unseen by other members and largely unrecognized, even by Fiverr. Here is where I would like to give a big shout-out to the long serving mods @fonthaunt and @annai80 who have probably had the biggest roles in making the forum what it is having been mods before I arrived and still committed to their roles today. The forum gets millions of views and has so many readers and contributors! It really is a credit to their commitment and that of the newer mods too.

Growing on Fiverr and moving up the levels

During my time on Fiverr, I was promoted to Level 2 as quickly as was possible. I then got to a point (late in year 2) where Fiverr was my biggest income stream and this continued to be the case for a year or so. With all the changes Fiverr implemented along the way, I saw improvements and the potential to take advantage of the new options (packages) and then with the introduction of Pro I realized that I was still of the mentality that Fiverr was a low budget platform. In a way it still is for many but there are also many buyers who are prepared to pay the correct going rates for quality work and good customer experience.

It was around then I introduced my consultation gigs for SEO and Marketing and that’s when things really took off. I put systems in place that made it possible to offer high-quality at a premium price as well as increase recurring clients who were each paying a considerable amount per month. Last year I got promoted to TRS and things continued to go well. It didn’t make a massive difference to sales or anything like that but it was still nice to have.

Eye off the ball

Late last year I had a few personal things going on (some good, some bad) and was so busy with orders that I couldn’t keep everything going. I was worn out and had issues to deal with. Work was always done but looking back, I see now that the quality suffered a little and my on-time deliveries went down. I had been neglecting my mod duties too and eventually agreed that I would stop modding until things calmed a bit and got back on track.

It was then I lost TRS due to being at 89% on-time deliveries on St. Level’s Day (evaluation day) although I had it back at 91% a couple of hours later! This should have been a wake-up call but I had other things going on and I focused on those instead, which in hindsight was still the right thing to do - it just ended up costing me level 2 and then level 1 which I still haven’t got back!

The Wake up Call

The wake up call finally came when two long term clients said they weren’t going to order again due to me having become less communicative. These were both clients I had been dealing with for over a year and that gave me in the region of $400/month between them. I couldn’t kid myself that I was managing everything any more and I had to apologize to them and told them to give me a couple of weeks to get back on top of things, which I did. I refocused, sorted out what needed to be sorted out personally and got back to keeping within my limits in terms of what I can manage. Both clients went to other sellers and bought there but after a couple of weeks, both came back and asked if I was ready to get going again. I was and I offered discounted services to both so I could prove things were back to how they were and even better. Both have again been ordering regularly ever since.

Since my levels went and during the time I lost focus, I really stopped getting many orders and messages from new clients. I relied on returning clients to keep my Fiverr income going.

To put it in perspective, a couple of months ago, my Fiverr income fell to around a sixth of what it had been! Thankfully that has been restored somewhat but I am still at around a third of what I was making at my Fiverr peak, so still some way to go.

Good to be back

A couple of months ago I began coming back to the forum more regularly again and began posting and reading again. It has been like a breath of fresh air in terms of my Fiverr work. Whether it is advice posts, rants, conversations or valid complaints about situations, the forum does offer the kind of support and encouragement that freelancers can’t really get anywhere else. I even missed the Mek-Sell posts although there seems to have been an increase lately so I will probably tire of them again soon 🙂

Future Plans

Since I got back to the forum I have been inspired again by some of the great posts from people. My plans are to do some major surgery on my gigs and add some new, more specific services to complement my consultation gigs. I have also started offering writing again which I have done on and off but that probably won’t last long as I was reminded of how irritating buyers of writing services can be… I like your services and you seem the best of the people I am talking to so if you do this order for $25 then I will order from you repeatedly and be a long term customer - the order value was $70.

In summary

It’s been a lot of ups and downs this past four years here and I am sure there’s plenty more to come but it has been great to have the forum community to share them and go through things with. So thanks to all of you for making the forum such a fun, insightful place and thanks to the mek-sells for being a constant source of entertainment too.

I lost TRS due to being at 89% on-time deliveries on St. Level’s Day (evaluation day) although I had it back at 91% a couple of hours later!

I had no idea. Promotions to TRS aren’t automatic, and yet demotions are.

two long term clients said they weren’t going to order again due to me having become less communicative.

How much communication do they want?

“Hi, I need this and that”

“Hi, this are my prices, I’ve also attached examples of my work. If you like, feel free to order, thanks.”

I practice ABC: Always Be Closing. 🙂

[eoinfinnegan]

I lost TRS due to being at 89% on-time deliveries on St. Level’s Day (evaluation day) although I had it back at 91% a couple of hours later!

I had no idea. Promotions to TRS aren’t automatic, and yet demotions are.

two long term clients said they weren’t going to order again due to me having become less communicative.

How much communication do they want?

“Hi, I need this and that”

“Hi, this are my prices, I’ve also attached examples of my work. If you like, feel free to order, thanks.”

I practice ABC: Always Be Closing. 🙂

Promotions to TRS aren’t automatic, and yet demotions are

Yeah. To be fair, I had been hovering around the 90% mark so I really should have been more careful at that stage.

How much communication do they want?

Well these were month-long orders and they wanted updates etc as work went along. I had begun being less communicative than previously so they weren’t wrong to be questioning things. Both have since come back and placed multiple orders. One has recommended me to a friend of his who also now orders monthly so it all worked out in the end. In this case, I think they had reason to question me, although I repeat - the work was always done properly. I think that’s why they came back, when they saw the alternatives weren’t delivering what I do.

[cyaxrex]

Promotions to TRS aren’t automatic, and yet demotions are

Yeah. To be fair, I had been hovering around the 90% mark so I really should have been more careful at that stage.

How much communication do they want?

Well these were month-long orders and they wanted updates etc as work went along. I had begun being less communicative than previously so they weren’t wrong to be questioning things. Both have since come back and placed multiple orders. One has recommended me to a friend of his who also now orders monthly so it all worked out in the end. In this case, I think they had reason to question me, although I repeat - the work was always done properly. I think that’s why they came back, when they saw the alternatives weren’t delivering what I do.

I think that’s why they came back, when they saw the alternatives weren’t delivering what I do.

Modesty will be the death of you… 😉

I often find that people who ask to see samples later crawl back to me to order, even though I won’t give them any. Quite a few have pointed out that I have been correct in advising that asking for samples is a bad idea, In this case, I presume that riding their spending power horses into the mek-sell sunset doesn’t always end as well as they imagine it will.

I’m also of the opinion that good sellers on Fiverr are scarily few and far between. This year I bought several crypto articles from sellers priced between $5 and $50 to check out my competition. I wouldn’t have dared deliver what I got back.

[eoinfinnegan]

I think that’s why they came back, when they saw the alternatives weren’t delivering what I do.

Modesty will be the death of you… 😉

I often find that people who ask to see samples later crawl back to me to order, even though I won’t give them any. Quite a few have pointed out that I have been correct in advising that asking for samples is a bad idea, In this case, I presume that riding their spending power horses into the mek-sell sunset doesn’t always end as well as they imagine it will.

I’m also of the opinion that good sellers on Fiverr are scarily few and far between. This year I bought several crypto articles from sellers priced between $5 and $50 to check out my competition. I wouldn’t have dared deliver what I got back.

Modesty is great in general but if I was to be modest about my work compared to what they had got instead then I’d be downright lying!

I agree that getting reliable sellers is difficult and in writing in particular. I’ve done well with my purchases in that field to be fair but due to the downturn in work I’ve been getting I’ve tended toward doing that too rather than outsourcing any more.

[miiila]

I think that’s why they came back, when they saw the alternatives weren’t delivering what I do.

Modesty will be the death of you… 😉

I often find that people who ask to see samples later crawl back to me to order, even though I won’t give them any. Quite a few have pointed out that I have been correct in advising that asking for samples is a bad idea, In this case, I presume that riding their spending power horses into the mek-sell sunset doesn’t always end as well as they imagine it will.

I’m also of the opinion that good sellers on Fiverr are scarily few and far between. This year I bought several crypto articles from sellers priced between $5 and $50 to check out my competition. I wouldn’t have dared deliver what I got back.

I often find that people who ask to see samples later crawl back to me to order, even though I won’t give them any.

It almost seems they are harder to lose than people who didn’t ask for anything the like and whom you didn’t scare away at first by telling them sorry, privacy, and stuff …

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For Eoin

Bescheidenheit ist eine Zier, doch weiter kommt man ohne ihr. (old German proverb about modesty)