How Did You Sell Your 1st Gig?

[cicisdataentry]

As a Fiverr noob, acquiring gigs seems nearly impossible. I say NEARLY because I know that I’ll have the first gig under my belt eventually. Until then, I’m wondering how some seasoned sellers who have been a part of the community for a lot longer ended up selling their first gig. Seems a lot more fun than going the route of outright asking how to sell your first gig since I’m sure it varies person-to-person.

I look forward to your responses and hope to gather some tips from hearing more about your journeys. Thanks!

[silkroute]

This is my second stint on Fiverr, I was active on Fiverr 3 years ago when I was in college, so my first gig was technically many years ago. Anyway, here’s what I observed :

Unconventional gigs get more orders
In this case, conventional would mean people offering content writing, web designing related gigs. Unconventional can be something like voiceover, video advertising and so on. The former has very saturated competition, the latter has lesser competition so the frequency of orders is more.

First order takes time
It’s normal to have a dry spell of at least a month before you get your first order. Once you start delivering, it takes off from there.

Use buyer requests extensively
Don’t send cookie cutter messages to buyer requests. If they have mentioned specific requirements, tell them what you are going to do and how soon you will deliver. Turnaround time could be the ice breaker which sets you apart from other established sellers. The established sellers take longer to deliver since they have more orders, so use this to your advantage and hardsell yourself. I make it a point to always mention that the order shall be delivered within 12 hours of ordering. In case you are a VA, then you can mention that you are available at prompt notice, or that you are a native English speaker or that you are in the same time zonee as the potential employer so you can sync your work timings.

Use paid advertising
You can use Facebook ads or ads on other personal blogs to get more pageviews for your gig.

Use offline networking
Yup, whenever you are out there, you can use Fiverr as your preferred payment gateway instead of getting direct clients with Pyapal, you can simply use Fiverr instead. That way, you can have customer reviews show up on a public profile. Is it worth it to give 20% commission to Fiverr? you decide. Once you build your portfolio with lots of reviews on Fiverr, you will start attracting more organic orders from Fiverr and it will all seem worth it. Think of the 20% cut as the advertising fee you pay to have access to the massive Fiverr marketplace. If you have other clients which you acquired from other sources, simply ask them to buy your services through Fiverr. Use Fiverr custom offers extensively.

There is no formula, like all things in life, put your best leg forward and forget the rest because we have no control over whether someone orders or not.