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Keeping a Flow of Orders to Avoid Both Late Deliveries and Dry Spells

eoinfinnegan

By eoinfinnegan
in Tips from Sellers

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eoinfinnegan Mentor

eoinfinnegan

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When I first began on Fiverr, I had times when I had no orders for days, then suddenly I would have 5 to be completed the next day! This could mean I was up all night to complete orders and it was not a great way to operate. I analysed what I was doing/doing wrong and came up with some solutions.

Before I begin with the solution, let me explain a valuable insight I have learned. If your gigs offer services that can sometimes be needed within a very short space of time then being available is very lucrative. I have had many orders where double or triple my usual price has been paid due to the order being required within a much shorter space of time than usual. Just this week I had two orders with a total of $175 EXTRA when I was available to do urgent work. Yes, I spent a couple more more hours working on that day than usual but it was worth it. I mention this as it ties in with the main topic of this post which is keeping a flow of orders.

For me, Monday/Tuesday is usually a time when I get lots of orders and messages. These two days usually set up my week of work. It used to be that I would be very busy all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then have little or nothing to do the rest of the week. Having looked carefully at this situation, I have come up with a number of ways to give me a little more time on the busy days and a little more work on the quiet days.

  1. Optimize your Gig Delivery Times:
    They need to be most effective for search and most comfortable for you. So, when setting the delivery time, look at how long you want to have to do it. When you decide this, look at the filters in the search section. For those who are searching, these filters are divided into 24 hrs, 2-3 days, up to 7 days and any. This means that if you set your delivery time to 3 days, it will show up just as much as if you select 2 days! Even more interesting is that if you think your gig will take 4 days, setting it as 7 days will not show up any less, giving you 3 extra days to do the work. Always mention that you may be able to do it quicker and ask them to contact you if necessary.

  2. Control the orders that you can control:
    When a client contacts you, find out when they need the order. If they don’t need it done in your usual delivery time, send a custom offer and add a day or two to it. Give yourself some space so you can accept urgent orders if they come. You can always do the work quickly if you have time but by giving yourself space, you have the opportunity to do other things.

  3. Know when your busy periods are:
    As mentioned, mine is Monday/Tuesday. I always aim to have my pending orders completed before this time. I am then free to work on these new orders as they come along.

  4. Never stop looking for your next jobs:
    I used to stop applying for jobs when I got busy and this contributed to the busy/quiet split of my week. Now, I spend time each day looking for jobs. Whether it is in the buyer requests or elsewhere, I will make sure to check if there are jobs I can do and then apply for them. This has led to more jobs (obviously) but also less quiet gaps in my week. Some buyers don’t look at their responses for days or weeks after they post them so this is a vital element in keeping the flow of work steady.

Although Monday/Tuesday is still my busiest time, by applying the methods above, I find that I can actually manage to work roughly regular hours each day. I am also available every day for any urgent orders that come up and these lucrative opportunities are well worth it.

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writer99025 Collaborator

writer99025

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I have never used Buyer Requests and don’t even know how they look like, except for reading about them on forum posts, but if you use them, they can’t be all that bad. Maybe you can write an educational post on Buyer Requests, something like a step-by-step guide. Many of us, even TRS, are newbies when it comes to them.

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eoinfinnegan Mentor

eoinfinnegan

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Really? That’s funny. There is a lot of rubbish in them and at times I am close to inserting a pen in my eyes because some of the requests are downright hideous. However, I get my biggest jobs there too. I know a few TRSs who said they didn’t use them but I don’t get enough work through search to keep me busy.

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magellon Explorer

magellon

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Interesting what you are saying @eoinfinnegan about the filters when setting up your delivery time, thanks for sharing that. Regarding the Buyer Requests, it is nowhere near to what it used to be a year or two back, then I could easily find my 10 interesting prospects within the first page or so, but now we have to go through pages and pages of spammers, or serious offers but asking for unrealistic amount of work for a budget of $5… and have already a dozen offers. How can you compete with that?

Okay, I am not saying that we shouldn’t go to the Buyer Requests, it is a gold mine as someone at Support told me recently, but I can say that it is much more time consuming than it used to be, and whenever I take the time to complete my 10 offers, I do get orders.

What puzzles me is that it doesn’t seem to have a control on what’s posted in the Buyer Requests, however, several times I posted offers to get some jobs done for me, to me they were totally ¨legal¨, but strangely they were all rejected, so there is a control, so why don’t they reject the spammers and scammers?

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eoinfinnegan Mentor

eoinfinnegan

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I would say that even 6-7 months ago when I started, the buyer request section was much better. Back then I would regularly run out of requests and be waiting til midnight so I could respond to more. Now I rarely use all of my requests or if I do it is because I have “used them before I lose them” on requests that I don’t expect to get.
I don’t understand how the filter for requests works. Some people complain they can’t post their website URL but I see plenty of them there. I can’t type certain words in messages without the red text of death warning me of impending doom, yet some buyers post requests asking people to contact them on s***e or full email addresses! It is quite bizarre.

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brandonmcfee Newbie

brandonmcfee

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Great post, thanks for sharing such helpful tips. But I think there’s one more important one which I’ve learned from actual work experience on Fiverr for more than 3 years. You have to know exactly when it’s OK to say “Sorry… I am currently under pressure and I am sure I won’t be able to deliver on time”. There’s nothing wrong in honesty. If you’re sure you won’t be able to deliver on time or you feel “bad vibes” towards a specific buyer, say “no thank you” in a decent and respectful way. Lots of buyers truly appreciate honesty and believe it or not, it may get you lots of order later! once, I apologized for a buyer on taking her order because I was under huge pressure and I didn’t want to deliver her order very late. She totally understood and respected my honesty and bookmarked my gig so she can easily contact me for work when I am available and we had a decent amount of work later 🙂
Thanks again for such informative post 🙂

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eoinfinnegan Mentor

eoinfinnegan

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Absolutely!
Saying no to an order you cannot do is much better than doing an order badly or late. You can also say no but then offer an alternative such as, “I can’t do that today but if it suits you, I can have it completed in 3 days time”. This often works as it shows real professionalism to turn down a job as well as showing that you are honest, busy and not desperate - all things a buyer wants to see in a seller so it is no surprise when you get these buyers coming back to you another time or adjusting their requirements.

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