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Re: how much is your budget? [Scheduled to Archive]


wordpress_luv

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As an American, I’m a Westerner. As an Asian, you are from the East. East and West are opposites, and often we think oppositely. In America, notifying a bidder of the budget range is a crime that sends you to prison. Not always of course, but often enough.



When your gig profile says you do this and that as a basic gig, and I contact you about it, asking about MY budget is waving a RED FLAG, like a Matador in a bull fight. So when I say “my client gives me $2,500/month for outsourcing” do not think you have any chance to get it. That is to save face, only. To answer your question without answering it.



We all know if I say my budget for that project is $75, we all know how much you will request. It’s best for you to tell us what is YOUR BUDGET to finish the opportunity presented. NEVER say you are only a middle man with “a team” who pays you for “business development”. We come to Fiverr for good deals, and your questions convince us that dealing with you is not a good deal for us.

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What are you talking about? You make it sound like most contractors are sitting around waiting for an opportunity from a prejudiced American. We have every right to request details of your proposed budget, and your refusal to reveal it would be HUGE red flag for me, as it would be for most, if not all contractors.

You are likely to request endless revisions and modifications to get a “good deal”, but in all fairness, I have many American clients, and all of them are honest, friendly, and considerate, so I guess you must be the exception.

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Reply to @wordpress_luv: The American way always wins out, right? However, why will you not spend the “$75” if you have it available? Is it your way of getting $75 worth of work for $5, so you can pat yourself on the back for having screwed over an Asian contractor?

As for your “proof of correctness”, I am a Westener myself, so we are not “opposites”. I am only opposed to your attitude.

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toutou123 said: I think that it makes sense to make it illegal to tell the bidder the budget.

That idea is idiotic at best.

What should be “illegal” is Buyers who say they have NO BUDGET because they are just trying to lowball on price and/or have no idea the market price of what they are asking for.

I ALWAYS ask for a budget upfront just to save the Buyer and myself a bunch of wasted time and energy.

Buyers ALWAYS HAVE A BUDGET and here is how I know.

BUYER - I love your work and want around 30 seconds of animation.

ANIGRAMS - Contact me with your budget, script and/or storyboards.

BUYER - I don’t have a script or budget since I am new to Fiverr and have no idea what this will cost.

ANIGRAMS - I will do a basic talking head 30 second animation with one of my existing 50 original characters on one of my original backgrounds if you provide the audio for $1200.

BUYER - WHAAAAT!!! $1200!!! I thought this was Fiverr?

ANIGRAMS - So we’ve now established that you budget is LESS THAN $1200… is that correct?

… and scene.

QED

Buyers don’t want to say what their budget is until you blow their mind with what things really cost.

If the Buyer had simply contacted me with a real Budget upfront the problem would solve itself.

BUYER - I love your work and want a 30 second of animation. I have a max budget of $400.

ANIGRAMS - Unfortunately there is nothing in the 30 second range I can do for $400. My rate is $60 per hour and the average 30 seconds spot you can see on my ANIGRAMS YouTube channel is at least 2 full days of work.

I would suggest you read you script out loud and time yourself to make sure it is actually 30 seconds. If you cut down the length of the script I may be able to help you.

Cheers,

Roy


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I never ask what’s the buyer’s budget. The buyers tell me what they need done, I tell them the price. That’s it. If they place the order, great. If they tell me that they don’t have that much, I politely advise them to look for a seller with prices better suited to their budget.

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As a buyer, when I need a service/product, online or offline, and the seller asks me for my budget, I just move on to the next provider.
I want the seller to tell me how he values his own work, as he’s the one doing it. It’s not that difficult: “my rate per hour is X, and to do the job I need Y hours”. I’ll then decide whether I find it fair or not, or whether can afford it or not.
What my budget is, only matters to me.

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I think there are many sides to this. I sometimes (not always) ask for the client’s budget range. This is not to alter my prices but to actually better understand what is available to them so I can outline what I can do within their proposed scale.

This is a bit like an estate agent/realtor. In the UK, you are asked your budget when looking at houses. The agent will usually show 3 types within that budget - the fixer upper, as close to budget as possible and the ‘dream’ over budget.

Knowing the budget allows me to outline different options going forward proposed on their resources. You may say, why not send through all options anyway? Well - why not show them to every single house on your books? It isn’t possible. I’m not going to write a full service proposal with 3 different options for someone who just wants to spend $5.

I think it’s about give & take and trust. Just because you may tell me $500 doesn’t mean I’m going to quote $500 but you need to trust me to mention that info - that’s where rating etc come into play to show themselves as more accredited.

If you were privately viewing a house, would you tell the seller your budget? Probably not. What makes this different to an agent? (they just relay your info anyway). It’s all about trust and perceived accreditation.

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I think there is no need to know buyers budget, unless he refuses to pay the amount you find fit and asks for discount… When something like that happens I may ask what he can afford.
I also never explain my quote. It’s not possible to prove how much time you’ve spent on the particular thing anyways, so better not to give buyers another opportunity to complain and be greedy. If buyer agrees with my terms - I do the job. Otherwise, I wish him the best luck working with someone else.

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Reply to @anigrams: Hahahaha that’s pretty entertaining how you wrote it and escaped being flagged or censored. Thanks for educating not only myself, but all of the others who may one day read and understand what is going on here.

Am I one of the few who reads what is offered in the basic gig and am hoping to purchase near the basic gig fee? I already know that if no cost is mentioned, I know already the reply will be way more than the fee of some basic gig requiring 15 minutes to complete.

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Reply to @emeraldawnn: @catwriter:
I agree with both of you. Having purchased in this account almost 120 gigs, and having purchased several hundred gigs on other major sites before even discovering Fiverr, I’ve learned how to explicitly state what work product I’m expecting. I’ve learned that people with high number of sales with feedback above 4.5 are likely worth the extra costs, but when some Asian bids way lower I’ll often give that seller the opportunity to earn my job. But I have indeed paid high feedback holders a lot more than I actually initially wanted to pay. This is especially true when I post a gig request and receive a personalized proposal showing they gave consideration to my job instructions and/or requested the correct data from me. Correct data is NOT data already having been provided. Again, asking me what is MY budget is in my opinion, none of their business.

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Reply to @belengarcia:
You are right. I’m planning to offer a Crowdfunding service and have already agreed to operate as YOU do. Here’s what you receive for $x, and for gig extras you receive this for $y. As of today there is NO PLANS to offer customized gig requests, and my profile may indicate it. Those who don’t understand USA English will surely ask if I can do something not listed, and even then I won’t be inquiring “what is your budget?”


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Reply to @twistedweb123: In their wisdom when designing this software, the developers not only foresaw that question, but made accommodations for it by allowing sellers to state what was offered, and at what cost.

Sellers trying to bait-n-switch or “upsell” have the right to do so. I have the right to move on to the nearest competitor.

For myself, if seller for instance offers to install a WordPress for a gig, I would read his profile to determine what else is available within my budget, from the seller. I may be well prepared to employ the seller to modify the site a bit with this or that. But 99% of the time if the 1st question is about how much is my budget, my reply is to copy and paste what they offered in the initial gig. Telling me that is no longer available is a deal killer, no questions asked.

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Reply to @wordpress_luv: I have no idea what you are talking about. As I state clearly earlier “My rate is $60 per hour” and the average 30 seconds spot you see on my ANIGRAMS YouTube channel is at least 2 full days of work.

Simple Math

60 Minutes = 1 hour = $60

1 Day = 10 hours = $600

2 Days = 20 hours = $1200

Pretty clear to me - $1 per Minute of my time.

Please illuminate us ALL with you business acumen how I could make this any simpler for you?

As for you “hoping to purchase near the basic gig fee” that is an idiotic supposition.

No one in their right mind does to the $1 STORE hoping to buy out the whole store for $1 … You pay $1 PER item and the store determines what the PER item number is… NOT YOU!

My number is $1 per Minute of my time = $60 per Hour. DEAL WITH IT!

Cheers,

Roy

BTW - For the amount of my valuable time you have wasted responding to your message, you now owe me $42.

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My approach involves giving the buyer what they would get for a set price and then using that scenario to extrapolate the project size and the true cost. This I believe works for both parties.

However there are few instances where I have asked to get an idea of the budget and in all cases it always involves enquiries where the project is complex and huge in size thus requiring a team of developers and more often than most, the buyers didn’t have a development plan. I usually end up explaining what is involved and the resources required and then wish them good luck.

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Reply to @anigrams:
Do keep all posts respectful, constructive and concise so that all visitors can enjoy and benefit from the discussions. - See more at: http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/71/fiverr-forum-do039s-don039ts#Item_1

Once a year or so I meet an alleged American with a 323 telephone number who may have attended USC Film School and Mira Mesa Senior High, but obviously don’t understand written USA English as well as I do. They say things like “I have no idea what you are talking about” as Prima Facie evidence of their ignorance.

Please don’t use the discussions to promote your individual Gigs. - See more at: http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/71/fiverr-forum-do039s-don039ts#Item_1

People who don’t understand written USA English have been known to, regardless of what the rules say, post:

#1, As I state clearly earlier “My rate is $60 per hour” - See more at: http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/comment/269829#Comment_269829
#2, and the average 30 seconds spot you see on my ANIGRAMS YouTube channel…

All posts: containing abusive language, with derogatory name calling or that negatively calls out another user or members of the Fiverr staff, will be removed. - See more at: http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/71/fiverr-forum-do039s-don039ts#Item_1

I know this is not the Jerry Springer show but, please allow me to boast and brag, that only once did someone I didn’t know and have never even discussed ordering a gig from, demanded money regardless, claiming I must pay their video creation fee for the “free advice” willingly given. “BTW - For the amount of my valuable time you have wasted responding to your message, you now owe me $42”. Because their gig profile and gig extras did not even mention such fees for unsolicited “free advice”, I’m convinced the economy in So Cal for film school graduates must be terrible.

Let’s say I was indeed searching for video assistance and discovered someone extremely desperate, who doesn’t understand USA English and with a bad attitude (IMHO) shouting "My number is $1 per Minute of my time = $60 per Hour. DEAL WITH IT! "

My #1: http://youtube.com/user/doctormason/videos
507 subscribers • 700,986 views, Joined Aug 28, 2006 – 118 videos

My #2: https://www.youtube.com/user/AsianHighway26/videos
274 subscribers • 151,041 views – Joined Nov 29, 2010

If YOU had only – 26 videos, 25 subscribers • 3,028 views – Joined Jan 27, 2013
AND only 2 videos more than a minute long, 20+ under 10 seconds long, who would believe I’d even consider you?

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!


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wordpress_luv said: written USA English

Anyone who uses the term “written USA English” is obviously not a real American nor real Westerner. In our American ethnocentric culture we just say we write and speak “English.”

Your bluff is called.

Your profile says you are from the Philippines and that ain’t Western nor American by any stretch of the imagination.

I would suggest you keep your illicit “business”:

wordpress_luv said: Here in Cambodia I can buy McDonalds, drugs, 2-hookers and a cheap hotel room with what I don't pay you. It's just business, okay?

BTW - When you build your Fiverr fantasy “Crowdfunding project to provide 7MillionJobs by December 31st.” please let the World media know the full story.

Isn’t your claim far more jobs than what the Obama administration has taken to create in nearly 7 Years?

QED

Cheers,

Roy

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