You shoot your foot off when you contact outside of Fiverr

[willstauff]

…So I’m involved in a couple facebook groups that involve voiceover. People always ask me questions about fiverr. One of the questions I get is contacting clients outside of Fiverr and doing business outside of Fiverr. First off I let them know it’s against Fiverr’s terms of service and if you make a habit of doing that you are going to get caught and most likely get kicked off the platform.

The temptation like Eve in the Garden wanting to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil…is that you avoid the fees and the 20% that Fiverr takes and you get 100%.

The problem is though while you may be getting 100% of your money if you do…you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Here’s why…

When you complete an order and get a good review, your traffic for that particular gig goes up and so does your visibility. The likelihood of that gig receiving another order goes up substantially. There’s one gig I have in particular that receives less traffic than the others, it’s a gig where I offer recorded interviews. I have a book publisher that from time to time sends me an order to interview an author. Usually, right after she places an order from me I get another order from someone else for that same gig. If I decided to take her offline I know for a fact that gig would go dark.

Repeat customers are a bigger deal than you think when it comes to boosting traffic and sales. So let’s say you have a repeat customer who orders from your gig all the time and you have a great relationship with and you decided to communicate with them outside of Fiverr and do a transaction. Guess what? They are no longer are on fiverr…they are no longer ordering from your gig… If you make it a habit to decide to communicate with buyers and do business off of Fiverr, you will eventually get caught and get the boot but also, your traffic is going to take a dump and so are your orders. Don’t be surprised if your business dries up because you want to keep the 20%.

So you may keep the 20% but your continued success on getting regular traffic and orders on Fiverr could change drastically.

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[g_c_hosting]

Great Advice.But i am not doing deal with my client outside the fiverr.

[g_c_hosting]

I always think that increase ranking of my Gig :🙂

[joelnorth]

Great point.

The 20% may seem steep, but I think it’s reasonable considering what you get from it. I essentially owe my entire freelancing career to Fiverr, so the way I look at it is I could have had all my earnings with their 20% taken out, or no earnings at all.

Fiverr has great Google ads, SEO, etc bringing in people who are searching for our services - which cost money. The ordering system is fairly nice overall, there are lots of buyers on the site. It’s basically like a salesperson taking commission, they bring the work, and you focus on making people happy.

Also makes things nice and easy in terms of bookkeeping and order management, you don’t have to send out invoices, etc.

There’s always room for improvement but generally Fiverr is a great site, and you’re right, attempting to circumvent the system and move your buyers off the site is going to lead to trouble, or at the very least, reduced sales. The better reputation you have built up here, the more sales you will get, that has been my experience.

Try removing Fiverr from your life completely and having to do direct marketing to find clients who need your services, that decision would quickly be regretted!

[willstauff]

Great point.

The 20% may seem steep, but I think it’s reasonable considering what you get from it. I essentially owe my entire freelancing career to Fiverr, so the way I look at it is I could have had all my earnings with their 20% taken out, or no earnings at all.

Fiverr has great Google ads, SEO, etc bringing in people who are searching for our services - which cost money. The ordering system is fairly nice overall, there are lots of buyers on the site. It’s basically like a salesperson taking commission, they bring the work, and you focus on making people happy.

Also makes things nice and easy in terms of bookkeeping and order management, you don’t have to send out invoices, etc.

There’s always room for improvement but generally Fiverr is a great site, and you’re right, attempting to circumvent the system and move your buyers off the site is going to lead to trouble, or at the very least, reduced sales. The better reputation you have built up here, the more sales you will get, that has been my experience.

Try removing Fiverr from your life completely and having to do direct marketing to find clients who need your services, that decision would quickly be regretted!

…most talent agents take 20% for commissions for voiceover projects they find for voiceover artists.

[eoinfinnegan]

Taking someone off Fiverr also puts you at that buyer’s mercy - don’t what they say and they will report you and have you banned. Do what they say and you could be working for free forever. The majority of complaints on the forum seem to revolve around buyers having too much power. Anyone who takes a buyer off Fiverr literally gives them all the power they could ever need.

[willstauff]

Taking someone off Fiverr also puts you at that buyer’s mercy - don’t what they say and they will report you and have you banned. Do what they say and you could be working for free forever. The majority of complaints on the forum seem to revolve around buyers having too much power. Anyone who takes a buyer off Fiverr literally gives them all the power they could ever need.

Great point…most don’t realize that.