#AskGaryVee Episode 204: Fiverr & How to Become a Successful Freelancer

“than other sellers in my
market without losing revenue?” – Nice, nice question. – Go ahead, go ahead. – It’s about the why. When you think about pricing
it’s about the why and the why is often about quality and what
you just talked about you nailed it on how can I
justify a higher price. We just released a new
product on Fiverr for most of our sellers and most of our
categories now called packages and what happens it allows
you to use a well new marketing technique which is
good, better, best pricing. – That’s right. – You can start at five, you can
have a package at 15, you can have a package of 30 so what you
do is that it allows you to own that entry price point that
allows you to build credibility to get volume and to customers
that could not afford the $50 but maybe at $50 what is going
to happen is that you’re going to provide more time,
faster delivery better techniques and more options around the
logo you are providing. And this is how
you should price it. – I’m gonna go yes
and I’m going to go and. You can always go back. – Take risk.
– You can always go back. Let the market decide. If your 400 bucks to make a logo
and I promise you whatever you got last time ask for more
the next time figure out what your cash flow is. It depends on how fancy you are. – And how much you want time you
want to spend working on Fiverr. – Of course. How fancy are you? Do you want a nice watch? Well then you need more money
to buy that watch but if you’re willing to live in your basement
you could always go back. You could get, it depends
how many no’s can you take. I did it for 400 now I want 600. You come in no.
You come in no. If you’re fancy, you’re
going to go back to 400 ’cause you need the 400s. If you’re not fancy and you can
wait and be patient then all of a sudden you can do a whole
bunch of waiting, 10 no’s get your first 600, you
established the market. another thing how
DRock got his gig. The other thing you could do is
get understand the difference between something you want to do
for 600 bucks but then somebody asks you to do a logo and you do
it for free because the exposure is going to allow you to get
all the $600 ones that you want. Let’s move on. – [Voiceover] Letecab asks,
“I have a really hard time

“letting go of my job. “I don’t like it, but I’ve
been there for so long. “I have loans, two kids to
support, a deep fear of leaving “the security and I’m not sure
what it takes to make it as a “solo-preneur. Any tips on how
to release the fear and “decide whether to
take the risk?” – I’ll go first this time. Punt leisure.
Punt leisure. You can work, I’m going to call you out. If you really mean that you
can live on six hours sleep. So you have 18 hours,
18 God damn hours. I want to know what you’re
doing with your 18 hours. Because you can work your 9-to-5
and that’s fine and you can travel for an hour here
and there, respect, nice little solid commute. Oh you want to be a family man? Mazel Tov, you can spend two
hours with your kids, what are you doing with
those of the five hours? You’re watching
House of fucking Cards. You’re playing Madden. You’re relaxing from
the other intense. Gary already spent 11 hours. Well great then don’t
complain or want more. Respect that by getting rest and
this and that you’re giving up opportunity to go
into a new market. You want the
audacity to have a 1% life. Let’s call it what it is. You want to live as well as
the 1 to 2% in the world. It’s not very complicated
the math is very raw. If you want to have one of the
best lifes in the world and you live on your terms then you have
to pay your dues to get there. And you have to be lucky enough
to figure out that you had talent in the thing you actually
want to do because you work 24 hours a day and if you stink
at golf or you’re not a good content producer or your logos
like the shit I would make then you’re going to lose. So that’s what you gotta do. And Fiverr was built for you. Fiverr was built or those
talented individuals while trying to find– – Was Fiverr built
for everybody? – Yes, yes for talented and
skilled individuals that want to find financial and
professional development. So what you have on Fiverr today
yes you have sellers making your six digit a year
that are top sellers. – Real quick I apologize, I
know you want to say it but like they’re all going. Here’s the punchline. What’s the mechanics are
you guys taking 20% of the transaction?
– That’s correct. – Is at the number?
Yeah, listen. The reason I went there is
because he’s the chief revenue officer is all going to sound… How do you cure cancer?
Fiverr. How do you go to the movies?
Fiverr. Let me save us time here. Here’s why I’m curious at the
scale that you guys are now not five or six year
ago, four years ago. Giving up 20% for that attention
no different than eBay or an Amazon I think is very
minor for the exposure. I think there’s a Fiverr and
things like Fiverr but you guys are at scale that’s why you’re
sitting here and social media combo if you can make that
one plus one equal four there’s something very real there.
Let’s go.

– [Voiceover] Emerchant asks,
“I understand both are important “but if I only had to pick
one should I focus on content “marketing or paid ads?
I have learned paid ads provide “more results with less effort.
Thoughts?” – I start, you start, you start.
– Go ahead. – Okay. I’ll start. I’m advising a few
startups and that question comes often and I
think it’s about again, most of this question
is about the why. What are you trying,
the why and the what. What are you trying
to achieve right now? I’ll tell you something which
is thinking that you can build a business based on
paid ads at one point it’s going to catch up with you. – It always does.
– It always does. – Because the creative is
the variable of success. And the creative is your
business it’s like the product, your service, the creative. By the way, you can get in front
of everybody with your ad if that creative is bad
you won’t convert. And you’re exactly right, the
answer is yes if it makes you more money up front. First of all the person’s going
to win because they understand there’s two different things he
or she already knows, who was it? – [Adam] Emerchant. – That was the name? Got it. He or she already knows
that there is a big difference between sales and marketing. Paid advertising is sales,
branding marketing content that’s what that is and so I
don’t buy these because Nike fucking cookied me and chased me
around the Internet and I gave up and I bought them. I do it blindly.
Because it is Nike. – [Adam] I got the
red pair by the way. – Love it. We’re going to
agree on that one. I know we’re keeping it tight. Let’s go to the next one
that when I think we got. – [Voiceover] Mike asks, “As a
copywriter/fiction writer, a lot

– [Voiceover] Mike asks, “As a
copywriter/fiction writer, a lot “of work goes uncredited or
remains private to buyers. “What’s the best way for me to
showcase my business without “practical examples of my work?” For Fiverr, it’s a
very fair question. Fiverr when you come as a buyer
you buy on Fiverr like you buy your book on Amazon. And Gary’s book, please.
Ideally. You buy what you see. Buying what you don’t see is a
little more difficult so how do you do that? It’s about your seller profile,
it’s about your skills, it’s about the emotion and your
talents on how to describe your gig on Fiverr. It’s about to show your
personality, it’s about the put your face as your profile
picture and not use a design. You want to create trust
and confidence to do that. That would be my
clear recommendations. – I would say this again I’m
going to pound this because it is just true. They wouldn’t be here, you know
that, this is a great tool at what it does you don’t need to
make every tool do everything for you. If you want to get your name
out there as this great writer there’s something called Medium.
Medium is amazing. You can get completely
discovered, all day long, write for free.
You want exposure? It comes at a cost, it’s
called not getting paid for it. I wish you got paid $100,000
to write an article for the New York Times and get
money and exposure. I wish. I also wish I was 6-foot-5
and could throw 100 miles an hour so I can be a
baseball player. Wishing doesn’t mean anything,
here’s the practical answer. You don’t use that
screwdriver to hit in a nail. You have a whole tool belt. You don’t need to make Fiverr
do this and you don’t need Snapchat. Everyone’s like, “Oh Snapchat how are
you going to target?” You don’t. You just realize that every
13 to 25-year-old is on it. And it’s awareness. So what I would say it’s funny
eluded back to a recall when I said I see this social
media-Fiverr I guess what I see is I think of your designer or
songwriter or things of that nature using the Fiverr URL on
your Instagram to drive people there to create transactions
around your free creative in an Instagram environment
could be quite interesting. It’s a very subtle way to throw
a right hook without it doing especially because
of the oomph now. There’s a lot of Fiverr’s. I’m sure there’s a lot of
marketplaces out there but this now has the oomph in the same
way that a Facebook something of that nature an Amazon has. There’s a lot of
bookstores on the Internet. Once something hit scales
and it’s the brand you take advantage of that and so I would
say write great stories for free on platforms where
people can see it. Here’s a good one and go
and search every fiction or nonfiction Facebook Page that
has a lot of followers and ask them if you can write an
original story for them to post in their community. I’m sure there’s something
called “Fantasyland Fantasy” where you write a great little
fantasy article, a story– – And what kind
of page was that? – It’s a Facebook page. – Meaning?
Moving on. – I think there is some kind of
silly page that has 4 million fantasy readers that people love
that Harry Potter and stuff like that, you write a great
story for it they post because they said yes or maybe they’ll charge you for
the exposure, I don’t know. Heck, you may have to get
charged to build your brand and things of that nature. Nonetheless it’s about exposure
and you got to find the avenues that have it and not every
tool has to everything for you. – [Adam] Great. Last question.

“seller on Fiverr and why?” – That’s cool.
– I let you start with this. – Mine would definitely have
been, probably especially when I saw it four, five years ago
I probably would’ve done hype videos for product. I would’ve an infomercial guy. Right, I would’ve been the
informercial guy saying this is delicious juice. Video is my medium. I would’ve
created original video. You don’t agree DRock?
You’re shaking your head. – [DRock] I agree. I’m kidding.
(laughter) – [Man] Check out Fantasyland.
– Exactly. (laughter) Hey everybody go to Fantasyland
Fantasy for all your fantasy needs Harry Potter to
Dungeons & Dragons. You’ll love Fantasyland Fantasy.
(laughter) – Nice. For me, I’m very
(inaudible) with that which is all of those gigs are my children. I don’t want to choose one.
– Forget about that. That’s a copout.
What do you do well? What could you
sell for 10 bucks? – I’ll go with either SEM
services or SEO services. – Got it. That great.
That’s grounded in your craft. I would’ve hired you to
voice over old Wine Library TV episodes with
proper French accent. I’ll do that too.
Question of the day. You now get to attack,
this important moment,