Sample Content Preview

Fiverr has taken the internet by storm. There is really no other way to say it. This little freelancing platform that could has totally transformed people's expectations of getting and providing freelance services through an online exchange format.

It seems that Fiverr has solved the two most common problems freelance platforms have historically struggled with. Fiverr not only offers a ton of services from a wide range of eager providers from all over the world, but it also is able to pull in lots of buyers.

When you put these two factors together, it is no surprise that Fiverr has become the "go to" freelance service destination on the internet. Also, given its low cost profile compared to other freeform or custom order freelance resources, Fiverr stands to continue to attract a lot of buyer attention.

Let's get one thing clear, you can have a platform filled to the brim with sellers. Unfortunately, your platform is probably not going to succeed unless you also get a lot of buyers. Buyers make the platform successful. Fiverr has managed to do this.

Fiverr's Secret

The secret to Fiverr's success is to enable people to post whatever services they may have, ranging from graphics design, to writing, to virtual assistant services, to video spokesperson services and others, for a flat fee.

Originally, this was set at $5. This explains the name Fiverr. But as customer needs have changed and the market evolved, Fiverr now allows service providers to charge the price they're most comfortable with.

Compared to traditional freelancing, Fiverr removes a lot of doubt and guesswork from the freelance process. When you go to places like Freelancer or Upwork, you basically see a listing of somebody who needs work done. As a potential freelance contractor, you send in your bid. It's anybody's guess whether your bid will get accepted or not.

Fiverr flips that model on its head. Instead of customers posting their requirements as well as their budget range, service providers provide a description of the service that they would do as well as samples of their work.

Most importantly, providers are required to put a fixed price on their service. Whether they are charging $5 or $500, it doesn't really matter. They have to provide a fixed price.

This has taken much of the uncertainty and guesswork out of the process. It is no surprise that Fiverr continues to grow.

The Good News?

You can make money off Fiverr too. In fact, Fiverr has many testimonials of people claiming that their income on this platform has replaced their regular job's income, and then some.

In fact, a lot of people happily announce that they've quit their day jobs and are doing voiceovers full time. There's even one person who travels all over the world and is sustained 100% by his income from Fiverr. That's how lucrative this micro-freelancing platform can be.

But there's a big warning sign. You have to be careful about using Fiverr the right way. While it's very easy to get excited about these success stories, and believe me, they resonate on so many levels (Who wouldn't want to own their time? Who wouldn't want to work on their own terms? Who wouldn't want to cherry pick the projects that they get?), the big problem is, if you don't know what you're doing or if you don't have a strategy, you end up wasting time and, yes, money, in the form of opportunity costs.

Think about it, if you are spending your time doing work for people for $10 when it turns out that you could have been working for $50, you are actually losing money.

Now, this is different from a situation where you have spare time and you're simply trying to turn your spare time into spare cash. In that case, this would be okay. This is especially true if you're training yourself by taking on these jobs so you can level up in the future. But if you are looking to earn a full-time income, you have to learn how to use Fiverr the right way.

This book teaches you 6 better ways to make money off Fiverr. Make no mistake, offering high value and time-intensive services for $5 is not one of them.

The Biggest Hassle with Fiverr

By this point, you're probably excited about Fiverr. In fact, you may be raring to go and put up an ad and see what you can make. Well, you might want to cool your heels for a little bit. How come? Well, here's the sad reality about Fiverr. Most money on Fiverr is made one way. What way is that? You sell your time for money.

You may be thinking, "what's so bad about this?" Well, if that's what you wanted to do, you should have just gotten a job. Seriously. You should have just gone to monster.com or some other online jobs platform and hunted yourself down a job.

The great thing about a regular job is that you are guaranteed a paycheck every 14 days. You don't have that assurance with freelancing. Also, most jobs in the United States have a medical and dental insurance plan as well as 401K retirement plan. You don't have that with freelancing. Keep this in mind.

Because if you're just going to be selling your time for money, maximize your return on effort by getting an actual regular job. Unless your hourly rate is $1,000 or more, it's just not going to cut it. There's no comparison if your focus is selling your time for money.

What's the Big Problem with Selling Your Time for Money?

There are several problems with this way of making money. First, you only have so much time to sell. Last time I checked, there are only 24 hours in a day. Well, if you're like most people, you at least need six of those hours to sleep, and probably more.

Also, there's only one of you. It would be great if you have an army of you out there so you can basically farm yourself out to work on all sorts of different freelance projects. You then get paid many times over. But unfortunately, there's only one of you, with only 24 hours in a day.

Traditional freelancing is also not very scalable. Once all your available time slots and production slots are taken up, you have to wait until you clear out some work for you to take on more clients.

What do you think will happen if you told them to wait? Based on my experience, at least half of them will look elsewhere. And given how robust the Fiverr platform is, they don't have to look far, and they don't have to search long.