Something you'll almost never hear anyone on social media say is the words "I was wrong."
And today that's kind of what I'm doing.
If you are not familiar, there is this website called Fiverr , which is the largest freelancing
platform in the world right now.
And in the early days of Fiverr , I was very critical of Fiverr and mostly negative.
To be very honest with you.
But it's been many years since I've made a dedicated video about Fiverr . And I also
decided to put my money where my mouth is.
So I actually spent 2500 or more.
It was probably more is probably almost $5000 dollars by the making of this video.
But I wrote the outline.
It was twenty five hundred dollars of my own money with Fiverr . They're not sponsoring
this video and they're not rewarding me in any way for doing this video.
I still have some criticisms, but I also can admit that I was wrong.
Now, in the past, I've talked about a lot of things largely shared by you, my community,
arguing for both sides of this.
Both the freelancer side and the entrepreneur, you know, hiring client side.
I'm somebody who worked as a freelancer long before I was ever a YouTube content creator
with 500000 subscribers.
I'm somebody who hires freelancers and has for many years in my business, and I've hired
from multiple platforms.
Back when there was a such thing as, oh, oDesk and Elance, I worked as a freelancer when
those platforms existed.
I've hired from those platforms, I've hired from Upwork, I've hired from Fiverr specifically
for this video.
And I've actually been using freelancers for many, many years to help me with one off projects
in my business or even for things for the YouTube channel.
Fiverr has improved massively since I made these criticisms, but some of the criticisms
and faults that I still have with the platform remain here is the good.
The very good is the fact that there are a lot of great quality freelancers on Fiverr
who provide tremendous services and are being compensated the way they want by setting their
own price.
I've worked with animators, illustrators, people doing music and even graphic designers
to get projects done on Fiverr . In fact, my YouTube channel that I use for music, Zen
Buster Music, I hired my own independent producer, Frost FM who's also a YouTube content creator,
to help me produce some Lo-Fimusic for this YouTube channel.
But the artwork in animation was something that I outsourced for, and I found this freelancers
on Fiverr to help me with the loop animations for the 24 hour live stream.
The amazing character design for my Lo-Fi girl and I based that design largely off of
my sisters because I felt like, you know, in that genre, in
that niche, they don't have something that represents them.
So that was very important to me.
And I found an artist that could bring the idea and the vision to life with the references
that I gave them.
So the experience of hiring and finding the right people was great.
They even created a concierge service Fiverr business, where they'll even help you find
people to fulfill the gigs that you want in terms of the work you want done, people offering
those things.
So when it comes to the services that I've experienced, that's been mostly good.
However, there are about three people that I've hired for projects that didn't work out.
I recently decided to update my merch and I decided to experiment with seeing if some
people could do some hand lettering, some artwork and some things for new merchandise,
for some new T-shirts and some winter hoodies that I'm producing.
And even some pattern design pattern designs came out great for what I was looking for.
So some of the hand lettering.
But there were few T-shirt designers where things did not work out.
Instructions were not followed.
You know, deliverables did not happen.
And so it was a problem.
But Fiverr was really good about me cancelling those gigs and getting refunded.
So I can't really blame the platform for the fact that there are some bad vendors, which
is what I think I was wrong about.
I think that my biggest issue with Fiverr was and continues to be the fact that there
are some there are some bad actors out there.
There's some bad apples that spoil the whole bunch, OK?
And it's a problem because I think it then undermines what something can be.
Take platforms like YouTube and Tock.
Sometimes YYouTubers and TikTokers get a bad rap because there are a handful of people
that are very popular, very loud, that do some really messed up things.
And it makes us all look bad.
And that's not YouTube's fault and it's not the fault of the other content creators.
But we all end up paying for it.
We all end up having our reputations hurt by it.
We all get lumped together.
It happens.
I can appreciate that with five that they can't necessarily completely do quality control
and vetting for every single vendor on their platform while also allowing there to be an
abundance of opportunity and allowing the free market to do its job.
So I respect that you can't necessarily police the entirety of the Internet or even your
own platform.
And if something like YouTube isn't even good at it, I can't really blame them too much.
And I feel that in my previous videos, that was probably what was most unfair, because
I was frustrated with the fact that there are
people who do scams on Fiverr . There are people who sell YouTube subs and try to get
your channel monetized and all these scams and schemes and things that one violate the
terms of service of YouTube sometimes violate the terms of service of Fiverr .
And people keep getting away with this stuff.
And I guess I was just angry and frustrated more about all the bad actors on the platform.
And I think I probably blamed the platform more for that than I should have.
Now, I still think is a fair and legitimate criticism is I think that people should be
allowed, if you are a freelancer, to have the relationship and own the relationship
with your clients.
I understand them not wanting people to get popped on their platform, then take people
off.
Social media platforms operate much the same way.
But the penalties for that on social media are less harsh with Fiverr I've heard from
people in the community that they get locked out of their accounts for this or sometimes
their money is withheld from them for this.
And that's something I as a creator, I'm not comfortable with.
And I feel that there should be more leniency on that.
But it's also not my company.
But that's what I would hope for.
And what I would want is I wouldn't want to force exclusivity in a way that limits people's
opportunities.
And I also under no circumstances want to withhold money from people that they've earned.
Even if they violate a policy or they do something, I'd want them to get fully paid out and then
move on.
Now, again, I'm not accusing Fiverr of anything.
And all of this is alleged from the stories I've heard from people in the community, DM's,
I've gotten emails, I've gotten comments on older videos.
So, again, I'm reiterating that experience.
I have had a good experience as a consumer and as a user and someone who's hired freelancers
on Fiverr .
And so I want to make sure that I'm being honest and transparent with you about that.
And it's also why I wanted to use this for several months.
I've been doing it actually since the beginning of the pandemic, because I had a plan for
some other stuff that I wanted to do and make videos about.
And what I did was I focused a lot of this on building this new YouTube channel, Zeine
Buster music, and getting a variety of different services done.
Recently, I've actually commissioned some more things to be done in terms of hiring
a ghost producer.
I love everything.
I'm doing it, frost.
I just want some more variety and somebody that can double up so I can have more than
one source, one more than one style.
Things like that.
I also am looking at a few other services that we might be able to use and incorporate
from the YouTube channel in terms of
designing some stuff for live streams.
I could do a lot of that stuff myself, but I wanted somebody else's style and vibe because
I want to build something different.
And with a faceless YouTube channel that's not going to be promoting me.
I wanted something that feels vastly different than what I've done in the past.
And so what I can tell you is that about roughly, I would say 90 percent of the vendors that
I've hired on Fiverr have worked out wonderfully.
And I'm very happy with what I got.
Their rates were affordable.
I paid what they wanted.
I paid for some extras and things were delivered on time and revisions were done well.
You have to be very careful about who you hire, because, again, there are a couple of
people for some more granular things besides just trying to
get the merchandise stuff done.
Some of that didn't work out.
And then there were some other services that I hired for another part of my business, for
my coaching business, for Awesome Creator Academy, where there was some technical stuff
that I wanted done that didn't work out.
So you have to be very careful when you want very specific things and technical things
done, like Web development, app development, plug ins.
So any of those more technical things, you really want to make sure that you're looking
more probably at like the Fiverr proe services and people at a high verified level with good
reviews.
I find that the reviews go a long way.
I know people are concerned that reviews can be faked and so on, so forth.
But if you really are having a problem, it's actually not that challenging to cancel and
get a refund on these things if you can legitimately prove that what's being promised is not being
delivered.
Now, for freelancers, what I will tell you is you absolutely need to make sure.
That you're abiding by all the terms of service, of Fiverr , if you want to be successful in
the platform, you have to build a good portfolio, a good reputation, make sure you're describing
your services and your ability and experience accurately and honestly and
being transparent.
That is going to be key.
Following up with your clients is absolutely key.
In fact, if you are just planning to start, first of all, you can use my link in the description.
Down below is an affiliate link.
And the other thing you can do is you can watch my video on starting as a freelancer.
There's some really good advice in there that can help you get clients, but also maintain
really good relationships with your clients because they are freelancers that I've given
hundreds, if not over a thousand dollars of work before, because I've been
happy with them, satisfied.
I don't want to go anywhere else.
My illustrator for Zen Buster Music has guying over a thousand dollars in commissions from
me for work because I'm very happy and satisfied.
My animator is probably edging up really close to a thousand dollars, if not over a thousand
dollars at this point for the exact same
reason.
You have to deliver great work for your clients.
Be very respectful, be timely, communicate with them well and honestly, and just be as
professional as you can and you can be successful and get repeat business and referral business.
I'm actually planning to do a page on my website, Roberta BCOM, and dedicated to referring freelancers,
whether they're on Fiverr or anywhere else.
People I've worked with independently, and also the freelancers that some of my friends
who are YouTube, who are happy to disclose that I'm vetting freelancers and I'm making
a Roberto's list of freelancers, because one
of the hardest things on the hiring side is finding quality people that someone can vouch
for and where, you know, the work is going to be delivered on time and to the quality
that you expect and you need it to be done.
It's actually really hard to find good, hardworking, talented people who can deliver exactly what
you need.
So I'm going to make that easier for the creators in my community and my network by building
a list of recommended freelancers.
And so Roberta's list coming soon.
So that's something that is really important to me to help the community, but also to give
more of the freelancers who have done right by me, delivered for me and for my friends,
give them more exposure and more opportunities.
And when you do a good job, people are willing to do that for you.
And to those of you hiring out there, I recommend that you treat your freelancers really well.
You pay what they ask for.
You tip you bonus.
If you get the work done well.
You recommend them to other people.
You don't just hoard them for yourselves.
I really think that that's the right way to do this and to do business.
So my honest review of Fiverr is out of all the services that I use, and there are many
of them, I'm going to give
it a four point two out of five stars, because what I really want them to address is quality
control and vetting and getting rid of scammers.
I've been impersonated on Fiverr before, so maybe a verification system that screens out
public figures could be helpful.
I don't know how they would accomplish that, but that'd be great.
And I also I just think that they're doing a great job with the app.
The marketing has been phenomenal.
And I also would hope that they address the concerns of freelancers who don't want to
feel that their opportunities are being limited by the platform, even though
the platform itself is a tremendous opportunity.
So, once again, thank you to anybody that I've worked with as a freelancer, whether
you're on Fiverr or not on Fiverr . Again, Roberto's list coming soon.
I'm going to pay it forward beyond what I already have with the referrals that you're
getting.
I'm going to get you more referrals off of that.
So that's something I'm working on.
And then also, just remember, if you're watching this video, if you want check Fiverr , whether
you're a freelancer or someone looking to hire them, you can use my link in ascription
down below.
It's an affiliate link that I'm happy to share because this is a service that I would recommend.
The reality is I was hard on Fiverr in the past.
They've made corrections.
So those videos, I'm leaving them up for historical reference, because today I can say that they've
changed, they've grown, they've evolved.
And in some cases, I was wrong.
And I can admit that and I can own that.
And so I put my money where my mouth is out of my own pocket.
And I've had my own experiences.
And I can really say that this is something I'm willing to support and put some of my
reputation behind.
And that's why I don't have a problem telling you that it's something that I think can be
improved.
But I have my gripes about everything.
I have my gripes about YouTube.
I definitely have my gripes about TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and God forbid, Twitter
and all the toxicity on that platform.
I think everything can be better.
And I can admit sometimes that I'm nitpicky and that maybe I'm a little bit of a snob
and I expect things to be.
Really, really, really good.
Really, really awesome, because maybe I'm a little spoiled.
I don't know.
I grew up in an era where we didn't have these opportunities.
So I'm trying to just appreciate them a lot more for what they are instead of holding
onto the standard of what I think they should be.
Just because it's what I think they could be.
Well, let me know how you feel about that after watching this video.
How do you feel about this?
Are you someone who's a freelancer or are you somebody who's an entrepreneur?
What are your thoughts and experiences with Fiverr ? Let me know in the comments section.
If you enjoyed this video, you might actually really like a video where I admit my biggest
mistakes as an entrepreneur are.
So you can check that out.
Link is in the description.
Also, if you are a freelancer, watch this playlist and getting started as a freelancer
and making some money and getting clients.
Both of those are linked down below.
As always, thank you so much for watching.
And don't forget.
Go out there and create something awesome today.
Take care.