Becoming a seller on fiverr

MY JOURNEY ON BECOMING A FREELANCE RETOUCHER

Hello, I'm here to share my story of becoming a freelance retoucher (well its rather incomplete). I'm still on the path to become full time freelance retoucher, but Im making my way through!

It all started maybe less than a year ago, when I was reaaally stuck in a rut. I wanted a change in my life and I was fed up with my day job. I wanted to travel, work from home, or work off a coast somewhere in caribbean. Then I thought to myself. People actually are willing to pay money for their images to be retouched or edited in a certain way, hmm... maybe even fashion shots which I really enjoy?!

It dawned on me that I've been playing around with adobe photoshop for quite some time since I was 15 and I have accumulated a decent amount of knowledge how the software works and how some of the image editing should be done. I havent retouched photos for quite some time, so I thought it was time for me to dust off my adobe photoshop and get some practice.

I went online looking for some royalty free images I could work on and practice my soon to be freelance photo retouching, watched some guides on youtube, set up my instagram and facebook pages to stock my portfolio and here I am slowly on the road to freelance retouching.

I gathered some images that I would enjoy retouching. Obviously my skills werent as good but in time I could see I have improved A TON! I kept asking for random photographers off instagram if they had any images I could practice my photo retouching for my portfolio and couple of them agreed. 

So I had professional images I could reeeeally put my hands on and I was very excited about it. I got some feedback, I made some useful connections and I knew where to improve myself more!

So here I am half way into the whole photo retouching thing and I discover this website called fiverr, where you can offer your digital products and services like... PHOTO RETOUCHING!

I created my account on fiverr, set up some gigs displaying my work that I've done so far, wrote a lovely description with what Im offering and my soon to be clients may expect.

Not much time has passed since I got my first order. It was just a $5 gig, but it got me one step closer to where I wanted to be. I got my first 5 star MEGA POSITIVE review and then days after days Id get another one or two orders and slowly I made my way up the ranks. Ive done in 2 months 22 orders, few of them were quite big and made me a few hundred bucks all together. I thought its going out well. Now im waiting to become level 1 seller and see how my sales going to increase now!

Tune in on my journey! March the 15th will be the day my level is going to increase and im hoping it will bring me a lot more sales and a lot more room to improve myself as a freelance retoucher!

Do feel free to check my portfolio on https://pauliusgintaras.wixsite.com/freelanceretouching

or click on any of the linked text words so you can see my fiverr profile for yourself!

The other day, a local friend of mine posted on Facebook that he had listed himself on Fiverr, which is a marketplace of people willing to do all sorts of things for $5.

Well, I know Kevin, and I know that he’s a high value .NET freelancer. So admittedly, I was a little confused at first… why would a seasoned consultant ever agree to sell a service of his (in this case, proposal review and auditing) for the price of a hamburger?

Now, I’m just going to state the obvious: I’m not a fan of Fiverr at all.

I think delivering a one-off service, like an audit, for $5 sends the wrong signal, especially if you plan on using Fiverr as a platform for lead generation. (Just a guess, but the quality of client you find might find through Fiverr probably won’t be that great.)

But regardless of my feelings toward Fiverr as a marketplace, today I want to focus on my thoughts around selling an “Expendable Offering”, and also how you can leverage marketplaces for lead generation.

Recently I highlighted a few consultants who had successfully made products of their time. One of them is my friend Joanna Wiebe, who offers a “No-Fluff Website Review” for a few hundred dollars.

Joanna probably won’t ever agree to a full blown contract-and-all consulting engagement for less than five figures, but you can buy her time with the virtual swipe of your corporate AMEX. Getting one of her website reviews won’t involve a proposal, a Master Services Agreement, or a Statement of Work. There’s no negotiation or haggling. You pay her $777, and a few days later get a video report.

Imagine you’re thinking of hiring Joanna to rewrite all of your marketing copy. Well, before becoming an actual client of hers and going through the hoops between going from a lead and a client, it would make a lot of sense to buy her website review product. It’s quick and a marginal cost for most businesses, but most importantly lets you judge whether Joanna is a cash machine for your business — if you give her money, will she spit out more value than you put in?

• Alternatively, sell a workbook, cheatsheet or checklist on Fiverr. Make sure there’s a strong call-to-action that gets people onto an email course of yours (or have some other “lead magnet” that can help them move into your ecosystem.)