AskPat 721 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 721 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week. We have an awesome question today from teenager, Riley. It's awesome. I can't wait to share this one with you.
All right. Now here's today's question from Riley.
Riley: Hi, Pat. My name is Riley, and I'm a 13-year old amateur voiceover artist on Fiverr.com. As you probably already know, Fiverr's a site where people sell services, starting at only $5. I just passed my $2,000 mark and I am now looking to expand that number even more. I was wondering if you had any tips whatsoever about how I can market my gig on Fiverr even more to bring in more sales? I also was wondering, if you think I should start my own site to sell my voiceovers, and if so, how would I go about doing that? Thanks so much for all the advice you give. I really appreciate it.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Riley. What's up? Thank you so much for the question. Second of all, great voice. And, third of all, thank you for taking action. At your age, if I was making $2,000 from something that I was doing, I would feel just amazing. Hopefully, you are proud of the work that you've done and you've put in. You're doing it right. You're getting started, and now you're out there asking questions on how you could scale, how you can expand. I think that's great. So, congratulations to you and the success that you have had. Maybe we can talk in the future. I'd love to potentially hire you for something and if you could send me an email with your Fiverr link, I'd love to see what kind of work you've done, all that other stuff.
Or, maybe when you get your website up, which is something I would recommend doing, because a website for a service-based business, like yourself, somebody who's offering voiceovers, is a great way for you to essentially have your own business card out there, but it's not just a business card that you just kind of hand out to different people, which is something you would do. You would, hopefully, with your clients on Fiverr, maybe you can share your website with them, show additional work that you have, but it's a way for you to also have work come to you. When you have your own website, you're able to, be able to make connections with other people. You're able to get potentially search engine optimization traffic.
You're also able to create ads that you can put on Facebook and on Google and on Instagram and on Twitter, so that people can come to your website, too. So, there's a lot of benefits to building your own website. But, more than that, it's the best way for you to customize a potential client's experience listening to you, so that they can hire you. They can know they're in the right spot. I feel like Fiverr does a decent job of having people who are on there, share what they're all about, what they have to offer, and obviously, there's a marketplace there and I would continue to stay there for now. At least, at this rate. But, eventually, you can have an amazing business and charge a lot more money if you have your own website.
You're going to look a lot more professional and you're going to, hopefully, be able to use it, like I said earlier, to make connections with other people, that can then share your website with others. You can start to build, also, a social media presence. There's a lot of voiceover people that all hang out together in different Facebook groups. That's something you would want to share, is your website. You don't really want to share your Fiverr gig with them, you want to share your website where your home is. That's really what a website is. It's sort of your home, and you invite people to your home, and you show them around. Your decorations are what shares the kind of person you are.
Now I'm not saying decorations like . . . And, you're probably too young for this, but Myspace was a place where people could create their own page, and on their page, they would decorate it with like these flashy, little glittery things and marquees that were scrolling, and all this other stuff that was nonsense. That's not the kind of decoration I'm talking about. I'm using decoration more as a metaphor for, “Hey, when people come to your site, they get to see what it looks like. See you. Your face and see the kind of work that you've done to show and prove to people that you are somebody worth hiring.”
Also, you're able to do some more things with pricing on your website, too. Like create tiered pricing structures or different packages that you can't do on Fiverr alone, but again, Fiverr is a great place for you to sort of build that authority, like you're doing right now, and build your social proof, and potentially get some more longer-term clients that you can then work outside of Fiverr down the road. How do you do that? Well, there's a number of different ways to go about building a website. There's a lot of different packages out there. For example, you could go to a place like Squarespace, where you can really easily create something that, I feel, might be just a lot simpler to start with, than for example, creating a WordPress website and then starting with the theme, which is also something I would recommend doing, too.
If you're up to it, if you're sort of okay with the technology aspect of it, that's the way I would go, because you have more options of customizing it later down the road. However, an out of the box package that would be able to help you sell some of your services, as soon as a day or two from now. Something like Wix or Squarespace would be a good solution for you, at this point in time. So, those are some options that you have, but I, hopefully, have given you some good reasons for creating your own website. But, let's get a little bit deeper into what would be on that website. So, a website is, again, like a great way for you to create a good first impression on who you are and what you have to offer.
I would absolutely include a picture of you there, because people want to know who they're working with. The more human you can become online, the more likely it is you are to make a connection and to build longer-term relationships. I can imagine you down the road, having these clients that are continually coming back to you again, and again, and again for your services. I can probably guess that that's already happening with some of your people that you're getting to work with on Fiverr, which is really cool. Having videos up, having samples, portfolio of work up there is great, too. Plus, you can have a button similar to what you would have on Fiverr that says, “Hire me.”
If you look on my speaking page, SmartPassiveIncome.com/speaking, you'll se a hire me button throughout that page, and that will be similar to yours. You can have a page that's kind of like that, that has testimonials, examples of your work, messages on why people should hire you. I also love your story. If you have a story to go along with it, why you became a voiceover artist, why this is something that's important to you. People really resonate with that kind of stuff and your own website in a place like that would be a great place to put it, so that people would want to work with you. Riley, I hope this has been helpful. Kind of a lot of information in a short period of time, but hopefully, it's kind of getting your gears going.
If you need any help, please reach out, let me know. Yeah, like I said. Maybe there's something we could do to work together later down the road. We'll see, but anyway, thank you so much, Riley. I'm going to shoot you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here, on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here, on the show, just like Riley's, head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there, on that page.
Thank you all for listening in.
Also, and as always, I like to end with a quote. Today's quote comes from, well, it's actually an unknown quote, or a quote that comes from somebody unknown, but I like this. That is, “People will hate you, rate you, shake you, and break you. But, how strong you stand is what makes you.”
Maybe it's a Dr. Seuss book, but I'm not sure. Cheers. Take care, guys. I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.