Lessons - How To Make 7 Figures On Fiverr | Alexandra Fasulo - Full-Time Digital Nomad

In this episode, we dive into the essentials of building a successful freelancing business on Fiverr. We'll cover how to master time management, customer service, and pricing as well as the strategies to scale from a solo freelancer to running your own business. Whether you're just starting out or looking to grow, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you succeed. When you're starting to sell a service or a product, do you think that it makes more sense to use a marketplace like a Fiverr or even like an upwork or any top towel or any other, or is it more, it makes more sense to figure out a website, market yourself? I think in the beginning a freelancing platform like a Fiverr is definitely the best way to go because they handle so much of it for you, right? Like you don't need to set up a website, you don't need to do your own marketing, you don't need to worry about client disputes, they'll handle all of it. I think starting out if you try and just be your own independent freelancer with your own website and everything right out of the gates, you're going to be so overwhelmed. I think it's going to be too much. I think a freelancing platform's ideal in people's first few years because you get to learn time management, you have to start to understand discipline, not procrastinating, customer service. That's a lot to learn. You've got to give yourself a couple of years for that. Once you feel like you totally got that unlock, you know how to sell people and all that stuff, then I think taking it off of there, where you own 100% of your business is obviously the end goal. That's how you get the agency, go that's how you hire help, you start growing it into something huge, you can make you have seven figures if you want, but I think a freelancing platform is perfectly fine in the meantime because you can make six figures on a freelancing platform which is like crazy and you can do it by yourself. And how much time did you actually have to put in to to hit that to hit and any any significant amount of revenue that would replace your your PR job? Was it months 80 hours a week? Yeah. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, so like in only two months, I knew it was going to work. Yeah, I mean, I was working a lot in the beginning like I was working 50, 60 hour weeks, never 80 hour weeks. I've never been someone who's like not going to sleep at night for I've always thought that's like stupid in college and people are like, I'm pulling it all night or I'm like, well, that's dumb because you're going to be exhausted tomorrow. Like I've never like gotten that, but I would hover around the like 50, 60 hour mark no days off. And I say to people, you don't have to do it that way. Like I'm just being honest about what I did. I'm not saying you have to do it that way, but I think yeah, did working 60 hours a week in the beginning get me the six figures faster probably. If six figures is at your goal, then don't work 60 hours a week. Don't worry about it. Very cool. Okay. And then just I'm curious as to because you mentioned a few other things like when you jump into entrepreneurship, there's other stuff that crops up. There's customer success. There's, um, you mentioned a few things. Actually, I'm liking on some of the other stuff, but what are some of those? What are some of those things that you don't think about when you're starting? Because you have you have your skill that you want to sell to the world. One of the other things that you have to be aware of that you generally don't realize until you're in it. Yeah, oh man, so many things. Um, you market and not marketing sales, right? Like when you're messaging customers, how do you get them to book more with you? Um, customer service like customer satisfaction. They need to leave you five service. You have to offer revisions. You have to be professional in your communication with them. If they lash out at you, you have to still be professional back to them time management. If somebody places eight orders with you one day, you cannot procrastinate. That's the, you know, because if you were already procrastinating another huge order due tomorrow, you now have a situation. So, you know, very like, what is that? Soft skills are like real, common sense stuff is a huge part of this that, you know, you didn't need to have to do well in college or anything or you sometimes don't even really need to do well in a nine to five because your boss, your manager, we can care of it for you. So it's like all those things. You give yourself time to learn those things, but those things, once you learn them, I think you're infallible. Um, I think once you, you know, conquer procrastination, you know how to sell things to people, you know, how to take criticism and not take it personally, I think you can go do anything then. It doesn't have to be freelancing like I think you're set for life when you like get it through that 100%. Um, now this, this is something I'm curious about. Do you think that? Because I, I always preach that you shouldn't jump right in, but I think there could be a benefit because when you jump right into entrepreneurship, you force yourself to ramp like there's like no looking back like you, you could have a little bit of a nest egg, but I mean, chances are you have to, you have to make rent in a couple months and that's going to be an issue if you don't make money. So do you think that by maybe not jumping into, if you jump into a side hustle just part time, do you think maybe the drive isn't there? And that may give a false, a false response to whether or not you could be successful versus if you jump right in and you're like forced, you're like sink or swim. Yeah. Um, I think being forced into it ensures success more and that you're going to make it work. Um, but I have seen a lot of people segue into it half and half where they start at part time while they're at their nine to five. And if they hate their nine to five enough, they make it work part time. So it's almost, I just see it always works. If you are so miserable at whatever it is you're doing, like that's when it works because if you like kind of like your nine to five still, I don't think you're going to make it work. So it takes a lot of work. But for the people I know who are just like, make it stop. I hate this with every fiber of my being. I cannot go on another day. Um, I see them make it work. So it's really like a will thing. Yeah. Um, and okay. So now it was a now you're in it. You're doing it. And, and the one thing that I always was curious about with someone who offers a service in a freelancing environment where the customers are always different industries, different niches. How do you stay? How do you be effective across so many different niches because of course copyrighting is you definitely have to. But I think there's other things like if you are doing any sort of product specific work, you have to find a way to execute whatever service it is that you offer against that product in like record time at a very high caliber. So what's the is it just research? Is it mindset? Is it is there a strategy to find the best information in the short period of time, even though you've never learned about that thing before in your life? Um, yeah, that's that's why the questionnaires are so important in freelancing because if you have a proper questionnaire set up, the client will essentially give you everything you already need. So you'll say, you know, what pages do you want done? What's the topic? Do you have a title in mind? Do you have a blog that you really like that you want this to sound like? And by the time they're done with your questionnaire, they've kind of given you like everything you need to then just write it for me at that. Okay. So this is like the this is like the customer onboarding piece like this is like what this is when you're first bringing them on like that is like integral to being successful. Yeah, basically. Yeah. And the questionnaire is everything. It could it also minimizes miscommunications because like in the beginning, my questionnaires would have like two questions in them and the client would I wouldn't know what the client wanted and the client would get pissed at me and I'd get pissed at the client and all this stuff. Then when you have the 10 questions by the end when they answer all 10 questions like they can't get mad at you because you literally followed like everything they told you. So it's like they don't have a kinks against you at that point because you very smart. Yeah, because like I mean occasionally you get a crazy person who you will follow everything they ask of you and they're like bipolar or something and they'll they'll say like that's not what I want. And I'm like. Okay, or they could or they could be they could be they could be you know doing that on purpose because they want or they think they know the game right they think if they if they complain it's like the person who like like after they ate the meal at the restaurant they're like this was shit like they think like they're going to get a free free something out of you if they just complain enough. Exactly. And if you you know have your questionnaire set up like that Fiverr will see that and be like okay we see this buyers an asshole. This person is trying to get free work basically. All right. Okay, cool. All right. So you so now you are growing your business on Fiverr. The next the next step in entrepreneurship or solo partnership is pricing and and making your business more viable of course. So what are some of the because this is something that I've been in consulting before not copywriting but it's something that I struggled with personally. I know a lot of people struggle with pricing their stuff. How do you price your stuff and how do you know when to increase the price on on your stuff. So on a Fiverr it's really easy because everyone's prices are public. So you just go find your competitors and just copy it. That's what I did. Two times I raised my prices on Fiverr when you advance a level, raise your prices. When you have more work thing you can humanly do in a 10 hour work day, raise your prices. It's all very like we're you know just fluid like just pay attention type of stuff. But you raise your prices even more than those two triggers probably. I always tend to operate on the lower end of the pricing spectrum. That's a me problem. But I say to people you know those are the two instances. Don't be shy. Okay very good. So walk me through the like the current version of your business. So obviously started on Fiverr you grew some additional product. I just want to get at like a holistic and maybe I'll think of some questions to go into or some strengths to go into. But then I want to just keep going down your story and CNBC and some of the things that have come out of that as well. So what's the current iteration of your business all the product services that you're doing right now? Yeah so my business has now officially made the jump from just being on Fiverr to being its own agency essentially. So I have a person below me my best friend who's actually the manager now of three different writers. So I am no longer the girl alone on Fiverr writing every day. I've always been transparent about that which all the trolls are like she isn't telling the truth. I'm like you guys what like I'm always I don't understand why my business can't grow. Like how is that a sin? Like we'll talk about they'll talk about some of that stuff in a second too. Well so I've done this for seven years. I would be an idiot at this point if I didn't have people helping me like why would I just keep doing this alone. So I have my best friend for the last two months now. It's very it's very new is building out an agency essentially below me. So I'm helping with the hiring of people. I'm looking over their work before it's still ever making sure it's up to par and she's basically doing the rest because I'm looking to now you know move more into almost a coaching like informational realm with this. My my season of my podcast is starting next week. I want to get more into almost freelance reporting. No one else is doing that. I want to feature different people's stories talk to other people and freelancing. I'm really like create this community of it that is just so lacking online today. That's where I'm heading with it right now. So I am the most removed from it. I have ever been but I think I deserve that. It's been seven years like I was going to say congratulations because the only goal of a business owner is to make themselves redundant. If you are a thing you're not you don't have a business you just have a job that you've created for yourself. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.