Essential Online Tools for Small Businesses – Part 3: Fiverr

As previously discussed, it’s tempting to take on every single role within a business, certainly when you’re first starting out. I think it’s a good idea to have a handle on each aspect of your business in the first instance because it prepares you for when you come round to then outsourcing different elements.

There’s no doubt about it, having a basic understanding of spreadsheets, creating presentations, image manipulation and video editing put you in a good place to run a business. There will however come a point at which it makes more sense to outsource jobs, and this becomes especially important if these jobs are stopping you from doing the higher-end tasks that further your business the most.

If you’ve never outsourced work before, a good introduction is on the website fiverr.com.

The concept is simple, you pay $5 for various tasks or gigs from a range of freelancers from around the world. These include logo design, video editing, blog writing, proofreading…the list is endless.

Most gigs have upgrades. So, for example, for $5 many images and/or designs are only produced in a particular format or file type unless you pay extra. The licensing rights of some gigs occasionally need to be upgraded too, for example if you wish to use the image for commercial purposes.

Even so, this website provides some excellent outsourcing opportunities and value for money, and is definitely worth checking out.

Obscure gigs

There are some more obscure tasks too, including Sean Connery voiceovers (impersonators of course), shooting anything with an air rifle (completely bizarre), and topical holiday-themed favourites like the following:

You could ask, well how applicable are these to my business? If you’re a business that relies heavily upon content and markets yourself online, there are endless possibilities.

An example of something I had made recently was the following infographic for my adventure travel business:

I simply wrote the text I wanted to include, paid for the gig, then sent my text off as a Word file with my company logo. Three days later, it was delivered, for the cost of a beer in London.

Disclaimer

Now there is a disclaimer here…the quality of the services offered varies hugely. Sometimes you will receive substandard gigs, but more often than not, I’ve been blown away with the results. It’s definitely worth checking the reviews and examples of a freelancer’s previous work, and being extremely thorough with your descriptions of the work you’d like to be completed. Once you’ve found a good freelancer, it’s obviously then worth sticking with them (and sharing them with your friends!).

There are a number of similar sites, including the UK-version of fiverr.com…(can you guess what it’s called?!)…fivesquid.com. There are similar gigs on there, but there are far more UK-based freelancers which is great for gigs that, for example, require British accents (overdubbing promotional videos) or for proofreading (I’ve struggled with non-native British proofreaders in the past).

I hope you’ve found this article interesting and hope you find some amazing freelancers on fiverr.com.

Please comment below if you’ve found it useful and if you find any good gigs!