Gal and Marianne, WordAndRecord on Fiverr, are professional animators, delivering explainer animation videos, whiteboard animations, custom animated music videos and more. Hailing from Toronto, they currently work fulltime on Fiverr, and they recently had enough money left over after paying bills to take a four-month trip to South America. Here is Gal and Marianne’s Fiverr story.
Our Fiverr Journey
About a year and a half ago, Marianne and I were working part-time jobs when I stumbled upon Fiverr on Google while looking for additional ways to earn income from home. We opened separate Fiverr accounts, Marianne offering drawing while I offered graphic design. We definitely enjoyed our time on Fiverr, and the money was great, but it wasn’t enough for us to do what we planned on doing: traveling.
At that time, both of us were learning to create animated videos, so we decided it might be a great idea to try to sell this creative skill on Fiverr as well. We made a hard but necessary decision to close our two accounts and open a new joint account with both of us working on it full-time.
Since then, we have been doing great on Fiverr, and were even named a “Rising Star.” Our clients come from all over— business owners, real estate agents, large insurance companies, music producers and entrepreneurs who have just begun their venture and are looking to get their ideas explained properly and in engaging ways. We are constantly growing with Fiverr by adding new Gigs® while optimizing the ones we currently have. Every day we connect with more and more voice actors, illustrators and graphic designers. We read and listen to the Fiverr blogs and podcasts, looking for new tips on how to improve on what we do. We also go through the buyer requests regularly, trying to promote our profile, Gigs, and offerings.
Tips for New Sellers
The best advice we can give to new sellers is approach every project with a positive vibe. Treat the client like, and even better than, you would like to be treated. Always put yourself in his or her shoes. This allows you to truly be genuine in your response. We also give tons of bonuses to our clients (discounts, free character creations, free background music, etc.), simply to keep the client happy every time. Doing these things has helped us create strong relationships with our buyers, who keep returning to us for more work. It is also how we have maintained 100 percent customer satisfaction and our five-star rating.
The Impact of Fiverr
Fiverr had and still has a HUGE impact on our lives. Because we are able to offer animation video services from literally anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection, we are able to do what we love the most, travel!
A few months ago, we got the idea to travel to South America to escape the strong Canadian winter. We’d also heard incredible stories about some magical places that exist only in that part of the world. We decided not to plan ahead and instead move along from city to city, country to country, making decisions along the way, giving us complete freedom to enjoy each place for as long as we desired.
We spent most of the trip staying in hostels, where we would have access to Wi-Fi and be able to work, and we bought an internet plan in every country we visited, though in some mountain cities and small villages, the connection was so poor we had to leave a little earlier than we wanted so we could get our Fiverr work done. We did a ton of three-day treks with incredible people and incredible views, but we always made sure to be back in three days so we could answer our Fiverr messages. While every day was special, one of the most exciting things that happened along the way was when we landed in Peru, we found out it was time for the annual Virgen de la Candelaria festival, which is comparable to the Carnival in Rio. The festival went on for full week, 24/7, and we celebrated with the locals all night long, dancing and drinking pisco sours.
Everywhere we went people were shocked when we explained what Fiverr was and how it enabled us to work and travel at the same time, and many were excited to try out Fiverr for themselves. Finally, after four months of visiting cities in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Uruguay, we decided it was time to go home.
With Fiverr, we went from working part-time jobs to traveling the world in just a few months after opening our current account. It is obvious to both of us that Fiverr is something we are in for the long-haul! Our next project? We plan to purchase a van, convert it into a mobile home with a kitchen, bed, etc., and drive from Toronto to Vancouver, discovering beautiful landscapes throughout Canada.
OUR PROFILE: www.fiverr.com/wordandrecord