Neil St. Clair is a former professional television journalist turned entrepreneur. He’s the founder of media outlet AlleyWire, a video-centered news agency covering the global innovation scene. Neil is also a contributor to Forbes and attended Yale and Boston Universities.
I’m still a relative newcomer on Fiverr® with around 20 Gigs® under my belt. But, I’ve been doing voiceover and video work professionally for more than seven years. And what I saw in the pro-creative space has translated to the Fiverr world. That is, that you’re going to have to learn to play well with others.
While my main Fiverr Gig is providing voiceover work, I’ve already been asked several times if I could work with another Fiverr seller providing video, animation or other creative efforts. Here are a few rules I’ve learned from my collective experience on how
to make this cross-Gig collaboration a success for both buyers and sellers:
1) Communicate Early & Often.
This is one of those it-seems-so-obvious Golden Rules that applies to even non-collaborative scenarios. But, when you’re working across Fiverr fields, it must be a top priority for everyone involved.
As an example, if you hired a voiceover artist for one Gig, but have another Fiverr providing the script, you’re aiming for trouble if you don’t connect these two at the very start. Why? Quite simply, while VO artists are adept at reading other people’s writing, the best quality comes from a script that adheres not only to the tone/attitude of the buyer’s brand, but to the style of the VO artists as well.
Allowing the scriptwriter and VO actor to communicate early in the process allows the actor a chance to provide some insight and creative smoothing of the script (as well as an opportunity to add certain diction and diacritical marks on points of emphasis and key pronunciations)—this will ultimately allow the VO read to glide effortlessly and get you a better final product.
2) It Pays to One-Stop-Shop.
While expertise can be a necessary condition to achieve perfection, it can sometimes prove a hindrance. If you can find a unicorn “Fiverr” that does video/animation, scriptwriting and voiceover acting, you’re golden.
I’m not just saying this because I provide these services as “Gig Extras”, but because I’ve too often seen really horrid video, or god-awful scripts come across that I’ve now got to voice. I’m trying to polish up something that ultimately doesn’t match well with the service I’m providing. Rather, if I’m able to write the script it’s going to adhere to my voice—I know how I speak. And if I’m assembling the video, it’s much easier for me to sync up music and images that pace well with the voice track I’ve created. Rather than try to make a square peg fit a round hole, just hire a round peg!
But, if you can’t find your “unicorn,” it may make sense to have a more senior Fiverr serve as a project manager of the other sellers. Be sure to give them the authority and communicate that to the other players involved. This way, there’s only one person for your communication chain that can deal with multiple personalities and project lines.
3) Find Creative Synergy.
But when you are cross-pollinating on Fiverr (and there are many times where this makes sense), it’s great to find sellers that have a similar creative aesthetic.
My VO work, for example, sounds great in an ad for Lexus, but asking me to voice an ad for Crazy Eddie’s Firesale Car Shack likely won’t work. In the latter scenario, you just won’t get a good result.
In the same way, it’s unlikely to produce a positive outcome if you’re working with an animator that’s into Care Bears, and combing them with a musician who thrives on death metal, with a voiceover actor that regularly appears on NPR. In short, know the voice/tone/attitude that you want for your brand and find artists in the Fiverr universe that all resonate with that, and with creative approaches that complement each other.
Working with other Fiverr artists is a lot of fun, and something that is gaining in frequency across the site. Keeping these simple tips and tricks in mind is a great way to ensure a proper workflow and a top-notch final product.
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