There are many ways to obtain clients online, whether selling yourself on your website or utilising the existing platforms for "Freelancers." 
 

There are things to consider, pros and cons and factors to consider of a qualitative nature. 
 

In the simplest terms, you need a way to access a market with your own website ( I do recommend one, by the way; I'll come onto that in a later chapter).

Now, this can be hard! FB/Instagram advertising and creating a YouTube channel to start funneling specific clients—this whole topic deserves a whole course and then some! So I won't digress into this too much. 
 

With the already established platforms, there is already a "Marketplace" for clients to find you for their particular track/project. Namely Fiverr, Air Gigs, freelancer, and Upwork.. to name a few... 
Down the page, I will expand upon the "Pros and Cons" from my subjective view, as an active online musician. 
 

Things to consider with platforms are, like everything online, there is a lot of competition and I see so many freelance musicians/producers/singers trying to compete with the lowest price, this is a global marketplace place so one is in a situation where the country you live may be completely different (much higher cost of living, etc) than another, so a producer in India could theoretically offer a much lower rate for the same service as you! But... I have learned, that undervaluing yourself can be counterproductive.  
 

I remember reading about an advertising guru who was bought into to try and boost sales of a car in the US as it wasn't selling well enough, he simply advised "Double the price"... the sales tripled! 
 

My point here is that people on the whole have this almost irrational perspective that if something is a higher price, it must be a higher quality product/service! 
 

Imagine someone rich, where money is not an issue at all, they were looking for a car, you offered them exactly the same car but one was an official Mercedes but the other one was not, remember exactly the same car, which one do you think the rich person would buy?..
 

This is a mindset you need to install! Another point I have found is setting a decent price 'weeds out' the "Bad quality" clients/producers, on the whole from my experience when I have accepted to work for less (Don't do this btw!!) they are the flakiest most annoying clients to work for, I mean they have already taken the piss, so why won't they continue to do so.... with a platform on this point remember QUALITY, not QUANTITY!

 

 

platforms you may look at, as well as pros and cons.

 

 

 

 

 

FIVERR  Just a caveat, this is the platform I get most of my work through. The 'Market place' is immense! But... this also means it's competitive (I refer to the undervaluing point I made earlier, lots of "Sellers" particuarly the younger ones offer ridiculously low services! It's good to not fall into this trap, and in a way, it aligns with Chapter one where I talk about musicians accepting the "Micro peanuts" payouts from Spotify! Try to shift your perspective on this, you are an awesome talent and accepting nothing from Spotify (And the others!) does not apply here!

 

PROS

An amazing, extensive, and very active marketplace, producers and other musicians search here as a priority.

 

You get to create Multiple gigs.

 

The layout is great .

 

You can upload promo videos (Some platforms you can't)

 

CONS

 

Fiverr takes 20% commission (Other platforms take less for instance Air gigs only takes 10%) and actually, any single order over $500 they take a 25% commission!

 

They also take 20% off any tips!

 

The positive aspect of a very big market has a downside, the competition is quite immense with sellers offering services at a ridiculously low price. (see previous points on this)

 

They have a very stringent "Level system", I am currently a "Top rated" seller at a rate of 9 on a 10-point scale, If I slip to an 8 I will renegagted to level 2!  

 

An AI system assesses all sorts of quantitative and qualitative data aspects of your performance: how quickly you respond, the amount of money you make (In all fairness once you make a certain amount you've achieved that "Benchmark" so that box is ticked, it's not a rolling assessment).

 

However, most importantly you are assessed on your "Customer feedback scores", based on both the 'public' feedback (up to 5 star rating) and also more crucially the 'private' feedback you will never see (Yes this carries the most weight!)... even with a 5* star rating 'Publicly' if your private review is lower that affects your score more.

One of my biggest bugbears is the fact that it seems if a customer, who appears 100% happy with your work, but doesn't bother to rate you, or they may rate publicly but not privately, your level score dips! It's 100% unfair and I'm not the only fiverr seller who feels this!

 

 

 

 

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