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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But in my biased opinion, Fiverr has the most active marketplace and I get pretty much multiple daily inquiries. One thing it has taught me is to be tight on "Vetting" potential clients, you almost get a sixth sense from the way a "Buyer" initially interacts with you, you start to read between the lines. On Fiverr my prices are advertised very clearly,  for instance, a full song is "$ X-amount", so if they ask "How much for the full song" be cautious, of course, reply to them and inform them clearly with a few "What this includes" points (100% commercial usage, multiple verses, 10 revisions, Chorus, all backing vocals, etc...) but know that they: A- may be haggling or B-they may be flakey (the type who can't be bothered to rate you, thus your score reduces!) .. however, this is not always the case, they may be an awesome client, never dismiss this ! 
Like starting to date someone, just be 'eyes open' for red flags even the subtle ones! 

 

 

So in Summary on Fiverr, if your 'Unique Selling Point/s' are attractive to a certain niche, Fiverr is perhaps the most vibrant market and platform to jump onto. 

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Airgigs is another more “Musician Niche’d”, so to speak, platform that I have signed up to. Off the bat I would say on paper it would appear to be more “Musician” focused and targeted but after having been on this platform for a while I surmise the “Market place” is just not as active or as vibrant as Fiverr, I get so much more music projects on Fiverr, I have paid to be featured on Airgigs (About 35 bucks a months I think), this seemed to increase my exposure/clicks but didn’t really translate into more actual inquiries.

 

Yes I have obtained some good vocal gigs and some 5 star ratings but in comparison with fiverr the actual work obtained is so much less. Again, this is only from my personal experience so inherently biased. I do recommend signing up on it and creating a gig or two as your experience may be more positive than mine! I am basing this on being a vocalist so you may have ‘more luck’ as a guitarist/drummer/keys etc… also I understand Mixers/producers do well on here.

 

One of the pros of Airgigs is they only take 10% as opposed to fiverrs 20%, but….I’ve earnt a hell of a lot more on fiverr so 20% of a bigger chunk of change counters this 10% cut!

The other main pro is Airgigs as a company is less shall we say “Draconian” ( excessive severity ) when it comes to “Ratings”, it’s a lot simpler you just get a star rating as opposed to the “All seeing judgy’ eye of the AI” that fiverr operates with.

 

Also cancellation policies appear to be more relaxed and don’t affect your score. But saying all this Airgigs just doesn’t stand up to fiverr overall in terms of click traffic- leads and of course paid completed gigs!

And also when you look at the number of reviews on Airgigs even the top rated sellers have 5 stars in the hundreds as opposed to fiverr where you see top rated sellers with thousands of reviews ! Do the Math ! LOL

 

PROS

10% commission fee

More relaxed cancellation policy

More relaxed and simpler rating/feedback system

Airgigs is exclusively for musicians/producers

When an order is complete the payout is usually within 24 hours as opposed to fiverr’s standard 14 days payout (7 if you are a PRO)

 

CONS

Much less active/vibrant marketplace

Overall it seems just more ‘passive’ in regards to visibility to potential buyers

No video upload facility to have as your “Promo” media (You can link to a Youtube video but I feel that can be counterproductive as in say you only had 20 views on your YT video that isn’t very appealing, on fiverr you can upload a 1 min 15 sec video straight onto your profile gig)

 

So in summary Airgigs is definitely a platform to sign up to and create a profile with gigs but in my experience it just does not stand up to the “Market place” of fiverr, 20% of $150 is always going to be more fruitful than 10% of ZERO!

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There are a few more established platforms to mention, but I haven’t had experience on them so I recommend you research them yourself, they may work for you!

I believe it only honest to comment on these with actual reviews from other people who have used them, which I will LINK here for you warning they are negative reviews from sellers, of course there are positive ones but negative reviews are in my opninion much more telling!

 

SOUNDBETTER    https://www.reddit.com/r/soundbetter/comments/vr4hq4/honest_review_of_soundbetter_from_a_premium/

 

UPWORK

https://www.reddit.com/r/Upwork/comments/1e4kcmt/music_producers_on_upwork/

 

VOCALIZR

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/vocalizr.com

 

*** There are a few other platforms/sites and new ones will spring up… it’s worth researching but I would recommend focusing on FIVERR and AIRGIGS to get the ball rolling….

 

 

 

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