Is that comment fair Lady ? Open Letter to a Fine Lady named Robyne Arrow

January 19, 2012 Fiverr No comments

I generally don’t like to confront my clients/buyers because I have always believed that  Customer is God. But sometimes things become so stretched from reality that I need to set the record straight. Now I am not going to put my side of things as I want all the visitors to make their own opinion by going through the following conversations which recently happened on fiverr for 1 of our orders. Only thing I want to mention is that our team was on holiday due to a big local festival because of which lots of the orders got delayed.

 

The gig in question :- http://fiverr.com/harmonyinfotech/design-a-header-for-your-site

We always request client to provide following details after ordering this gig.

1) Header Dimensions (Width x Height)

2) Color Scheme

3) Site URL

4) Title/Subtitle

5) Images to be used (Photos,Background,Foregrounds)

 

Client (On 08 January 2012) :-

Hi Im not quite sure what color scheme or anything for that matter. I have two sites I would like to have this done for:

www.getinshapechallenge.com This is where I am giving away a free nutritional weight loss program where thousands have tried the product (Check out some of the testimonials). I think I would like a header that prompts crossroads and challenges and how the 10 Day + is the best choice. Also have testimonial(s) in the header too. Also love fade into headers like the survivalist one you have on your fivedollarbaby web page.

www.robynearrow.com is the website about me. IF anything I want people to see all the things I have done. Bike across country, work with 20,000 children on never give up (Which i would love to have “Never Give Up” somewhere in the header) world class athlete, Doctorate degree, bus accident, well known, liked and looked up to. The go to source with mental and physical strength as the key to life…… Colors I don’t know.

These are both weebly.com websites…. so I am not sure what size the dimensions can be.

Hopefully you can still help me out with headers that are usable and loved for these two websites. You may want to start on the getinshapechallenge.com first this way i can get some other pics of me up on the robynearrow.com site. Thanks again!!

US (13 January 2012)  :-

Sorry for the delay.Here is the first review for first header .Please check it and let me know if you need any changes.

Regards,
Ravi.

Here is the Quick Note we always send to our client after delivering the first draft because fiverr doesn’t have an easy way to submit revisions and we have to remind the clients to reject the gig when looking for a revision.

Note :
………………………………..
Just a courtesy message to let you know that you should reject the gig in case you want us to work on a revision. You can reject a gig using “Got Problems?” link visible on right-hand side above the message box. You should always reject a gig when requesting/waiting for a revision because the fiverr system otherwise will mark the gig as completed automatically after 3 days. We have “5 Revisions No Question Asked” Policy. Once you are happy with the order, we will supply you psd/source files incase you need it. We will also upload the header/banner on your site free of cost.

Client ( 13 January 2012) :-

NOT EVEN CLOSE TO WHAT I REQUESTED. YOU DIDNT EVEN USE ANY OF MY PHOTOS. IT LOOKS LIKE YOU DON’T ENJOY YOUR WORK. NOT TO MENTION I AM SUPPOSED TO HAVE TWO DIFFERENT GIGS SENT TO ME!!!! I JUST WANT MY MONEY BACK. THIS IS NUTS

US ( 13 January 2012 ) :-

No need worry we revert back with changes for you and sorry for the mistake..

US ( 17 January 2012 ) :-

Hi,
sorry for the delay,Please check the attachment and let me know if you need any changes.

Regards,
Ravi.

At this point the buyer got the order cancelled by getting in touch with fiverr customer support and put some negative feedback which I felt was too scathing (I don’t mind proper criticism but it has to be reasonable and correctly portray the situation).  As I let my designer team handle most of the work including responding back to clients so I don’t generally interfere unless there are some issues like delayed order delivery or cancelled order as I want to know why a customer was not happy with our work and what I can do to fix that issue.

So I sent the following message to the client on 18 January 2012 .

Hi,
I cannot understand how do you expect us to peek into your mind and design something which you have envisioned in your mind. For god sake, this is a design gig and we provide “No Question Asked” Revisions . We understand that we cannot always deliver a perfect design in the first try and that is why we expect the client to give their feedback. As for not using your images, you haven’t even provided them so how are we going to use them. If you want a decent result then you need to have some patience. We definitely love our work and have delivered more than 2000 headers here on fiverr with 98% +ve feedback so that is not something fluke.

Regards,
Alok.

Client :-

Thanks for your explanation. My problem with this gig is I gave explicit description on what I wanted. You didn’t deliver. Not anything close. I wouldnt have had a problem if the header had something close to what I had asked for including the use of my photos that could easily be taken off the websites. I provided this information right from the start. You know what its your business. Run it anyway you like. Im the buyer and Im not interested regardless the numbers you say have been sold. Take care

Myself :-

Really ? Not to pick a fight but you need to understand that what may be explicit for you may not be the same for others.

Just a simple example here so that you understand the problem we face to understand what exactly you want.

We clearly mention the details to be in following format.

1) Header Dimensions (Width x Height)
2) Color Scheme
3) Site URL
4) Title / Subtitle
5) Images to be used (If available)

and what exactly you provided.

1) Header Dimension :- “I am not sure what size the dimensions can be.”
2) Color Scheme :- “Im not quite sure what color scheme or anything for that matter.”
3) Site URL :- www.getinshapechallenge.com
4) Title / Subtitle :- “I think I would like a header that prompts crossroads and challenges and how the 10 Day + is the best choice. Also have testimonial(s) in the header too.”
5) Images :- To our discretion to be picked up from the site.

Now can you please go through above requirements again and can’t you see , you have left almost all the things to our discretion. Now we may not have done justice to it but it is only because the “explicit” instructions aren’t very explicit.

It would have been explicit if it was like this as what one of our other client has provided.

1) 950 x 200
2) I’m thinking blue, but open to suggestions
3) www.PeopleSkillSite.com, but this is not yet active
4) Title is “People Skills 101″ A subtitle might be “Learning, Growing, and Achieving”
5) I’m thinking some shots of business people (like your #164 header) possibly interacting (not quite like #163, but might also show a social setting). May I leave initial images to your creativity?

So we are left to come up with everything on our own but we aren’t given enough tries to do it. How do you expect us to give you what you wanted in the first try with somewhat vague instructions left to our own imagination.

I hope you will take above message in its right spirit and understand that we are ready to give our best but the client needs to give us some space if they expect us to flex our creative muscles.

Anyway I understand that it is completely your choice to get it done from whomever you deem fit and the numbers were mentioned only to let you know that we must be doing something right.

Regards,
Alok.

 

The client changed their feedback again to following which prompted me to write this blog post and this is a first time after having delivered more than 2800+ gigs on fiverr with 98% +ve feedback that I felt compelled to write it.

Client Feedback

HORRIBLE!!They say 5 days.Its more like 20+.They send a header with zero requested specs along with a note you can reject this gig and we will revise.Then you get another revision just as bad as the first. etc., etc., etc., They are trying to override fiverr rules. BAD BUSINESS HERE. GO ELSEWHERE!

 

Now my designers may not have done a correct job initially but that is why we offer “5 No Question Asked Revisions” because I know that sometimes it takes some time to really understand what a client is really looking for.

 

Anyway I would like feedback from my readers as to what they think about this whole issue.

 

Paid Traffic vs Free Traffic

October 1, 2011 Affiliate Marketing, Making Money Online No comments

When I started my journey towards making money online, the emphasis was on building niche sites but as my adsense account was banned due to the reasons known best to Google only , I stopped concentrating on it for time being and started searching for better methods (Though I have again started working on this model and have created a site targetting the new song chammak challo and will later on convert this site to a movie review site). The reason I started with niche sites was that it looked more kind of passive income and the investment is also low but the results are supposed to long lasting if you can get a site ranked in Google. The stories of people making anywhere from $1000 to $30000 per month due to sites created few years back was very tempting. But I think I was kind of late into the party since Google had just started its fight onto the MFA brigade and EMD’s were losing its sheen as they weren’t getting the boost they used to get ( I cannot verify this though since I haven’t built much EMD’s myself yet). Then I came across Barman when I was searching for so called Guru Product. Even though I had ordered the supposedly free CD which was mailed for only the cost of S&H nothing was there in that except statements about how this Guru was making so much and how much we can also make. I was glad that I found the barman’s blog as I had ordered the Guru product for the first month trial and promptly cancelled it after reading the reviews there. Thereafter I started founding more people like David who were kind of more into Paid Affiliate Marketing. So now this is where the question raised in this post title comes into picture. Given a chance what would be a better way to make money online. I cannot concretely answer the question yet since I am not making much with any of this methods but I can clearly see both have a strength & weakness. I will update this post later on once I have more experience with both the methods.

An Update

September 30, 2011 Affiliate Marketing No comments

It’s been a long time since I have written anything on my blog. Frankly I was never the kind of one who can talk much about himself or other things around me like few others do in such a copious matter and being silently working on my laptop for most of the day make sure that my vocal cords aren’t exercised much.

 

Anyway after sitting on fence for a long time deliberating on whether I should start with paid affiliate marketing or not I had taken a jump few months back and have already got my feet wet.  At the moment I am working with convert2media and peerfly but I have also been approved to most of the top networks listed here.  Now I have to only ramp up my campaigns and reach some good profit level asap as it has been a long time I have been stuck in the same range.

 

Btw I have decided to blog daily and hopefully I will be able to keep up the pace.

As the New Year Approaches

November 12, 2010 Affiliate Marketing, Running A Company No comments

As the current year is coming to its end, the time for New Year Resolutions is nearing.  But I am in no mood to wait for making some resolutions.  As my life is taking new turn everyday, I think I shouldn’t let the time fly in hope of doing things at a perfect time and make some resolutions. I wouldn’t like to call them resolutions but kind of targets I wish to achieve in next year.

 

  1. Learn a Language Every Year.  Starting from first, it will be Telugu and later on I am going to cover Tamil, Assamese and other languages.
  2. The order volume for our  Header Design Service  should be around 50-100 in a day from the current 1-5 in a day.  We generally charge around $5 for each header but they aren’t some cheap quality stuff thrown in few minutes. We exquisitely craft the header depending upon the user inputs and also provide upto 5 revisions with no question asked policy.
  3. I have around 16 members working in my company at the moment.  I would like to increase the strength to around 30 members and make sure each member is generating atleast $1000 per month for the company. I personally would like to make around $1000 profit per day around this time of the year next year. For this to happen , I would be starting making around $100 per day in January.
  4. As my previous partnership haven’t worked out properly , I would like to get a new partner who can/will understand me and have faith on my business model.  Though the time is coming sooner when the cheques rolling in will be able to convince all the skeptics that I am on a correct path.
  5. Revenuewise I would like my company to be around $10000 – $30000 per month total revenue.  Part of it will be from project works and professional services rendered such as Cheap Script Installation Service and rest of them from Internet and Affiliate Marketing.

 

Now the question is how I am going to achieve my goal. Let me breakdown the blueprint I have in my mind.

 

 

1) Start heavily creating niche sites. I am aiming around 100 sites in a month.  As there are around 25 working days so my HI Blogging Team would need to create 4 sites in a day. Assuming each niche site contains around 10 articles (of 500 words each) at minimum it would mean 40 articles in total. Now a single person should be able to write around 10 articles working 7 hours so I would need 4 members dedicated for this task.  Btw I am thinking of selling around 25 sites out of the 100 created few months down the road so that I have some cashflow which is definitely needed to make sure I am not burning cash too much.  I think it would be easy to sell each of them for $50. Btw there are lots of different ways to monetise a niche site and I would be trying almost every method so that I don’t rely on a single source of revenue. Few of the monetisation method from the top of my head are

  • Adsense
  • Chitika
  • Amazon
  • Clickbank
  • Ebay
  • Adbrite
  • Commission Junction

2) Finally start with Paid Affiliate Marketing. I have been planning for a long time for starting with paid affiliate marketing but couldn’t start. I intend to start dabbling into PPC/PPV ie paid traffic acquisition method and monetise the site with CPA/CPS offers. 

 

I will be updating this post till the new year to create a good roadmap for myself.

An Update

September 22, 2010 General No comments

It has been a long time I have updated my blog. I was pretty busy with day-to-day stuff as my company have now grown to over 12 members and I am looking to soon reach around 20 member strong.  But the growth in members isn’t exactly translating into higher revenues because the team hasn’t become productive as a whole. We have been doing some good business on vworker.com and now fiverr.com but it is still a far cry from my target of $10k per month of income out of which $5k is supposed to be from projects and $5k from blogging and affiliate marketing. Also even though I want to totally stop working on coding/development/designing projects myself but somehow or other I have to work on it. But once I am back from the Chardham Yatra, I would stop working on projects and will concentrate on affiliate marketing and blogging full time.  On an other note, this month marks something which I will remember for my whole life. I cannot/don’t want to talk much about it but just want to say to all the girls in the world, a belief in your better half (Even if he was wrong before and he could be wrong now) is much better for your relationship.

I am going to start with Affiliate Marketing

February 7, 2010 Affiliate Marketing, PPC No comments

After thinking about whether to jump into aff/ppc business for a long time now, I have decided to get my feet wet and start with this industry.  I read the affiliate newbie guide  which was recommended by http://www.ppc.bz (I don’t know  who recommended them though).  I am actually pretty skeptic and don’t generally believe what is written on a website so easily but the ppc.bz guy seems to be genuine in his messages. 

 

So I am just going to update this post with how I am doing with Affiliate Marketing.

What I will be working on in Year 2010

January 16, 2010 Uncategorized No comments

I have been running a very small start up based in vizag (Vishakapatnam) and we mainly dabble into web development.  It has been growing steadily but still not as fast I want it to be. There are also some other few projects which I am interested to pursue but I am not able to due to Lack of Time and also due to absence of a companion who can take the headache out of running day-to-day company affairs. Frankly I don’t like wasting my time on mundane stuff like bidding on projects on freelancing sites or asking my team for the project status. I think I can delegate that stuff to one of my team member and I can start concentrating on purely doing stuff which will directly impact the company growth (Though bidding on projects is essential to get projects but it eats lot of my time just on the bidding phase. Moreover I generally prefer doing projects on Rentacoder & Odesk but I still bid on other sites just to increase our exposure. I want to minimize my time on bidding on projects and rather do some constructive things.)

 

As my dream of creating adsense niches has been shattered , I have to figure out another way to generate money through online businesses.  So I will be concentrating on Affiliate Marketing and most probably I will go ahead with creating Amazon & Ebay niches.  Apart from it I would also concentrate on developing my other virtual real estate empire which may not give any returns in the short-term but which can be really big in long term.  I am listing few of my ideas on which I will be working on in coming months in 2010.

 

1) www.rishimoney.com

A site about anything related to Money and its various avatars like credit cards,debit cards,savings accounts,loans etc. 

 

2) www.multipress.in

As it becomes more and more easy to run something using wordpress and its themes/plugins combo, it is quite natural for us to keep track of things possible in wordpress as is is our most preferred CMS.

 

3) www.opengarage.in

My small effort to increase the numbers of idiots in this world.

 

4) www.miniprojects.in

A natural extension to the earlier site.  Kinda showcase for the opengarage team and also to attract would be idiots by luring them through the promise of mini/main projects.

 

To Be Continued….(As I get more idiotic ideas in my mind).

Is this the Life you want to live..

January 11, 2010 Opengarage, Uncategorized, Virtual Moksha No comments

 

This is an excerpt from the book “Tears of The Mystic Rose” which can be found at

http://oshorajneesh.net/ .  

 

“the whole education system is criminal and against the innocent child
who has no choice but to follow whatever is thrust upon him
from the very frst day in nursery
the whole education is geared to training the mind
towards competition and aggression and jealousy and judgement
this fact is simple and of clear understanding
as no parent wants their beloved child to be behind others
everyone wants their child to come frst…be the best…always ahead
it is impossible that everyone can come frst in class
this mathematical principle would defeat even poor albert einstein
only one child can come frst…second…then third
which child wants to be third class…any takers
which child is congratulated for coming in last
any child with a dumb aptitude just to memorise stupid dates and numbers
and meaningless bits of knowledge comes frst in class
education just tests memory and not intelligence in any way
the subjects taught are all meaningless to the poor child
but teachers are serious and parents pressurising to do well in school
the innocent child has no choice
just cramming their innocent minds with garbage and rubbish
they are there to carry the dustbins of our past glory…or gory for that matter
the poor child is taught about
alexander the great…genghis khan…tamurlane…ivan the terrible…hitler
great battles and world wars…destruction and destruction
what is so great about alexander the great
just his egoistic conquering insanity
murderer termed the great conqueror
history
the stupidities of our past remembered with pride
geography
the reasons for the division of our one earth into separate nations
biology
all about everything except ourselves and our place in nature
chemistry
all about everything but what to do with chemical hormones of fear or anger
mathematics
where one plus one is two but never fits into our real world of counting
language
all is talk and talk and the language of silence is no means of communication
the whole education is upside down geared for the average masses
all subjects and syllabus and exams to exactly ft millions of different children
from different social economic cultural religious backgrounds
into one single exam pattern with no variation
all children carbon copies like a plastic factory churning out toys
each with the same barbie doll smile…exactly the same
we are simply creating robots for a controlled environment
comfortable and easy to manage in our conditioned society
all people must fit into one mentally acceptable social group
no wonder this human race is confused
fragmented and divided against itself…and always at war with itself
no child loves himself…no child accepts himself…no child can be himself
no child loves himself
and silently and deeply knows they are being crushed
by the education system to cram and struggle against their nature
to do well and be rewarded with meaningless degrees for employment
every child is conditioned that they are stupid and need to be educated
they know nothing…that they are not fit the way they are
they do not deserve reward without struggle and effort
divided from childhood they learn hate and learn politics of the smile
they hate themselves for failing to satisfy their eager and loving parents
teachers elders society and nations
they learn to hate their parents and elders for forcing them against their
nature and learn to smile jimmy carter smiles
all smiles all around…just keep smiling hurting inside…it pays to smile
no child accepts themselves as they are
how can they when they are rejected by all around…for stupid meaningless
reasons which appear to be serious and important by retarded grownups
do not cry be a man…live for society…live for another…sacrifice yourself
go to war and fight for your nation
no child can be himself
become this or become that…become this powerful president
or that famous doctor or that important government dignitary
or anything else will do…but do not become just yourself
the very first lesson in life…the only few worth unlearning
love yourself…accept yourself…be yourself
love yourself
by not loving yourself the small silent and fragile energy
is divided and fragmented from within and a cancer grows rapidly unseen
do not love others…just learn to love yourself first
one who loves himself understands the value of love from within
self love is the way to inner health and growth of self knowing
this love grows and blossoms through seven pillars of inner light
love nourishes and soon spreads on it own accord to others
accept yourself
what a stupid boring world we would live in if all humans were exactly same
learn acceptance of yourself just the way you are
existence has given birth to you and accepts you unconditionally
you are breathing and alive with its aliveness…a miracle in itself
each and every individual in unique and irreplaceable in this vast cosmos
the very beauty of you remains its unique signature
be yourself
you can try and pretend as much as this society demands of you
to be someone else and to live the life of the impossible imposter
there is only one way and that is being yourself
whatsoever you are just relax at ease and be yourself
just out of being yourself a tremendous grace and beauty
will be released and will radiate all around you
love yourself…accept yourself…be yourself
these qualities will create for the first time
an individual whose inner fame is undividable
a great pool of energy will gather and surround you
with this an inner trust will arise from within you”.

Living in Zen

January 11, 2010 Virtual Moksha No comments

 

 

Waking when awake, sleeping when sleepy

Eating when Hungry

Walking when walking

Sitting when sitting

The Way of Tao

Living in Zen

An Open Source Company

January 5, 2010 Opengarage, Uncategorized No comments

I have been a honest guy most of my life. I do have my own share of dishonesty but they are quite few and small.  As such I have always faced many problems because of being a honest guy.  Now as I run a small startup, I have a dilemma that should we start becoming more aggressive which in process may make my “Honesty is the Best Policy” to take a backseat. For the time being I think we can get off with being honest.  But many times I worry if I can always continue to run the company with the same honesty and zeal. I am not sure about the answer.  But many times I dream of running a company which is very open,transparent and honest in whatever things we do. Kind of “An Open Source Company”.  I mean is it possible to run a company where every information about it is available in public.  Every expenses, every income, every mistakes, every idea, in short EVERYTHING in public eyes.  I am not sure if it will be possible to run/create a company like that. But I can always dream.  I hope something similar is already running somewhere.

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