Fiverr^® press

23 Sept 2012

$5 Gigs and More

Musician Greg Jones is living the dream while making some money on Fiverr.

Greg Jones, is a musician who, at 40 or so, has decided to go full-tilt-boogie in pursuit of the life of a money-making musician.

In his younger years, he WAS a musician. In the interim, he has become a real estate salesman and the father of two growing-like-weeds girls. But there was that nagging urge to do something more with his music.
An incredible and unique singer, player and writer, he auditioned for a couple of music competition reality shows, but so far hasn't been called to appear.

Three, four nights a week you can catch him performing in Wilmington, Del. On Oct. 13, 2012 you can catch him playing at the Olde King's Jazz Fest in Swedesboro.

He was at a real estate class, talking with people during the day, when someone started wondering about ways he could monetize all the free real estate advice he gives. Someone else suggested he advertise himself on Fiverr.com.



Greg checked it out and realized he could advertise his musical services on the site, as well.

"I swear, I did it as a goof," said Greg. He advertised that he'd make a little video singing "Happy Birthday" to the person of your choice for $5. "When I'm not playing or working, I have a guitar in my hand, sitting in front of my computer, so why not try to capitalize on that, even for just a $5 hit? That was my thought process." But he immediately got orders, 4 in the first week.

"It takes all of three minutes to sit in front of my (web cam), sing 'Happy Birthday' and attach it to the email program on the website," he said. "And I made $4." Fiverr.com keeps a buck.
The next week there were 4 more orders, then 5. "They just keep coming."

Fiverr offers incentives. After you sell a certain amount of "Gigs," you earn a new Level status and get tools to offer additional services.

"Now I could sing 'Happy Birthday' in front of a chalk board with the person's name on it," Greg said. That would cost another $5. Express delivery? That's another 10 bucks.

"Now for every gig, it's almost like selling 3 or 4, because everyone gets these extras. Five dollars is such an innocuous amount of money. If you're impulse buying online, five bucks is nothing," he said.
"It's pretty brilliant. I started taking them way too seriously because I want them to be fantastic. I want referrals. I want people to say, 'You've got to get this guy to sing "Happy Birthday" to your Aunt Millie,' said Greg.

He's also branching out. Now he offers singing real estate listings, singing apologies, and video testimonials or reviews of products or websites, all with extras available. That chalkboard gets quite a workout. He's also doing audio voice-overs. "Instead of hiring a voice-over artist at $150 an hour, people are paying $5 for it," he said.

"Never in my wildest dreams would I think of this," he said, laughing... "this is the ultimate sellout." Greg feels he's simply capitalizing on his talent and his free time, and doing something he loves doing. "I got hired for four different jobs that are going to pay me 60 bucks, and it's going to take maybe a half hour," Greg said. "That's the way I'm justifying it to myself."