059: Number 1 Voice Over Artist on Fiverr – Becoming a Successful Full-time Online Freelancer (w/ Redd Horrocks)

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Redd Horrocks is a professional voice over artist specializing in British and American accents with a wide range of experience across multiple forms of media including radio to commercial, phone systems, video games, podcasts, and company demo videos. She is an expert when it comes to growing an audience on sites like Fiverr.

She has been featured on Forbes Magazine and Business Insider as one of the top earners globally on the Fiverr website. She works out of a professional recording studio and also offers her voice over services through her company, Red Swift Media. She is also the founder of Instant Voicemails, an instant download voicemail resource. Redd has been helping people to maximize their earnings on Fiverr.

Starting out as a professional voice over artist on Fiverr

Redd says the Fiverr platform is a fantastic marketplace where people can buy and sell digital services with the name “Fiverr” coming from the fact that the base price on the platform is $5. The platform is suitable for professionals like logo designers, voice over artists, SEO experts and others who can provide their services digitally. She says it’s a great way to gain business and clients.

One thing Redd likes about Fiverr is that it’s got a built-in system where people are funnelled to look at a seller’s offering and people from all over the world can find the seller without him/her doing any external marketing. The seller just finds orders in their account, works on them and delivers.

Redd’s voice over services were initially a side gig but Fiverr enabled her to turn them into a full-time career.

Starting out in the voice over services space

Redd started doing voice over while back in college when a friend of hers asked her to record a voice for his video game. She really enjoyed doing the voice and it got her interested in doing it more. Over the following years, she would do it as a favour for different people and at some point when she needed to clear her credit card debt, a friend of hers introduced her into voice over work for an audio book company. She did several books for them, and it’s around that time that she came across Fiverr.

Redd has a knack for cold reading scripts and switching her accent completely from British to American. The two things have enabled her to offer diverse voice over services on Fiverr for different individuals and businesses. She used to offer her voice over services on Fiverr while also working during the evenings which ended up becoming too tiresome for her so she eventually gave her employer 4 months’ notice after which she left to work full-time on Fiverr.

Entrepreneurial passion

Redd has always been entrepreneurial and built several businesses including a bath and beauty company that she built up and sold. She was a co-founder on a big UX blog which she helped build and later sold her share. She also used to make pies and jam for sale. Business has always been a great passion for her and she likes to build and grow things.

Her drive

Redd says she is the bread winner for her family and they are the ones who motivate her to keep doing what she does every day. The voice over business enables her to work from home, spend time with her family, support them and help her husband achieve his dream.

Redd likes the fact that with freelancing she can grow as much as she wants which is unlike when someone has a corporate job.

Tip: Freelancing has its cons because for example one does not get paid time off or sick days, but it’s totally worth it

Projecting Fiverr’s value

She had no idea Fiverr would be such a great benefit for her. She is a very methodical tracker of analytics with her work so she has details on everything she has done on Fiverr and how much money she has made over time. The reason she was willing to go full time into it is because after a year of working on the platform, she had seen exponential growth month after month.

To move into doing it full-time, she had to have a discussion with her husband on whether they could maintain their lifestyle if she decided to work on Fiverr full-time and leave her job. They started by banking her pay check every month and acting like she only had the Fiverr work to depend on. When they realised that they could live on the income Redd was making from Fiverr, she took the plunge and left her regular job. Initially, she used to have nightmares about not wanting to lose her job.

Orders so far

So far Redd has executed 33,000 orders on Fiverr and close to 60,000 outside Fiverr. She does 200 to 300 projects per week and has achieved that by building in systems that make her more efficient, like having an assistant and other work processes that she set up.

The Fiverr funnel

People start by going to her gig page, they select her voice over gig, enter in their word count ($5 per 100 words), choose any extras they want to add, and after that they make their order. They then send Redd the script and any other relevant details, she records it then uploads it. After that they approve the work, then she gets paid. Fiverr handles all the payments which makes it easier, safer and convenient for Redd to operate her business.

Her work processes

Redd starts by opening an order to check that all the required details are in there. She then records it and saves the file. Her assistant then uses a specific program that enables her to pull order information into another system through which Redd can access all the pending orders, do them and deliver them. The combination of her assistant’s support and the program enable her to finish each order much faster.

She gets a lot of messages every day and she handles them all personally.

Best and worst month

Redd says the last year was really good for her though business was down in the last month because she took 4 days off. She has a strong client base that works with her every week including one client who gives her up to 30 orders per week. Majority of her clients are always ordering but the level of new clients has been lower than usual though she still gets a lot of work.

Redd is also on 5 different platforms apart from Fiverr which ensures that she has a consistent flow of orders.

Fiverr ambassadors and 6-figure makers

Redd says there is always room for new freelancers on Fiverr to become ambassadors when they build up their gigs to the point of making up to 6 figures. She says there are probably over 100 freelancers who make 6 figures on the platform. There are a lot of good opportunities on Fiverr.

One of the biggest benefits the platform offers Redd, is getting new clients. One of her clients has worked with her consistently for 18 months and ordered more than 1,300 times from her.

Tip: If you come into Fiverr and you think you won’t get work because there are so many other people offering the same service, don’t give up because once you get that one client who loves working with you, that will push you to the next level of growth

Retaining clients

Redd has several areas where she finds clients keep coming back and they include explainer videos, white board videos, voice mails (her favourite), and training programs.

Work hours

She is usually in the studio recording for about 4 to 5 hours a day and does administrative work for some hours. She always has daily targets to meet and she usually exceeds them. In total, she works about 40 hours a week with 2 hours on the weekend.

Building up to numerous orders on Fiverr

Redd says it takes time and patience.

Tip 1: This is a long game not a short game. This is not a get rich quick scheme.

Tip 2: It’s a business that you are building and building a business takes time

Tip 3: The best thing you can do is going above and beyond to deliver the best to your customers

Tip 4: Have good customer care: be responsive, be accessible, and be reasonable. In the beginning you will have to take a lower pay and build up your pricing as you grow.

Psychology of the upsell

In Redd’s work, bigger projects are the best. She does projects that have between 150 to 50,000 words. The 50,000 words projects are very rare but they come in once in a while. The average order usually has a word count of 200 to 300 words with the average turnaround time being 3 days. She also has an option where clients can pay for one-day delivery, and another option called Q-Jump where she can do a special trip to the studio for a client or give the client’s project priority above others. Clients pay more than the average prices to get the one-day delivery or Q-Jump.

Growth strategy

Redd says gig videos are an absolute must regardless of what service someone is offering.

Tip 1: On Fiverr, you are creating your brand and you are your brand so regardless of what service you are offering, you are the thing that makes you different from all the other people

Tip 2: Have a gig video, explain your services, and talk on camera to represent yourself personally. Clients have to connect with you so that they can come to you for what they need.

Working with Fiverr clients directly

She says one of Fiverr’s rules is that people can only work together on the platform and people are not allowed to share email addresses or phone numbers. Redd deals with her Fiverr clients on Fiverr only and when a client asks for her email address or phone number, she does not give it to them to avoid getting her Fiverr account restricted or even closed.

Redd has maintained brand consistency which gives her hope that clients can find her even if Fiverr seized to exist. Her Fiverr username is her real name and the same is on her website and email address.

Tip: If you are thinking about going into Fiverr, really think about what you want your username to be. Make it representative of you rather than your service

Fear of failure

She says freelancing is a challenge but she always powers through and plans strategically. She has several safeguards in place including an aggressive savings plan, diversifying through working on 5 other platforms, ensuring she has no debt, and not spending above her means.

Tip: Be realistic about what your expenses are and what you can do. If you are still spending on credit cards then it may not be a good time to go into freelancing full-time

Biggest breakthrough moment

“This was the day I wrote my husband’s resignation letter from work because it was the moment I realised that I could handle being a bread winner from doing the freelancing work“

Instant Voicemails

Instant Voicemails is Redd’s direct download website for voicemails. It was built on the fact that many of Redd’s clients would always ask for a professionally done standard voicemail greeting. People can go to the site and instantly get voicemails for their businesses. There are diverse voice options for customers to choose from. Business on the site has been growing gradually.

Redd’s vision for Instant Voicemails is to enable her to expand her reach, expand her offerings, and get more passive income. She wants it to grow to include numerous voices and accents so that it becomes the go to destination for people looking for voicemails.

Demand for Voicemails

Voicemails comprise between 10 and 20% of her orders every week. The orders are usually one-offs but she has a few clients who have been consistently ordering voicemails from her. Voicemails are her most favourite of all the products she does.

Redd would like to build it up to the point where individuals can get their own personalized voice mail messages at an affordable rate.

A typical day

Redd works from home and her day starts at around 8 or 9am. She gets up, grabs her coffee, grabs her laptop and does some administrative work. She then goes to the studio at around 9am where she does all the pending work until around 12 or 1pm. She takes it easier in the...