Randal A. Burd Jr.'s Blog, page 2

WaxWrap.com – Sustainable Food Storage

Have you ever noticed how much plastic goes into preserving the food you buy and consume? Wouldn’t it be great if you could contribute to reducing the amount of plastic garbage that pollutes our planet while still keeping your food fresh?

Introducing Waxwrap.com, your one-stop shop for environmentally friendly, sustainable food storage!

According to the website The Spruce Eats, beeswax wrap is quickly becoming a popular approach to reducing the amount of waste households produce when preserving groceries and prepared food. Unlike disposable plastic wrap products which have one use, beeswax wrap can be used over and over again, thereby greatly reducing the used plastic wraps and freezer bags which end up in our oceans and elsewhere, endangering our diverse yet fragile ecosystems.

WaxWrap.com, Sustainable Food Wraps

Waxwrap.com has created an attractive selection of eco-friendly accessories such as beeswax wrap products, intentionally designed will both the wellness of their customers and the planet in mind. Their dedication to making a difference in plastic waste reduction is illustrated in stories such as the one they share on their site about Ally Mitchell and his inspiration for the creation of Ocean Plastic Pots, plant pots that are made from 100% rope and fishing net.

You can reduce plastic waste in your kitchen while still keeping your food fresh, thereby taking care of the people and the planet that you love. Visit Waxwrap.com today!

Growing a Business with Fiverr Learn: A Freelancer’s Story

So, I’ve been freelancing on Fiverr.com since 2014. It’s been an interesting and rewarding journey. Freelancing is a side hustle for me, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I started by checking out all the similar freelancing platforms, making accounts, posting profiles, and deciding what services to offer. I found some success on a couple of other platforms, but nothing as comprehensive as what was offered on Fiverr.com. My primary gig when starting out was copywriting, because reading and writing (English) is my field of expertise. My gigs on Fiverr for writing website copy, direct marketing letters, advertising “jingles,” etc., brought great success, and I advanced to Level 2 Seller status relatively quickly. There were times of feast and famine in terms of clients, but I completed hundreds of orders and maintained a 4.9-5.0 star average in client satisfaction.

The traffic was good but not great. As Fiverr has grown, so has the competition among freelancers on the platform. I learned a lot about writing marketing copy just from working with clients and researching their competitors, but I did not get a degree in marketing. I knew there were some knowledge gaps I could fill to bring my services to the next level, and then Fiverr came up with Fiverr Learn. Some people like me don’t have time to go back to college for another degree, especially to gain knowledge for what is at the moment a side hustle. Fiverr Learn offers affordable courses in the industries most relevant to freelancers on the platform.

I am sure most working people have to endure continuing education to comply with company policies, etc., but how often are those courses engaging and relevant, and not some retiree in the field reading off some dry PowerPoint and insisting you can adapt the information they are regurgitating into something you can use? In the few Fiverr Learn courses I have purchased so far, the speakers are experts in their field and engaging in their presentation. The information they provide is relevant to successful freelancing, and they all have introduced additional tools freelancers can use to make gigs successful. These courses are worth the cost, especially with the frequent generous discounts to be had (I purchased several courses for 25% off).

Dennis Yu is the chief executive officer of BlitzMetrics and an expert in digital marketing. His informative course on “Personal Branding: Creating a Strong Online Presence” will change the way you look at social media as he walks you through how to use your social media accounts to grow your business. His engaging presentation and approachable demeanor make this an enjoyable learning experience of immense value. And after the course, I was able to reach out to him personally and make an amazing connection in my networking topic wheel (which you’ll learn about in the course). Dennis really goes the extra step with every encounter and client interaction–it is what he teaches and what he does (I received a personal audio message from him the first time I reached out). No wonder he’s at the top of his field.

Jon Youshaei is billed as the “world’s top marketer by Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Inc. magazines; writer for Time Magazine with best-selling e-courses.” His course on “Viral Marketing: 7 Secrets to Promote any Product” really inspired me to step up the marketing of my latest poetry collection, Memoirs of a Witness Tree.

See, another one of my passions is poetry and, after accumulating a collection of over 40 original poems published in online and print journals all over the world, my book was published by Kelsay Books. Not only was it published, but a poem in this collection was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the book was named the “Best of the Best 2020” in Poetry by Bookworm Reviews.

This is all very exciting, but these accolades don’t sell copies of the book unless people know about them. Jon’s course on viral marketing, complete with examples of successful and not-as-successful advertising campaigns, expert hacks, and 3rd party programs for data analysis, will help me sell my books as well as advance my freelancing business.

The courses I recently bought from Fiverr Learn were sold as a program, so in addition to the two experts mentioned above, I received a course I already had on my wishlist, “Social Media Content Strategy” with “renowned marketer” Rita Cidre. I learned how to efficiently create and use content for my social media platforms, and even plan to add another platform to my list. As with the other presenters mentioned, Rita was adept at showing how to accomplish tasks, not merely explaining or reading off a PowerPoint. The program also came with another course by Jon Youshaei, “Stories that Sell: 7 Secrets to Create Killer Content,” as well as courses by Ian Cleary on “Blog Content Strategy” and Sam Laliberte on how to “Launch, Market, and Monetize a Podcast.” I will surely be providing updates once I complete these courses.

So here I am. Having been a successful Fiverr freelancer for almost seven years, taking a few quality courses on Fiverr Learn has made me extremely excited about what the future holds for my freelancing business. If you are a freelancer, you definitely should check out the Fiverr platform and all it has to offer. If you are a client looking for quality content, you might want to look me up…before my gig fees necessarily approach those of my excellent mentors on Fiverr Learn.

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Chris Rice Cooper Blog | “Backstory of the Poem #229, #230, #231”

Many thanks to Chris Cooper for her PhotoFeature Story on my poems: “Armed with Imagination,” “Overthrown,” and “We Siblings Three!”

miller’s pond | “Reflection” by Randal A. Burd, Jr.

My poem, “Reflection,” appears in the Winter 2021 issue of miller’s pond poetry magazine. This poem was first published in Vita Brevis.

Grand Little Things | “Obligatory Rainbows” & “Again with the Beach” by Randal A. Burd, Jr.

My poems, “Obligatory Rainbows” and “Again with the Beach” were published on January 2, 2021, by Grand Little Things. Thanks, Patrick!

Verse-Virtual | Three Poems by Randal A. Burd, Jr.

Three of my poems: “A Suitcase,” “Examples Made,” and “Lost,” appear in the January 2021 issue of Verse-Virtual. Thanks, Jim!

Your Daily Poem | “They Boldly Went” by Randal A. Burd, Jr.

My poem, “They Boldly Went,” (formerly titled “On the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek”) was featured today on YourDailyPoem.com. This poem is included in my latest collection Memoirs of a Witness Tree.

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The Society of Classical Poets | Three Poems by Randal A. Burd, Jr.

Three of my poems were reprinted today by The Society of Classical Poets. Thanks, Evan!

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The HyperTexts | Randal A. Burd, Jr.’s “Memoirs of a Witness Tree” by Michael R. Burch

Michael R. Burch has reviewed my poetry collection, Memoirs of a Witness Tree, on The HyperTexts. This collection is now available at Kelsay Books and Amazon.

Bookworm Reviews | “New Book Alert: Memoirs of a Witness Tree: Poems by Randal A. Burd Jr.; Concrete Descriptive Poems About Life, Love, and Family” by Julie Sara Porter

Ms. Julie Sara Porter of Bookworm Reviews wrote a review of my new poetry collection “Memoirs of a Witness Tree.” The review can be found here. The book can be purchased from Kelsay Books or Amazon.