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Sarah Masci in orange sweater sitting on chair in green room

Episode 50: How to Work Less and Earn More By Offering VIP Days with Sarah Masci

If you are offering freelance services in your business, there is a good chance that you have heard about VIP Days. They are all the rage right now for a good reason. 

VIP Days allow clients to book you for a day instead of drawn-out projects that could take weeks or months to complete. Clients are willing to pay a premium price for the quick turnaround that a VIP Day offers. In fact, some clients only want to hire freelancers that offer VIP Days and will overlook you if you don’t. 

So how do you get started offering day rates to your clients? In this episode of the Empowered Business podcast, I sat down with Sarah Masci to talk about what VIP Days are, the benefits to you and your clients, and how you need to get started offering them right away. 

Sarah is the founder Day Rate Mastery™, an online company that teaches creative service providers how to work less and make more with a streamlined “day rate” business model. 

Years of running a traditional design business, filled with scope creep, inconsistent timelines, and overlapping client projects, eventually resulted in classic burnout– becoming the catalyst that sparked Sarah’s desire to create a better process. Since its inception in 2019, Day Rate Mastery™ has helped thousands of freelancers rediscover the joy in their work and the freedom they’d lost along the way.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

  • What VIP Days are
  • The types of clients to target for your VIP Days
  • The benefits of Sarah Masci’s VIP Day program 
  • The structure of Sarah’s offers and how she serves her students
  • Why service providers and digital products work well together
  • Why VIP Days are the future of client-service provider relationships

 

I loved chatting with Sarah about this because it is the perfect pairing for digital product business owners who are looking to supplement their income without giving up all of their free time. VIP Days give you a lot of white space in your schedule that you can dedicate to your digital products. 

If you want to get started creating your own digital products and don’t know where to start, I am launching a live five-day free training program that can help. It’s called Digital Product Dash Live and it will help you discover your unique million-dollar digital product formula. 

Head over to http://monicafroese.com/listen to listen to this episode and previous episodes on your favorite podcast platform!

Resources Mentioned:

Monica Froese  00:04

You’re listening to the Empowered business podcast. I’m your host, Monica Froese, a mom of two and your secret weapon to creating a six figure digital product business. I’m on a mission to help 1000 Women make $100,000 a year. That’s right $100 million towards financial independence for women. As an online business expert, I am teaching you everything I know, right here week after week. So you can join us on the journey to $100 million dollars. Sound good? Then let’s jump in. Sarah, welcome to the empowered this podcast. I’m so excited to have you.

 

Sarah Masci  00:51

Hey, Monica. Thank you. I’m excited to be here. Yeah. So

 

Monica Froese  00:56

Yeah. So I always start every interview with asking about your entrepreneurial journey, like how did this all start for you? Why are you an entrepreneur? And then what do you do?

 

Sarah Masci  01:05

Yeah, so my journey started a long time ago, I’ve actually been online as a business owner, entrepreneur since 2005. And it all started when my oldest son was born, he was five months old. And I realized that I didn’t want to be at work anymore. I wanted to be home with him. And so I spent about five years really just trying to like, figure something out. I didn’t, you know, back then 2005, there wasn’t really all of the opportunities that we have today. And so I kind of dabbled in blogging, and I did a lot of blogging, and then I had like an online business and online store and that kind of stuff. And then eventually discovered that I really was good at and love doing branding and web design. All of those little things that I was dabbling in, I was designing brands and just creating my own website. And so I was like, Okay, I need to keep doing this. And so it was around 2010 2012, that I really kind of went full force into branding and design. And over the course of those years, I had three more sons. And so at this point, I had four kids, and really just like, went all in on web design and grew my business doing that, networked with a ton of people all over the world and was loving what I was doing really it was it was great. But what I found was, I was networking so much, and meeting so many people and taking on so much work, I wasn’t charging enough. And so I was burnt out, overworked, overwhelmed, trying to do all the things I didn’t have good boundaries in place. And then it was in 2018, actually, that I decided to I had a client come to me and asked me for this whole laundry list of things she wanted done. And I was just overwhelmed, but didn’t have time to actually do a whole proposal for her. It was just kind of one of those moments where I was like, how about you just pay me for the day, and we’ll get the whole thing done. And so of course, she loved the idea. She paid me we got it all done. And it was truly like the best thing I had ever done in my business. And so from that point forward, that’s what I kept pitching to all of my clients who came to me I was like, Well, you know, this will take a day or this will take two days. And so yeah, so from like 2018 until now, that’s what I’ve been doing. And now I also teach the whole day rate or VIP day model to other designers, other copywriters, service providers, really anybody who had does like a done for you type service business.

 

Monica Froese  03:36

And you call it Day Rate Mastery. Right?

 

Sarah Masci  03:38

Day Ray mastery is the name of my company. And then I have numerous programs within the business, you know, just getting started programs. And I have my flagship course, which is called get booked by the day, we have a brand new VIP day offering for people who want to do VIP days, but don’t want to set it all up themselves. So.

 

Monica Froese  03:57

Oh, very meta. So are you not doing day rates as a web designer anymore? for yourself?

 

Sarah Masci  04:05

I am still doing them but only for clients who have already worked with clients kind of they come back and neat little things here and there. But I’m not advertising my services because I’m just so busy with hundreds of students now. Yeah, this model.

 

Monica Froese  04:20

Yeah. So I will say as someone who hires a lot of contractors in my business, the day rate model really is appealing from a hiring standpoint, because I’ve had so many projects that just dragged on and on and on and I actually understand it from both perspectives because one of the reasons I never wanted to be a service provider though I could be because I certainly I build funnels, I can do it in my sleep. I could do it for other people very easily. An ad I did Pinterest ads for a long time too. I could have done that my sleep but I think I lacked a lot of boundary. I have boundary issues. I don’t like being accountable to other people. That’s kind of why I wanted to be my own boss to begin with. I don’t like hitting other people’s deadlines. But then on the receiving end, I’ve had so many contracts, not hit their deliverable dates, the back and forth to execute on what I was paying for actually was a huge drain on my time. So it I actually look now and I like we have a need to hire someone for SEO. And I’m like, let’s find someone who does a VIP day or a day, right. And so I really understand, like the benefit of it. So I’m very curious how when people come into your programs, why, like, what’s the thing that makes them think I can’t keep doing business the way I’ve been doing it?

 

Sarah Masci  05:42

Yeah, so well, just to kind of go back on what you were saying about only hiring VIP day providers. Same way now, like, all that’s all I do is I only hire every single thing I need to hire out as a VIP day. Because, again, like I don’t want to wait six weeks or 10 weeks for my project to be done. And that back and forth. Email is such a drain. Nobody checks their email these days, like we like, I don’t know about you. But my inbox is full of so much crap all the time that it takes me forever to get to the important stuff. And so just to have a day dedicated to getting one thing done, there’s just so much more refreshing than always having to check email. So that’s number one. But the reason like people come in wanting to do VIP days, it’s really, it’s really too bold now. So when I first like did this, nobody had even heard of it. It was like a website in a day. Are you crazy? How can you build a whole website in a day? And just because industry, James like six weeks as a standard turnaround? Why can’t we just do it in a day. And so people hadn’t heard of the model then. And when I started talking about it, it was really coming down to they were struggling with scope, creep, lack of boundaries, never ending projects, inconsistent deadlines, clients that were not responsive to them, not getting paid on time, like all of those common like Freelancer problems that happen when you have projects that drag out and you don’t have any boundaries. So that was like what was resonating with people when I was marketing my course. And they were coming to me because of that, well, now people are coming to me not only because of that, but also because they know that this is a way forward. And people like you and I are looking to hire VIP day providers. And if you don’t have a VIP day on your list of services, you might get passed over for the next person that does. So there’s a lot of people now that are aware of it. And they just know they need to figure out how to do it. Okay. And then, but also, it seems logical that it must be more lucrative to four providers. Well, I mean, I do a lot of education around it being a more lucrative premium offer. But I think those providers are seeing their competition. And so web designer a offers a VIP day for $3,000. And web designer B offers website project for $3,000 or whatever. But But website B’s project is 10 weeks long. And she’s like, Hey, wait a minute, she’s charging $3,000 for the day, and it’s the same thing. So why wouldn’t I just do that?

 

Monica Froese  08:22

Yeah. And as someone who purchases the services, honestly, well, you know, I get it, I would imagine one of the things you probably teach us like, who they’re targeting their services to, because, you know, I get it maybe three, four years ago, I don’t look at hours ever, I look at the outcome, and I don’t have time to waste. So you’re gonna give me the same outcome in a day. Like, I don’t care that I’m paying you three grand for the day or three grand over 10 weeks? I don’t know when that mental shift happened. For me, I understand how people get who are purchasing the services get stuck in it. So but it may it’s maybe it’s because they can spread their payment out over a longer period of time. So is there like a certain level of caliber of person you teach people to be selling to?

 

Sarah Masci  09:03

Yeah, yeah, what we really talk about is the people that we’re marketing VIP days to our people that have more money than time. So it’s the people who have at least you know, 5k to 10k months, at a minimum, we’re not targeting the the brand new entrepreneur who has been trying DIY and trying to do her own thing and really has to watch every dollar that she spends in her business. That’s not your premium VIP day client. You’re targeting people who kind of business a few years, they did the DIY thing, and they’ve outgrown it, and now they have an audience and they have a legit business and needs to be leveled up to where they’re at in their business.

 

Monica Froese  09:45

So does that mean that new service providers are a good fit or bad fit? Like do they need to have these connections already or do teach that?

 

Sarah Masci  09:56

I think that’s two different things. So we’re talking about like, Who do we target with our VIP days, we target the business owner who has been in business for a while. But who makes a good candidate to be a VIP day service provider. That’s a whole other thing. And I would also argue that in order to be successful with day rates, or VIP days, you really need to have been in business for like, you don’t just come out of the gate offering VIP days, because you don’t have any clients you have, you don’t have any experience, you don’t have a portfolio to show what you can do, you might not be very fast when you’re first starting out. And you don’t have that network of referrals and collaboration opportunities. That’s really where the majority of my VIP day clients are. We’re all repeat clients referrals, or some sort of a collaboration, which I only had because I had been in business for a while. So there are a lot of people that love this idea. And it looks so amazing. But then they’ve never they’ve only worked with one client and their whole life. And so it’s kind of hard to sell it. If you only have worked with one client.

 

Monica Froese  11:06

Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. Because if I’m going to buy a VIP day for from you, I do need to know that you can actually get it done in that VIP day as a buyer of it. So that makes a lot of sense. So then basically you built a community of like up leveled service providers.

 

Sarah Masci  11:23

Yes, yep. Up level service providers serving up level business owners. Pretty cool. That’s there’s a lot of cross collaboration going on in there too. You know, level copywriter needs an up level design website. And so and the web designer needs up level copy for her VIP day. So it’s been a it’s been a really amazing, it’s been really cool to watch, like how this community is all supporting each other and they’re all up leveling together.

 

Monica Froese  11:54

Tell me I think I’ve seen this on your website. I’m pretty sure you do have Don’t you have like a directory for people like me to come and find your students to hire? That’s the thing, right?

 

Sarah Masci  12:06

Yeah, yeah, we have the Day Ray Creatives Directory.

 

Monica Froese  12:10

Now is that free for someone like me to come in use, but they have to be in your program to be in it? Like they have to be paid? They have to pay to be in it?

 

Sarah Masci  12:17

Yes, yes. All of my students are in it. Not all of my students. But it’s a bonus when you join the program. When you join my course. It’s a pay in full bonus to get into the directory. And then yeah, it’s free for anybody outside to go on the website, find who you need you there, there are, you know, email links, portfolio links, social media, all that for everybody on there. And you can actually search by, you know, design, copy marketing systems, like all those fun things.

 

Monica Froese  12:45

May I say that that is an amazing, painful bonus. And no, my mind is like, I love painful bonuses. So I you know, it’s a very interesting, this is like a little bit of a pivot. But it’s interesting philosophy. Some people love a payment plans, because the predictability that it brings to their business with recurring revenue. But I’ve always been a proponent of incentivizing painful because like, here’s the deal, like, if the money is going to be mine, regardless, and I’m delivering my product to you, then I’d rather the money be in my hands, like I know how to control my money, I don’t need you to control for me. It’s gonna either work I couldn’t I may have control issue. So I’m always looking for great ways to incentivize pay in full, and that’s a genius. Yeah, I love that

 

Sarah Masci  13:29

And it. I mean, it happened by accident. Because once I started running this course, I was still doing design work. But I was trying to slowly stop. And I had all of these students who were looking for clients. And so it was this constant. But what do you need? Okay, let me go to my group and see who does this. And let me come back to you. And it was just like, Okay, let’s just make a directory. We’ll put everybody in there. And then we can I know, send anybody who comes to me looking for design work, or anything I send everybody right to that

 

Monica Froese  13:58

directory. Do you have ambition to make it like a marketplace where people like me would pay to get access to all of your amazing service providers?

 

Sarah Masci  14:09

Like make people pay to see the list?

 

Monica Froese  14:13

Yeah, like, like a marketplace where you’re essentially the connector on both sides. So I know a couple, you know, I know that there’s virtual assistants ones that exist, there were some, which I don’t know if I’ve always agreed with how they’ve been executed by some people in the industry with the virtual assistants ones, mainly because I don’t think they pay people fairly. And that is a huge issue to me. But like I could see a potential where if you’re giving me if you’re giving because here’s the here’s the number one issue I have with hiring people, it’s quality of work, you know, there could be someone that’s quoting me 10 grand, that really is not a great, you know, they’re not actually great at their deliverables, and it’s hard for someone like me to know that. So I of course, operate off a referral. You know, we’re in similar business networks and stuff and you trust your friends who have gone by For you have used that service provider. So I could totally see a need for a marketplace like that on both ends where you have high end service providers, and you have higher end clients who can afford to pay for them. And like, I could be like, yeah,

 

Sarah Masci  15:18

Definitely. And I’ve looked at it from all different ways, honestly, that was one of those things where it was like, we just need to get this directory up, because we’re coming in. And so we built a directory, I think there’s like, there’s got to be 100 people, at least, right now. And so really, it comes down to prioritizing my projects. And, of course, what can I manage right now? I mean, people are asking for certification programs, they’re asking for white labeled versions of my like client, prework. And then the direct, like, there’s all these things, and it’s one of those things. And you probably know, as a CEO, you’re just like, I don’t know, I don’t know what to work on first, what project to work on. So, yeah,

 

Monica Froese  15:59

Are you going to go the certification and white label route?

 

Sarah Masci  16:02

So it’s on a list. It’s on our list. It’s just a matter of fitting it into our structure and our, you know, our programs. And I don’t know about you, but like, I’m always like, tweaking things and adjusting things and just changing things like none of my programs have stayed exactly the same name for two years. And so it’s like, I would love to add certification in but at the price point my courses right now, it’s not a certification type of program. Because it’s a 990 set. Well, the price did just go up a little bit, but it’s been a 997 program, which is not really certification level. So to be more higher ticket, and so it’s just working that into the whole ecosystem and how it works.

 

Monica Froese  16:46

Okay, so we talk a lot on this show about product ascension ladders, it’s kind of like, I really love product, ascension ladders, I mean, it’s essentially the whole philosophy of how I do my funnels as well. And the way I teach really builds from the bottom up, although sometimes I think you actually built top down like you knew your signature thing, and then added on your low ticket, if I’m not mistaken. But now essentially, you do have an ascension model in your business where people can essentially start low ticket and move up. Can you tell us how that works? Like, what are the offers that you have there?

 

Sarah Masci  17:19

Yeah, so yeah, sure, right. We started with just the course the signature course. And then from there, we built a higher ticket coaching program that our course alumni group would graduate into the year long, high ticket coaching program called momentum, so that this is a first year running momentum. And then this past summer, we launched our low ticket J rate Quickstart, which is really the entry point. The entry point up until now has always been our free webinar, my masterclass. So people were coming in there and going into the course, the main course, and now people are coming in through my low ticket, and then they’re going into the main course. And we still have that higher ticket program running right now. But we might be restructuring and combining the course and high ticket into a, like a hybrid coaching course type program for 2022.

 

Monica Froese  18:13

Would that be a higher ticket dollar or like, so you wouldn’t have that mid tier anymore like that $1,000 price point, it would kind of go your low ticket and then apply to get into a high ticket, several $1,000 type,

 

Sarah Masci  18:27

I’m not sure if it’s going to be a high high ticket application type of funnel, but it might just be a higher ticket course, like 2k or 3k course that is not application funnel. And then from there, we are actually also looking at the idea of doing a legacy mastermind that runs on the end of the high ticket for people who want to go from and I know we talked about this before we hit record, but who people who want to people who have mastered their VIP day model. And now they have all of this free time on their hands and they want to scale with passive income. And so are courses and that kind of thing. Yeah, that’s what kind of happens in that’s what’s happening right now in my momentum coaching group, everyone is looking at, okay, I’ve got my VIP days dialed in now what and so we’re looking at, okay, let’s now turn your, you know, IP into a course or something.

 

Monica Froese  19:23

Okay, so momentum then was a high ticket on the end of your course. But you could only get in it if you had taken the 997 course. So it’s like a back end high ticket.

 

Sarah Masci  19:34

Yes, exactly.

 

Monica Froese  19:36

How was your conversion rate into that? Was it worth your time? To do it that way?

 

Sarah Masci  19:41

Yes, I had. Well, it depends on how you look at the conversion rate. So when I launched it last year, we had about 250 students and 60 of them applied for the program, and 30 of them joined.

 

Monica Froese  19:57

Oh, wow. I think that’s, I mean, it was 50% conversion for people who applied and yeah, 3030 people into a high ticket off of a pool of 250 to me is, yeah, pretty good.

 

Sarah Masci  20:10

Yeah, it was great. And but it was definitely a learning curve, because it was just a learning curve. Because it wasn’t new, we didn’t introduce new content, really, the content is in the course and the curriculum that I had already learned. And the coaching program was really just to go deeper on what they’d already learned. And I think 12 months to go deeper, they didn’t need 12 months to really, they they mastered their VIP like they knew what they need to do in the course. And so I think we’re looking at making the coaching program be, that’s why we’re looking at the course and the coaching, being together, going forward and making it be a six month program, because you really don’t need 12 months to master this whole model. So that’s why we’re like, Okay, we’ll do the course and the coaching for six months. And then on the end of that, if you want to keep going and do create a course or create a program, or do you know, stay with us in our higher higher ticket mastermind. That’s another thing on the end.

 

Monica Froese  21:11

So I’m sure you know, this, but this is this is very common. I mean, that the I think the thing is, this is what I see with my students they come in and they want there to be one simple answer for everything. Like, there is only one way to do it, just tell me what it is. Give me the answer. So I go in there, you know, in some things there, there really is only one way to do it, like some technical like hooking things up. And, you know, but in most things in business, you don’t know until you try. And that seems to really scare a lot of people to just try. It’s like they’re so and that thing, it’s funny because my motto, we actually just printed up a bunch of shirts and stuff because I I say all the time, every time like a launch isn’t going well, is I don’t do failure. That doesn’t mean I can’t I’m unwilling to pivot and change. It just means okay, this didn’t work. Now I need to it didn’t work the way I wanted it to I didn’t get the results, I want it. So since I don’t do failure, now I’m gonna pivot and do something else. And like how you couldn’t have known before, the way you launch the high ticket that it was better off being together and till you tried it.

 

Sarah Masci  22:16

Right, exactly. And I feel like that is like what you just said is the story of my entire entrepreneurial career. It’s somebody I was on another podcast, and she described it perfect. She’s like, it’s like you’ve done 1000 Micro pivots over the years, we just, it’s my motto is action breeds confidence and do a messy like, just do do a messy take to like there take imperfect action, because we’re never going to know if it’s gonna work if we don’t try it. And so if it doesn’t work, then we just try something different.

 

Monica Froese  22:50

Yeah, and that can be really hard to get to that point of accepting that, but that is actually what differentiates, I think people who end up being successful versus if you’re going to be if it’s going to be if you’re unwilling to try new things. And if you’re, if you’re too easy to give up, then you’re probably not an entrepreneur, you might want to actually just go back to corporate or something. I don’t see that. But it’s everyone has different personalities, like my husband and I, he’s in corporate. And we talked about this all the time, like entrepreneurship is not for him, like he just, it’s not how he’s wired. He wants the direction and the structure that corporate provides. And, you know, and I used to think I was a lot like that, too. But the further I get into business, the easier it is for me to accept that things will be messy that I can’t always have the answers ahead of time and just be willing to work with what’s in front of me, you know? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So here’s like two other like main things I want to make sure to hit on. And one of them is this whole idea of service providers, and getting into digital products and how they really work together. Because I think that being a service provider and creating digital products work very well together. And clearly, that’s what actually you do. I mean, your service provider, use your knowledge created this whole digital product ecosystem. So now you want to do this mass legacy mastermind that essentially will help your day rate students be able to do the same. So you must see some synergy here as well.

 

Sarah Masci  24:21

Yes. So what I Well, first thing I’ve discovered was the reason like I wanted to do courses and products for years before I started doing VIP days back in 2008. I was on a like a mastermind retreat in 2016. And it was on that retreat, I was doing a lot of design. I was still overwhelmed, burnt out all that stuff was happening then and I was like I need to create a course. And everybody who was with me on that retreat was like you need to teach your branding methods or like how you do branding. You need to teach it to people like that’s what you can sell because you’re really good at branding and web design wasn’t reliable. Part of it, it was more just the branding part. And so I went home from that retreat, and I created my five day mood board challenge, which became very popular. It was a free five day challenge. I’ve had like 10,000 people go through this challenge over the years. But when I first created it, it was just this five day challenge, I had nothing to sell on the end of it, it was literally just here, come take this challenge. And then Okay, hope you had fun like see later. And it was because I was drowning in client work, I didn’t have time to create a course or a membership or a program. And that so I sat on that idea for two years, I kept running those challenges, I was building my list, but I had no course. And then finally, in 2018, once I struck on this whole day rate thing. Now all of a sudden, I was only doing client work two days a week, and I had three days available to create whatever I wanted to create for my own business, I was no longer working on other people’s businesses, I had the time to work on my own business. And so that’s when I launched, I actually launched a branding course in 2018. And the end of that mood board challenge, I finally like ran the challenge and then went right into a branding course, which was amazing. And then in 2019 is when I launched get booked by the day. But it was all only because I had space, I had whitespace in my schedule to focus on the programs. And so I like to teach my clients, you really just need to take whatever the services that you’re providing and look at all the different parts of your service and what parts are that are the most desirable, that could be turned into a, you know, templates, or a workshop or a course or anything like that.

 

Monica Froese  26:42

How many of your students have done this through their time of working with you?

 

26:48

Right now inside of our moment inside of our higher ticket coaching group with there’s about 10 or 12, out of the 30 that are really working on it. We’re focusing on that a lot this month. So there’s those those people are working on theirs now. But I’m sure I mean, we’ve had, like 450 students go through my course. And I don’t really keep tabs on all of them. I don’t know. Yeah, it’s hard to. But I would say a lot. And I’m seeing I love watching them. And they’re launching workshops, and they’re launching memberships. And so it’s fun to see all of that happening behind the scenes.

 

Monica Froese  27:22

So your years essentially goes there service providers, they can repurpose some of their systems into a digital product. But I’ve I’ve also seen it go the other way where someone puts their knowledge into their digital product, and then creates a service from it. So like, for example, I’ve really never been a service provider. But I used to say like when I ran my Pinterest ads course for four years, and it was funny because people and I understand where some people were coming from, but I’m going to tell you my alternative viewpoint on this, which was, well, if you’re not running ads for other people, how could you be a good teacher? And I was like, well, let’s back up here. Do I have to push the button to be a good teacher? Like, do I have to be in someone’s ad dashboard? Here, let me put your pin here and press the you know the campaign Live button? Or can you be good teacher when you’re getting? You’re seeing hundreds of campaigns, I’m really good at data. So I can ingest a lot of data very fast, and see trends and be like, Oh, this is what’s going on. This is how the algorithm change. This is how we should adjust. So since I had hundreds of students, I had like 2000 students, when I returned the course, I was seeing hundreds of campaigns. So I was ingesting this data, seen trends. And then I could articulate it back to my students who cared if I was the one loading the campaign up, as long as I was having access to the data. And now I’m a year out. We were targeted a year ago. And it’s funny because people still come to me and say, they have to understand, I know how I mean, I’m really good at this. But I am not seeing hundreds of campaigns anymore. So if Pinterest change, like made slight tweaks to their algorithm and stuff, I’m not going to be as fast pick that up because I’m not getting as much access to the data. But it can work both ways. You can be a really great course teacher by nature of having access to all of those students that are doing it. And you’re seeing the behind the scenes. Right. Right.

 

Sarah Masci  29:17

Yeah, I mean, just for me, like I started my course because I mastered my own model. And then I started teaching it, but now being the teacher of it, and I’m not doing I mean, I’m not selling VIP days anymore. I stopped selling them back in December of last year. But I still see all of the trends, I see what’s happening I see and I just can speak to all of the different points of view when it comes to this model and what works and what doesn’t work and what the industry is looking like going forward. Like we were saying this is the future of contractor service provider relationships, you know,

 

Monica Froese  29:57

yeah, and honestly, I could have done VIP days. with Pinterest ads where I could have charged a pretty decent amount because a lot of people that I don’t want to go through the DIY course, can you, yeah, I could have gotten them up and running in a day. And then I could have just done a like how to follow up four weeks later, like, it would have been so easy for me to charge a premium for that. I wouldn’t have wanted to because it’s just as a resume, like, that’s just not the way I want to work. But it really does work hand in hand. It can work hand in hand both ways. So that’s one of the reasons why watching because I’ve an okay, so it’s like many stalkerish, but we’ll just say it, we love your website, when you redid it, we, we had a team retreat in early August. And we were talking about the flow of our website and how it was like a little confusing mapping out where people should go when they come to it, we still haven’t updated it, by the way, cuz we’re in the middle of a launch, but it’s coming. And so my operations managers like Well, who do you think does a really good job at this cuz she needed like the visual and I was like Sarah. So we pulled your website up on, like the big screen during that retreat, and we were like going through it. And it was just so clear how people should work through your products, like I have to give you a big shout out, I think that you do a really great job of communicating what you do, who you help, how you serve them, and make it super clear. And one of the things this is like sort of off topic, but it’s like, I’m very interested, some selfishly going to go there. You have a private podcast feed of your masterclass, which I did sign up for it. And I listened to so. And I don’t even plan on doing day rates. But I was so fascinated by it. I listened to like the whole feed. We actually just got Hello audio, we’re gonna start doing private podcast feeds, as well, because I loved it so much going through your funnel. Here’s the million dollar question. How is it working for you? Um,

 

Sarah Masci  31:51

it’s so hard to say. Because full transparency, I’m not great at tracking all of the data that’s coming in, we have the data setup, and it’s all in there. But again, like priorities, like what are we looking at here? The podcast is great. Like I know, first of all, we have a private podcast feed also for the course. So when you join the course, the entire course is all in audio and hello audio. So that has been amazing for nobody wants to sit and watch videos all day long. Because my course you don’t need to be watching looking at it. It’s like slides that are the same thing that I’m saying. So you can read the slides and listen to me on a video or you can plug it in and go on the podcast and go go do whatever you need to do and listen to the whole entire course. There’s like one module that you have to watch. It’s like all of the tech stuff. So we love that. And then I was like I know that there’s people who sign up for this for my masterclass it’s an hour long. The people who need Viet who need VIP days in their life are very busy. We have clients, we have all this client work, we’re going crazy. And we don’t tell them to sit in front of a webinar for an hour. So let’s just give them the opportunity to listen to the webinar. And then I took it a step further and I took the webinar and I put it into a PDF as well. So the entire webinar really in a like a 40 page PDF. So if you don’t want to sit in front of your computer and watch a video, you can listen to it or you can download the PDF and read it. Now with all of that said, we literally are changing our mass we just did our final launch of the course at the existing price. And so we need to redo our masterclass and everything so right now that whole masterclass is kind of on hold while we read you a new one but it’ll be back up soon and it’ll all be back into the podcast and into a PDF and all of the things soon so if people go there right now they’re not going to find it but it’s definitely coming back and it’s been amazing people have said they loved the opportunity to to be able to listen read and consume it in a way that works better for them.

 

Monica Froese  34:03

Honestly, you’re you open my mind like I’ve heard the concept before. And unfortunately when Hello audio did their lifetime license a year ago, I wasn’t I hadn’t even launched my public facing podcast yet and I was like I’m never gonna have time to do this. And it’s funny because I consume podcasts like that’s my preferred way of consuming like even I have to consume consume any teaching on the go whether it’s you know, in the car with shuttling kids on my daily walks or at night when my toddler is bouncing off of me I have my air pods in and when she’s watching her cartoons before bed and I it has to be audio that I if I have to watch it I just don’t have the time and I don’t even have the attention span on my computer when I am here to do that because I see all the work that I have to get done. I’m like I can’t watch it. So honestly, I never would have consumed your masterclass had you not put it in a private feed? And then I list I remember I was listening to you on my walk. And I was like, wait a minute, she’s she’s just stripped the audio from her mat. Like she’s presenting this to slides. I’m getting the same information I would be getting if I was watching it and she made it just so easy for me to consume. Yeah, so that sold me because I’m like, There’s got to be other people like me that can’t go through my funnel because they’re just like, I don’t have time to watch this video, Monica, but I wouldn’t even know that because I don’t think people knew that I could request you just give me the audio version.

 

35:27

Yeah, it’s so I mean, I’m the same way. We’re all so so busy. Now everyone is speech whether whether you have kids at home with everything going out with a pandemic, like who has time to sit in front of hour long thing. I mean, of course, I always watch everything on 2x Speed anyway, me too. We can listen to it on 2x speed on the podcast now. So yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. Hello, audio is amazing. I actually bought that license before it was even hollow audio. They were they like launched it a couple years ago as like a beta private podcast, I was on that waitlist got into the beta and sat on it for over a year before we even used it. And now we’re using it. We I think we got three feeds. So we’re using it for our course, for the private podcast. And then the third one, we were gonna do a third one that was all case study interviews, but we ended up just combining the case study interviews with a with a webinar, because once you’re done listening to the webinar, now you want to hear how did this work for people? And so all those case study interviews are in that beat as well.

 

Monica Froese  36:34

Yeah, I was listening to like you did one with like, Day a day in the life of one of your students. I was listening to it the other day, because now I’m like, You figured it out. So I’m just, I’ll just come after, you know, before you know it, this is something you could you honestly could teach is there’s so many things you could teach. But your website was really well done. And I know you treated yourself, I believe I saw you post that you treated yourself as a client to get your own site done in a day, essentially. And yeah, it was very impressive. It was, I really like it.

 

Sarah Masci  37:07

Thanks. I appreciate it. Yeah, it was definitely a it wasn’t one day, it definitely took me longer than a day to get it all done. But I almost hired one of my students to do it for me. But it’s just one of those things like I really wanted to have control over it and do it myself. And because I’m not doing client work as much anymore, I miss that part of my business, I really miss. So now I really enjoy working on my own website, working on my own Facebook ads working on all of my graphic, like, it’s just fun for me to do my own stuff. Now.

 

Monica Froese  37:36

Same, I’m building a new evergreen funnel that we’ve never done before. And my operations manager come in at that, like I’m really happy this week. And like that’s because I’m doing work I actually enjoy that I don’t get to do very often anymore. And it’s fun. It’s not I’m actually having fun doing it. It doesn’t even feel like an obligation. I’m like, Well, let’s try this hookup and that hookup and you know all this new stuff, which then inevitably only our students benefit from because um, you know, when you keep when you’re happy doing something like that, then you pass that information back to them. It’s like you find new things and you’re excited. So one last question I have, I am pretty sure that there are people listening that are going to be very interested in this model of doing things because a lot of people come to me starting a service providers before they move in to digital products. And so they’re listening, and they’re like, wow, I need this day right thing in my life. So what kind of service providers would you say are the best fit for day rates?

 

Sarah Masci  38:32

Oh, I love working with any. Any done for you type service providers. So the people that are really in my audience mostly and who do the extremely well with this model are designers obviously I attract I would say 80, 80%, at least of my students are designers because that’s that’s just who I speak to, because that’s what I am designers, copywriters, anybody who specializes in any type of system, so click up, dubsado, HoneyBook. If you do any kind of like systems setups or tech VA type stuff, you’re an amazing candidate for this model. Marketers anybody like you who sets up funnels at Evergreen funnels, webinar funnels, launches anything like that. Also a great candidate, who am I forgetting designers, copywriters, marketers, system specialists, or anybody who sets up courses. So if you work in jabi are a member of all our kartra do anything like that sales page design checkouts, those things are also a great candidate. Now we do have people who are in things like interior design and accounting, and there are some coaches in our program, but I really my course is more catered to the service provider.

 

Monica Froese  39:52

That is actually doing the work?

 

Sarah Masci  39:54

Yes, yeah. We’re not sitting on Zoom for eight hours with our client coaching them on their minds. So we’re like, my whole framework is set up in a way that you get everything you need ahead of time, and then your head down during the day and you’re working for 678 hours, whatever it is, and then your client is waiting for the receivables kind of at the end.

 

Monica Froese  40:16

That makes sense. Okay, so how do people find you, if they’re interested in this?

 

Sarah Masci  40:21

Oh, they can go to my website. So sarahmasci.com is the best place, I have several different freebies on there right now. So I’m not going to send you to any particular one. But if you go to sarahmasci.com, you’ll see all of the opportunities to get on my email list, you’ll see my low ticket, my day rate Quickstart, which is my low ticket entry point, which is an amazing way to just get started if this is something you’re interested in, but you’re just not 100% Sure, just start with a day rate quickstart. Try it out. It’s 37 bucks, and it’s packed with value. So that’s a great place to start. If you want to go all in my courses also available and you can that’s all linked up right on my website.

 

Monica Froese  41:04

We’ll be sure to link to it. Because as I said, you have a really great website and you can learn from it. You should go to it anyways, just so you can learn about what a great website looks like. So thank you so much for joining us today.

 

Sarah Masci  41:16

Thank you. Yeah, this was great. I’m excited. I’m happy to be here. And yeah, appreciate it.

 

Monica Froese  41:21

Yeah, thanks. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Empowered business podcast. If you want to get started creating your own digital products and don’t know where to start, I am hosting a live five day free training that can help. It’s called digital product dash live, how to discover your unique million dollar digital product formula, head on over to empowered business.co forward slash dash to join us live the week of January 24 2022. I’ll see you back here again next week.

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