Episode 33: How Freelancing/Virtual Assistance is Different than MLMs

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
Hey, my loves! Welcome back to the Ditch the Classroom podcast. Today’s fun fact kind of goes along with the topic of this episode and it’s that I was in a direct sales company for three years. I started while I was in college. And while I absolutely loved it, once I got pregnant, I just couldn’t keep up with all of the changes in their company anymore, ’cause they were just going through a butt load. And, I just never made that much money. I was really excited to cover some bills for our wedding, ’cause we were planning our wedding at that time, but it was never a consistent enough amount to cover monthly bills on a regular basis. So when I first heard about freelancing/virtual assistance, I was like, “is this just another name for direct sales? MLM? Like, what is this?” And I really quickly learned that, no. It has a couple similarities, where – such as that you get to still set your own schedule and you still get to have the freedom to work on your own time that MLMs can provide.

(03:03):
But there’s a lot of things that are very different and better. So, with freelancing and virtual assistance, you’re running your own business. You are the CEO. No company’s paying you a commission. You decide every single thing about your business. You decide what services you want to offer. You get to decide if there’s something you don’t want to do. You don’t have to do it. As a freelancer/virtual assistant, you get to decide for yourself. With MLMs, you can decide what products to promote from the MLM, but they decide what products to have in the first place. So, if they start kind of changing their direction and you no longer really love the products, you’re kind of stuck in that sense. You also get to decide your pay as a freelancer. With MLMs, direct sales, they set the commission percentages and you get capped on that. But with freelancing, you decide what your hourly rate is. You can raise it any time that you want, and you have a much higher likelihood of replacing your income because with setting your rates, this is gonna be a lot higher than just the commission that you get off of direct sales products.

(04:30):
As a freelancer virtual assistant, you are offering services to businesses and entrepreneurs. So you’re able to charge a lot more than, like I said, what you’ll make from the commission percentages. So this is a short, more brief episode. But I have had a lot of questions about, well, “is this just like a weird term for MLMs?” No. Freelancing and virtual assistance is completely different. Still gives you, like I said, that ability to set your own schedule, work on your own time, but you have a much higher chance of replacing your income if you put in the effort to do so. I’ve shared my story before, but y’all know within two months of starting my freelancing business, I was already making $1,500 a month and that was only working 10 to 15 hours a week with my newborn daughter next to me.

(05:27):
I never made that much in my direct sales company that I was with. If you have any questions about any of this that I talked about today, I would be more than happy to chat with y’all. You can always feel free you to send me a DM on Instagram at arianna.vernier. And let me know if this was helpful. I would love to just continue to provide episodes that y’all want. So, if there’s anything else you’d like me to cover on the show, let me know. And I would be happy to do that. All right, guys, have a good rest of your week.