Episode 119: Is It Possible to Work 10 Days/Month? The Secret Method I Use to Replace My Teaching Income as a Virtual Assistant in Just a Few Days Per Month

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
Y’all I know you’re wondering, is it really possible to work only 10 days or less a month? Well guess what? I’m doing it and I would love, love, love to teach you how. The key to only working a few days per month is by creating what are called VIP Intensive, VIP Intensives, or VIP Days. They’re the same thing. Basically, you provide a service in a short amount of time for a client, and then you spend those VIP days solely focusing on that client’s project. This allows them to move on to other tasks in their business faster, and you are able to spend less time working on projects.

(02:06):
Another benefit is that then you only have to work a few days out of the month, and this is especially helpful if you’re still teaching, because you could just work a few days a month and probably already replace at least half, if not more, of your teaching income. And that would allow you to quit teaching a lot faster. Now for these BIP days, or VIP Intensives, it’s important to remember that you will not be charging hourly. You need to charge a premium price for VIP days because you are focusing solely on your client’s project during those days, they’re getting a hundred percent of your attention. You’re not working on any other client projects. So they’re getting a premium price for the project being completed a lot faster.

(02:56):
Some services that lend themselves well to VIP days, are website design, social media management, Pinterest management, copywriting, podcast management. That’s just a few, but there are so many different ways you could structure these with different services. So if you have a question about whether a service would work with a VIP day, come into our free Facebook community, facebook.com/groups/ditchtheclassroom and let me know what you’re thinking, what service you’re wanting to offer. And I can tell you if that would work in a VIP day or not, but I’m almost sure that it will.

(03:32):
So let me walk you through the structure of VIP days. They’re typically anywhere from one day to complete the project to one week. Mine – y’all know I’m a website designer – so mine are typically three to five days, a simple website. That’s just like offering services. Typically two to three days for me to complete. If they’re selling a lot of products, if they’re e-commerce site, then it might take more days because I have to set up all their payments and all that.

(04:03):
So let me give you an example of, let’s say a copywriting VIP day, where you set up your client’s entire email sequence, type out all of the emails to help your clients make more sales. You’ll do this all in one day and you’re gonna charge a thousand dollars for that day. Now, what would happen if you offered three of these per month? Can y’all do the math. If you didn’t know that is already $3,000 just for working three days. Okay. Another example, maybe you have a two day social media, VIP package where you create three months of social media content. I would not charge any less than $1,500 for this. I would actually probably charge like $2,000 for this. Now, if you offer three of these per month, that’ll take you six days, but that’s $4,500. Okay? So this is just to go to show you, VIP days are where it’s at.

(05:11):
Let me walk you through for a minute, how I run my VIP days. So my clients pay 50% upfront in order to secure the same pricing in order to secure their spot on my calendar. Once they’ve paid the invoice and sign the contract, I send them a welcome email with how the days will work, how they can contact me on these days, a form to fill out with all login info, website strategy questions, and links to schedule their kickoff call with me. And then their actual VIP days. Now once they schedule the VIP days are usually two weeks after the kickoff call. Because in that kickoff call, I give them homework. They have to get me all of their written content for the website and their photos that they want used before the actual VIP days. So once they have that homework, we typically schedule the VIP days for two weeks after the kickoff call. So they have time to complete that homework. Now, if they don’t have their homework done, if they don’t have the content ready by their VIP days, ready by their VIP days, I charge a fee to reschedule, cuz I’m holding this day just for you. And if you need to reschedule, then basically I just wasted that day. Okay? So I do charge a fee to reschedule. Now. I told y’all that they pay 50% upfront to secure their spot on my calendar. The remaining balance of their invoice is due the day before our first design day. Some clients I’ll do it after the first day, but if you’re only offering a one day design intensive or one day VIP day. But if you’re only offering a one day VIP day, get it before you do any work. Get that remainder paid before you do any work on the actual VIP days. I utilize Voxer to keep them updated on what I’m working on. Send them voice notes if I have any questions as I’m working. And this means that they have to be available to respond fairly quickly to questions or to complete revisions. As I send them pages that are done, they have to be ready to answer and get that information back to me. So I can keep moving in the project day. One of my projects, I focus on creating their branding and getting all of the tech set up for their site. And I sometimes start on their homepage. I try to get at least the first draft of the homepage done. The second day I get the homepage finalized and then start on the other pages. And then the third day I complete all of the other pages and also create their custom tutorial video and do all the off-boarding of sending them all their info.

(07:59):
Now I do wanna make an important note that I don’t recommend offering VIP days right off the bat of starting your business, because you do need to have a few projects under your belt. You need to have an understanding of what tasks you’re going to be doing, and you need to have systems in place so that it goes quickly and smoothly. And for the most part, you need to have an understanding of what you’re doing that way. You’re not getting stuck in trying to figure something out and then taking longer. So you do need to have a little bit of projects under your belt before you start offering these. But you guys not a lot. It’s not going to take you a long time to get to this point. I promise.

(08:43):
All right. So I hope that made sense. If you have any questions about offering VIP days, come and post them in our free Facebook community, facebook.com/groups/ditchtheclassroom. And if you wanna want help with setting up your VIP days, come and join the Teacher Turned Freelancer Academy. I would love to support you guys with this and just help you take your virtual assistant business from zero to 60 so that you can start working from home and spend more time with your babies. You get all of the support, all of the accountability, tons of trainings, tutorials, templates, workbooks, everything you need. So come and check that out at teacherturnedfreelancer.com get registered, and I cannot wait to see y’all in there. All right, I love y’all so much and we will see you next time.