Episode 27: Work Only 10 Days a Month with VIP Intensives/VIP Days

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
Hello everybody! And welcome back to the “Ditch the Classroom” podcast. Fun fact for today, I’m sitting in my mom’s closet currently. Just has better acoustics, I guess for the episode. Didn’t really have any other fun facts for y’all today. So that’s what you get. So a few episodes ago, I shared how I was able to make over $3,000 in my business while moving across the country, back in February. If you haven’t checked out that episode yet, go check it out. It was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. But I’m gonna be diving a little bit deeper into how I was able to do that. Today. I, on the website design side of my business, I offer what I call VIP intensives or VIP days. What these are, basically, you provide a service in a short amount of time for a client, and you spend those days focusing solely on that client’s project.

(02:32):
This allows them to move on to other tasks in their business faster, and you’re able to spend less time working because you get this project done in a shorter amount of time. One really, really awesome benefit is that you only have to work a few days out of the month. This is really especially good if you’re still in the classroom, because you know, if you’re trying to replace your income, if you took two weekends out of the month to offer VIP intensives on those weekends, you’re probably very close to hitting your income already. So this is really a good benefit for that. And then if you’re already outside of the classroom, it just allows you to work less. So you only have to work a couple days a month, and then you have all the freedom to go on those family vacations and hang out with your kids.

(03:19):
Like that’s why you started this business. Am I right? I love VIP days and I will shout how much I love them to the moon. So, one thing to know about VIP intensives, DO NOT charge hourly. With VIP intensives, you get to charge premium prices because you’re focusing solely on their project during those days. You’re not doing work for other clients. You’re not doing anything else. You’re, like, honing in on their project. So you’re giving them more attention. That means you get to charge a more premium rate. Services that lend themselves well to VIP days, and this is not a comprehensive list. This is just what I came up with off the top of my head: website design, social media management, Pinterest management, copywriting, podcast management.

(04:10):
If you don’t know what those services are – one of the very first episodes, I can’t think of what episode it is, but it’s one of the very first episodes of this podcast, so if you just scroll back – I go into depth on some of the services you can offer. And I explain these more. And then in the future, if y’all want, I can do like an episode per, service to explain them more in depth. So if that’s something you’re interested in, let me know. But the way that the VIP intensives are structured, they can be anywhere from one day to a week long. Mine personally are typically three-to-five days. So I build an entire site and/or brand in three-to-five days. One example of a one-day VIP day is a copywriting day where you set up maybe their entire email sequence for their business. You could price that at around a thousand dollars. If you offer three of these per month, you’re already making 3K. How amazing is that?

(05:16):
Real quick, I wanna walk y’all through a little more in detail, how I run my VIP so you can get some ideas for yourself. Again, this is more structured website design, because that’s what I know, but you can see how to tailor this to any service you’re interested in offering. So, upfront, my clients are required to pay 50% deposit to reserve their spot on my calendar. So, as soon as we have the discovery call, I send them a proposal. In order to get on my calendar, they have to pay 50% of the deposit. Once they’ve paid the invoice and signed the contract, I send them a “welcome” email. In that “welcome” email, I include how the days will work, how they can contact me on these days, a form to fill out with all the login info and then website strategy questions I include. And then also in that email, I include links to schedule their kickoff call and their actual VIP days.

(06:15):
So the VIP days are used usually two weeks after the kickoff call because they need time to get me all the written content and photos beforehand. If they don’t have the written content and their photos to me by their first VIP day, I charge them a fee to reschedule. They’re reserving a spot in my calendar, and if they don’t have stuff ready, I couldn’t book another client on their days. So basically they’re eating up my days. I could have had a different project. So I do charge a fee. If they’re not ready and have to reschedule on the kickoff call, we talk through the strategy of their site. I get any further login info I need if they didn’t fill it out on the form and talk through what they’re wanting for their branding, things like that. And I also walk them through like what the process will look like.

(07:02):
The day before our first VIP day, their remaining balance on their invoice is due. So, like I said, at the beginning to secure their spot, they had to pay the 50% deposit one day before their first VIP day, they have to pay the remaining 50%. I don’t do any work until I’m paid a hundred percent. On the actual VIP days, I utilize an app called Voxer. It’s a free app. It’s a texting app, but you can also do voice notes and stuff. I do not give out my personal phone number to clients. This is just a boundary that I set. So, I use Voxer to communicate with my clients quicker. It’s easier than email. I can send them a quick voice note. If I have a question, they can voice note me back or text me back, however they want. But this allows me to keep them updated on what I’m working on and they can ask questions as I go.

(07:57):
So on the actual VIP days, the client doesn’t have to be available to be on Zoom with me all day. Like that’s not how this works. But they do have to be able to respond fairly quickly to me. If I have a question that I need them to answer, or when a page is ready for them to review and revise, they have to be able to fairly quickly get me back that list of revision so I can continue working. So, you wanna make sure if you’re wanting to do VIP days for your clients, they can’t be busy all day long and not able to get to you ’til five o’clock at night. They have to be able to respond. I’d say within like 20 minutes to whatever you send them.

(08:35):
Day one of my VIP days, I usually focus on branding. If that’s included in their package, they purchased. And also the website settings. Sometimes I also start on the homepage. Day two, I mostly focus on the homepage. That’s the page that always takes the longest, cuz that gives you the structure for a lot of the rest of the site. So usually I focus solely on the homepage sometimes start on one other page, but usually day two is all about the homepage. And day three, I focus on all the other pages. One important note, I wanna point out, I don’t recommend to offering VIP days until you have a few projects under your belt. You need to have systems in place, so it can go quickly and smoothly. And you also need to, for the most part, know what you’re doing and not get stuck, trying to figure something out. Now, if it’s like a small piece of the project you’ve never done before, but most of it you know how to do like that’s fine.

(09:36):
But if you have no idea what you’re doing, like with this new service, I don’t recommend starting out with VIP days. I recommend extending it out further. So you have time to Google and figure things out as you go. VIP days are a lot more compact. So you need to be more familiar with the process of the service you’re offering. I hope that this episode was helpful for y’all. I hope this gave you more detail into how I’m able to work my business only a few days a month and spend most of my time hanging out with my baby girl. That’s why I started this business. That’s what I know a lot of you are looking for. Gives you the time, freedom more. And just allows you to replace your income a lot easier. If you’re interested in learning even more about this, I’m more than happy to bring on a guest expert, to do a more in-depth look into how VIP days can work in your business, maybe for other services.

(10:36):
So feel free to reach out to me, send me a DM on Instagram, Facebook, post in our free Ditch the Classroom Facebook group. Let me know that you’re wanting more info about this and I can find a guest expert cuz I know a couple. So thank you guys so much for tuning in today. If you enjoy this episode, please take a minute to leave a review wherever you’re listening. That just helps me spread my message more and get this out there into the hands of more people, because I want all of y’all to be able to follow the dreams God has placed on your heart. I love y’all so much and I will see you next week.