If you're an entrepreneur who does projects for other people, or is held on retainer for providing work for other people and getting burned out from scope creep, or just having projects go on forever. You're going to want to listen to today's podcast, where I interviewed Sarah Masci who was also stuck in that style of service and then moved her business into providing VIP days for clients. And she has turned her whole world around by doing the VIP method. And so listen in and see how you can also work smarter and not harder to make more in your business.
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Welcome to the Breakthrough Mastermind Show. I'm your host Jen Argue, and I facilitate masterminds for women entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses to help others and create financial independence. I am so excited to have Sarah Masci with us today. She is that expert at teaching people how to include VIP days as a method to grow their businesses in a way that's working smarter versus harder.
And I'm also excited because Sarah is a friend of mine who I got to know from hiring her to do a VIP day for me. She is an expert in branding and all things behind the scenes in making your business work from behind the scenes. So she helped me a lot with setting up my branding kit early on, and she is still growing her business with this method.
So hello, Sarah. I'm so glad you're with me today. Hey Jen! So excited to be here. Um, I know we've been planning**. We've been trying to get on this call for a while and I'm so glad we made it, yeah, finally had so great. So I am so curious about your business because this has been so successful for you. And we often know that women who are at this wonderful success point in their business, didn't get there overnight. [laugh]
I don't know if it's your case or not, but how did you get to this point in your business? Yes, definitely not overnight. I have a very long entrepreneurial journey, I guess you would call it. So, yeah, I started back in 2005, actually. Um, My oldest son was born in 2000 at the end of 2004. And, um, you know, I have this like brand new baby and I, and I was working a corporate job.
I was miserable going to that corporate job. I had like an hour and a half a day with him. Between when he would get home from daycare to going to bed, because he would go to bed at like seven o'clock. And so I knew that I needed to figure out a way to work from home. So that was like 2005, there was no social media.
I don't think there was any facebook. I don't think any of that stuff existed. I feel like the internet was still like, kind of new back then and people didn't just work from home. It wasn't like a normal thing. And so it was, for me, it was always a challenge to figure out what I could do to work from home.
And what, what kind of corporate chef did you have? Oh, I worked for the, the local utility company in, wow, data... data analysis. So I was, wow, like analyzing like gas and electric bills and, yeah, nothing like, honestly, I will tell you, this is a funny story, like my most favorite part of that job was designing spreadsheets. To make like making the spreadsheets look like color coded and pretty, and like making the spreadsheets easier to read and easier to interpret.
And so that should have been my first clue that I needed to be in a more visual type of career. And so... and just to backup a little bit more. My college education is in marketing. So I have a marketing degree. I have a very like business mind, and I always wanted to open like a coffee shop or a sandwich shop.
Like that was the thing that I wanted to do when I was younger. And then I ended up in corporate utility management. It was awful, and then in 2005, I was like, okay, I need to figure out a way to stay home. And so, um, my first job was I think my first one was, oh, I actually had an online boutique. So I had an online little e-commerce shop where I was selling baby products.
And that was fun. But I had this whole like inventory in my house. I had all of these same said no way to sell them because I didn't really know how to do online marketing at the time. Like I knew about brick and mortar marketing, but not in my business. Um, so I think that, and then I was, I did blogging. I had like a little PR business with one of my mom friends, the two of us, like we're doing like, um, promotional stuff for bloggers.
So I did a whole bunch of things, like from 2005, until 2010, really just like... throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying to figure out what worked and what would bring in money and what would help me help contribute to the finances at home and allow me to still be home with my kids. And so... And blogging was totally it at that time.
Yeah. I was totally mom blogger. I was getting paid for running ads in my sidebar. And what happened was these moms that my, my sponsors were reaching out to me and asking me if I could design the ads that were going to go in the sidebar. And that's when I realized. I really enjoyed creating like graphic design and creating that kind of thing.
I learned to CSS and I like did my own blog design as much as I could. So I was like, kind of just experimenting with creating brands, creating graphics, doing a little bit of like picking, you know, web design and the backend. And just over time, like built up my skills in graphics and branding and web design.
And so then it was like 2010, 2011 that I realized, like I had been creating all of these little businesses and then I would get bored and I would try another business and then I would get bored and I would try another business. And what I realized was I was actually bored because I enjoyed the process of bringing a brand or a website to life, mm... more than running the brand or the website.
So I'd love to like all of the creative parts of building it, and then I would get doing it and I would be bored with it. And so then it was like, I need to just go into branding and web design and I just need to call myself a designer and do that. And so that was like 2011, 2012.
And that's pretty much. I just from there, just built up my freelance branding and web design business over the next decade, right. Wow. So... were you mostly doing one-on-one services? That's all I was doing. Yeah. For all those years, it was all just freelance design services. Did you just do it by project or were you like on a container?
Yeah, a little bit of both. Yeah. Mostly project work, people were hiring me to design their brand, design their logo, similar to what I did for you, but it was like project-based work. And then I did have the clients who wanted the branding and the web design. And so I eventually taught myself WordPress, um, I learned Squarespace, Shopify, WordPress.
I learned like all the platforms so that I could offer that in addition to the branding. And then Canva came along like... I don't know how many years ago. And all of a sudden that like empowered, it gave me the ability to start creating graphics for my clients, and then they could use. Mm... Rather than me having to be the go-to every time they would need a file edited or something changed, you know, using graphic design software that my clients didn't have the capability or know how to use now with Canva, I was like, oh, well, now I can start creating graphics.
And give them templates to use so that I kind of, I really liked empowering my clients to be able to continue to grow their brand, mm... And their graphics without needing me all the time. Mm... So I did have retainers, I did have projects and that kind of leads us to where the story then kind of transitions, which is when I went into offering VIP days in 2018. Okay.
So, um, it was like eight years of building my freelance business and getting a lot of clients. I kind of just building up over the years. I was definitely undercharging and over-delivering, which meant that I was getting tons of referrals. I had a whole pipeline of clients because I was doing really great work and I wasn't charging very much.
And I was always like people pleasing and just trying to be the best that I could be. And so that just kept bringing in more and more clients, but it got to the point where I just had too many clients and I was burning out. I wasn't making enough money for the amount of hours I was working. And so it was early 2018 that I had a client come to me.
A previous client came to me and asked me, like she needed a whole bunch of things done to her website, a bunch of changes. And I just honestly didn't have the capacity, the energy, the motivation to sit down and itemize everything she needed. I sent her a proposal, do the whole back and forth, and I just replied to her and said, how about you just pay me for a day and I'll just do all of this.
No proposal, no contract, no, nothing like no questions asked. She was like, okay, great. So she like PayPal me the money and we picked a date like the following week and got the entire thing done. And it was honestly, that was like my life changing moment that I realized. I can just start charging everyone by the day.
And I don't have to do proposals and I don't have to do all this back and forth that traditional freelance projects resulted in. So that was kind of how I got to doing VIP days in 2018. And I had a whole bunch of projects that I was still working on like long, drawn out projects, like dragging on ahead to finish them, obviously, but going forward.
I was kind of like, by the end of that year, I let everyone know that I was no longer available for projects or retainers. And if you wanted to work with me, here's my link by day with me, book me for a day is what I called it. And... and that's what, that's kind of how I went into 2019 and I've never done another project.
I've never done another retainer. I scaled my business beyond six figures doing just VIP days and then went on to create curriculum programs, courses to teach other people how to do the same thing. Oh, I love that story. I love to hear how you went from doing all that one-on-one service work, you know, to being able to figure out how to scale it better for your time and your energy.
By consolidating it like that into a one day thing, which isn't technically one day, but pretty close, like the bulk of the work. Right? Yup, because you do those pre-meetings and then you offer like a little post-care if we need it. But I can say, as someone who's experienced that type of service from you, that is phenomenal because so often if, as an entrepreneur we're hiring somebody to do a project, it can take.
Oh, a long time and entrepreneurs like business owners, they want things done fast, right? And, and you also probably want it done fast. So it's such a win-win for both people to know that wow. After this one day, it's all gonna be done. And it's, that is just the best feeling ever. So yeah. I love that you do that, and I love that you accomplished six figures in your business from doing that.
And it sounds like you regained your life too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just talking about that whole six figure thing, like that's the goal everybody's striving for that six figures. And... I mean, if you think about my story, I was working for years doing something that I loved and I was very good at it. And I had a lot of clients that I never quite hit that six figure mark, because... I wasn't charging enough. I didn't have good boundaries. Um, I was like, people pleasing, over-delivering dealing with scope creep, all of that stuff. And just like, always just like missing that six figure mark, but not a long shot, but, you know, and it was just like, oh, like I'm so close.
I'm almost there. And then as soon as I went in on this model, like, it just became so clear for me to be able to say, Okay. Well, if I do six days a month at this price, there's my six figures. And so it just became so much easier for me to forecast what I was going to earn, knowing exactly what days I was going to work each month.
Know exactly when I could take time off. Like you said, like so much more freedom. I was able to take weeks off at a time because I would just make sure that I would book clients like the weeks, you know, the weeks that I was home. And then... Like, for example, in the month of July, you know, we had two family vacations one year, like one week and then like the third week or something.
And so I was like, I'll just do my VIP days and weeks two and four. Mm... And then I don't have to worry about any client work. There's no like dreaded anything hanging over my head. I just show up. I work, we're done. I take a week vacation. Then I show up, I do some more work I'm done and then take another week vacation.
And it's just made life so much easier. Yeah. Yeah, that's incredible. And it really is like, you know, I, I think you advertise is that you're working smarter, not harder. Right. And you're hitting your six figures by not working harder. Right. You're working instead of working 30 days a month, you're working six days a month and you're getting probably more done and making more money because you're actually finishing with clients rather than having those projects dragged on and on and on, because there's no clear.
Cut and dry and date or, mm... waiting for the client to give you feedback and all of those things, yeah, yeah in scope creep and all of that tricky stuff. [laughs] Yes, exactly. So I'm curious, um, as to how you grew your business because from that point, when you started, you said you were doing the VIP days that was working and then you decided to help other entrepreneurs learn this method as well and get really good at it.
How did you package that up in a way to scale that? Yeah. Um, so... it was in 2019, I was in a mastermind full of other designers. Um, we had done a... Mastermind** like a designer mastermind together. We had a Facebook group, we were all in there and it was like a year had gone by the mastermind was kind of over, but we were all still in the group and we had all just kind of become his besties and friends.
And so we would chat about what was working, what wasn't working and at that time, That's like when I started doing the VIP days in 2018 and 2019, I would go into that group and occasionally talk about it. Mm... And so at one point I had enough people asking me how I do it. Like, how do you structure your days?
How do you make sure that clients get you, what you need? How do you all the questions that everyone asks? Like, how did you know what to charge? How did you, what to offer? And so I... offered to them that I would do like a quick little like workshop training or video or something. I think it ended up just being like a screen-share video where I was sharing with them.
My process, my SOP is my systems and how I made it work. And so I recorded a zoom or a loom video. I dumped it in that Facebook group and their comments, what kind of blew me away. Like they were so like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Like, I can't believe, I never thought of that. Like, it was so many like light bulbs going off in the comments that I was like, I think I'm onto something here.
I think I need to be sharing this with more people. And so I emailed my list and just said, you know, at the time my list really didn't consist of other designers. It was more, I was running a mood board challenge after years ago. I don't know if we knew each other then probably not. But I had like a five day mood board challenge for business owners who wanted you to kind of learn how to start doing their own branding.
And so my list was a lot of small business owners who were not designer. They wanted to know how to do branding. So there was maybe like a thousand people on my list. And so I emailed everyone. I said, I know the majority of you are not designers, but if you are, and you're interested in learning this business model, jump on this wait list because I think I'm going to create a program.
And so I had like, 20, 25 people maybe join the wait list. And then I started talking about it a little bit more on Instagram and in Facebook groups like designer, Facebook groups, where I was like, I want to create, I'm thinking about creating this program. If you're interested, jump on the wait list. And so we got to the end of that month, like I spent about 30 days kind of promoting that wait list.
And I had around 75 people by the end of the month on a wait list. And so I launched a beta course. I did it very messy and imperfect. And... how many joined the beta course? 15 people joined. Okay. So that's about, you know, that's what is that about 2% or 20%? Yeah, 20, 20% from the wait list. Right. From your initial lead.
So, I mean, that's like average conversion rates, right? Right. I was like, oh my gosh, I got a 20% conversion rate from this wait list. Like it was so exciting. And then I taught them 15 to 15 people. They implemented what I taught. They all got amazing wins. And I was like, okay, let's do this again. And so I launched it again a few months later, got 15 more people, and that was at the end of 2019.
Okay. And then in 2020, *** when the pandemic actually began, I created a webinar. My first webinar, I had never done a webinar before. I was scared out of my mind to create a webinar and I didn't even do it live. I just prerecorded the whole webinar and I put it up on my sales page so people could like check it out.
And we enrolled from that webinar. We enrolled like 250 people in 2020. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That's awesome. So it was rolling enrollment or it was just DIY, just like evergreen enrollment. Like if you joined, watched the webinar and you bought within five days, you had a discount, aha, but you can join any time. Yeah, and you can just pay full price.
So it was, you know, discount for fast action takers and yeah, we had around 250 people join in 2020, and then just kind of kept it going. And last year we enrolled another 200 or so people. Yeah, um... so we'll have that going that course. So we have converted that course into we've taken that course with a whole bunch of new content that I've since created.
And now we have a big, um, it's kind of like part course, part coaching program, part mastermind. Okay. So it's a signature offer. Yes, it's definitely evolved from the very first. And I'm all about the evolving. I love the evolving. So when you started off and you were selling it just through this lead page, the sales page, or was that just access to a course that people got, or did they get put in a private Facebook group or was there any type of followup coaching or anything?
Yeah, it was the self study course. Um, So basically just self study curriculum with a private Facebook group. And we've actually experimented with bi-weekly calls, monthly calls. Um, I think we had weekly calls at one point, so we've just kind of experimented with the calls, but it ended up being bi-weekly calls, Facebook group and course.
Okay. Okay. That's so great. And that's, that's a great way to keep serving people and allow them to come in at different times. Right, exactly. Instead of relying on that launch model. Yeah. It turned out. It was actually really nice to have people coming in at all times because everyone was at different stages and it turned into one of those communities where everyone was helping every, like everybody was so supportive, just helpful, and so many collaborations and partnerships and...
Biz besties, like all of that came out of that group. I mean, at one point we had close to 400 people in there. Um, cause like we've also experimented with lifetime access versus limited time access. And so right now it's limited time access, but for a little while we had a lot of people in there and it was just really, really incredible to see all of those friendships and collaborations forming.
Mm... mm... That is beautiful that you created such a community out of that, that offer. So now you've got this signature offer and did that come out of any type of, um, experience that you had with serving your community? Um... It just really came out of the fact that I... realize how much, like I had created so much new curriculum, mm... And it was a question of, do I want to create a new course, a second course.
And what I realized was that all of the curriculum works really well together when it is completed in a very like specific order. So I kind of, I created something called a day rate gross scale, and it's a 12 month roadmap with like the word scale represents like the five different phases. So start connect, articulate, leverage, expand.
And so I guide them through what action steps take, you know, how the strategies to use at each stage in their journey. And so, by creating that and creating all the supplemental resources for that. It just made sense to put the whole thing into one program. And I I'll be honest. I got to a point with the course having so many hundreds and hundreds of people that it became hard for me to give.
The support that I wanted to be able, like, I really wanted to go deeper with my clients and like support them more and help every single person get like massive transformation rather than just letting people enroll whenever. And some people wouldn't even show up in the group or ask for help. And so, you know, some people, I don't even know if they ended up getting their result because they never showed up. Mm...
And so... now with the, more supportive coaching program. I, I get to know every single person in there. I get to like, have those one-on-one touch points with them inside of our we're no longer and Facebook we're over in slack. So we have a slack community, but it's a little bit more personal, a little bit more intimate interaction with each person.
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how slack sometimes can feel a lot more personable. Yeah. Yeah. Facebook is just... yeah, Sure. Well, I think we're all struggling a little bit with Facebook and, yeah, like minimize our time and social media. And so it made more sense for me to put, to get everyone off of social media and into a group that was more focused on learning and growing rather than scrolling.
And yeah, get it to be directed, yeah, we made the switch to slack as well. Yeah. Um, so I'm curious as you develop the signature program as a way to help your students, you know, really experienced that significant impact that they want from signing up to get this. What has happened to your own personal day rate business, VIP days? Are you still doing that?
No... I... This is the first year that I'm not doing them, which has been really hard for me, 2020. I was doing everything. I was running the course, having hundreds of people joining and doing *** and it was a great year. I mean, it was an amazing year, but I knew going into 2021 that I had to cut back on the service work in order to serve my students at a higher level.
So in 2021, I was only working with existing clients, clients who I had previously worked with, but I wasn't taking new clients. And so that worked out well last year. And then this year is the first year I'm experimenting with no one-on-one work, honestly, like I'm having so much fun with my own branding and my own website and my own.
Like, I still do all the behind the scenes design work website work. Like I do all of that because I really enjoy it. And I know like coaches and mentors have told me that I need to be handing that off. I shouldn't be doing this, but it's like the thing that really like aside from helping my clients.
Like, that's the next thing that really like brings me joy. And so I keep doing it. Absolutely. And I hear that you have this, it sounds like a big change, like a kind of a 180, where in the beginning, that's not what you enjoyed, mm... You know? And now you do like that's interesting how, and, and I often tell people when there's something you don't enjoy and you want to release it doesn't always mean forever.
You know, it means for now, and you can always be open to that re-entry in your life later. Yeah. And I think the reason like, I'm always like reflecting on patterns of my own business patterns. And I think the reason I never enjoyed it before was because the businesses I was running were not like changing lives.
And I, it wasn't putting me in a position that really utilized to my highest strengths, mm... whereas now like I've taken so many personality tests and all of those tests, um, spark types and things. And what I've discovered is that like my zone of genius is truly, um, empowering and supporting and helping and teaching other people how to, you know, achieve like success through these methods.
Whereas... like, I feel like I'm making a difference this way and I feel very competent in my ability to do that. Mm... And so I think it's a little bit of confidence and it's, it's a mixture of having competence in my abilities and really just working within my zone of genius. Mm.. And so then my like next level zone of excellence is the branding and the design part.
So I'm kind of working in both of those two levels, which is my great. Oh, that is so awesome. Yeah. It sounds like you're really doing what you love. You're always, you know, serving the people, which you'd love to do that your students, and also keeping involved in the things that you love about your business. Right.
So you've really developed a business that you love that's profitable. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But like you said, at the beginning, it's been a long journey to get here and I that's the one big thing, like the takeaway is that it doesn't happen overnight, but you know, just keep iterating. And I think we talked about this maybe before we hit record, but just taking action every day.
Mm... You know, little bits of action, little action steps everyday kind of lead to that long-term success. Mm... mm... And it sounded like too, in the beginning, even though it's hard to embrace this, that you undercharged and over delivered. And I hear that a lot, you know, but there is something about that, that catapults your experience because when you get booked out, you get really good at what you're doing.
Just from the sheer, you know, hours of experience that you're getting from doing that. Yeah. And so I think getting that booked out stage is really important to create that threshold moment, to do something different. Right. Yeah. And to figure out what's a better way to do this. Yeah,exactly. Yeah. So with your new design in your business, how is that serving you in a scalable way?
So, well, I know you just mentioned, well, we ha I also have a lower ticket, like kind of entry level. So I've really spent the past year or so building up my... my ascension ladder or my model mix, whatever you want to call it. So like how I like kind of bring people through all of the different levels of my business.
So right now we have, I have a handful of like free masterclasses for people to watch. Um, I'm in a ton of virtual summits. So a lot of people are hearing about me through presentations and guest expert trainings and that podcast interviews. Um, and then when they come in, I have a, like a free masterclass in it, like, um, a lead magnet for them.
Um, but then I also, like we talked about, I have my signature program and I also have a smaller getting started program. It's called day rate Quickstart. It's $37 and it really just helps people. Kind of like dip their toe in and see if they like this business model. If this is possible for them, if they can get clients this way, because it's not, it doesn't work for everyone.
I've definitely had people come in and try it and be like, Nope, that was too stressful. I don't like working. And that compressed time. So I'd give people the option to kind of try it out there and then they can come and join us inside of my larger program, focused and free. And how is it scalable is... I mean, it's a group coaching program, so we have the coaches on our team.
So it's not just me supporting our clients. There's other people in there. And the more people that we bring in, then we can bring in additional coaches really. Mm... And so right now I don't have a cap on how many students I'll bring in. I, I don't know what that number is going to look like, but as of right now, we can definitely, we definitely have the capacity to continue to bring in more clients and scale.
Hmm, that's wonderful. And hiring other coaches to help you with the program and you know, that's really good. Do you have other people on your team that you've hired to help make running your business easier? Yeah, I have, um, I have a handful of contractors that work for me, and then I have, um, my executive assistant who helps with... anything that I need really like anything, customer service, billing, clients support, that kind of thing. Or even she does a lot of marketing assistant work for me. And then I have my operations manager, um, and she is also transitioning into client success coach. So she has operations, like we both do a little bit of operations and we both do some of the coaching.
So she has been with me for about three years. She's gone through all of my programs. She knows my brain. Yeah, you know, better than anyone else and can really support our clients and the program. Um, and then I have, you know, the other usual contractors, bookkeepers, lawyers have Facebook ads agency that I work with, all of those kinds of things as well.
Yeah. Yeah. I love to hear that. I love to hear that. And I, I see that as a common theme, like people who are scaling in there at that point, did they have somebody handling their Facebook ads for them? Hmm.. Yeah. I mean, I will say like for years I did everything myself. I ran my own ads. Um, I had a VA, but I was like so proud of that.
I can do everything myself and I'm going to keep doing everything. And I have these insane profit margins. And I did when I was just doing VIP days. It was, my business was so simple that I didn't need a whole team supporting me. It was literally like the simplest business model ever, which is why... I think it's so awesome and why I want to tell everyone about it.
Um, but then once I went into like the online education part of my business, that all of a sudden I started needing, like my business was no longer a simple, so here I like built this amazing, beautiful, simple business for myself. And now I've kind of like, now that I'm teaching, it's no longer simple, but, but that's okay because I love it.
Oh, I love that. [laughs] That's a huge transformation to go from that simple business to like a lot more complicated. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. But worth it, worth it. Exactly. Yeah. You have the right people helping you and people that, you know, great people on your team, people that you get along with. People that understand your mission, your vision, your values, and can support that.
That is a hundred percent worth it. Hmm... Do you feel like part of that change for you is because of the need for variety or just of maybe even the challenge of what's possible? Definitely the challenge for me, like I am always striving for... bigger, better, hmm... More like, it's just, I think it's just inherently part of who I am.
That I'm, as soon as I saw that I could sell a program and, you know, 20% of the people on the list bought it and then I relaunched it and you know, another 15 people joined all of a sudden I started seeing that what's possible. Mm... And so the idea of being able to scale. Hmm... A but never really seemed possible for me when I was only doing services.
So now I'm at a point where inside of our program focused in free, it's not only about doing VIP days. Yes. That's majority of what I teach, but I also teach how to package up your IP and sell it so that, you know, once you start doing these VIP days. Like, what happened to me was I had all of this extra free time and space in my calendar because I was only working with clients two days a week.
My business was so simple that I started thinking about, well, how can I create courses? That kind of thing. And so that's kind of my mission with our program is to teach my clients the same thing. Like, yes, let's get your VIP days styled in and we'll get that going. But then let's take your frameworks and turn them into digital products that you can then sell and scale with so that you have good balance. Hmm... hmm...
Yeah. How many people in your course just curious are women? Um... a hundred percent right now. Ah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. We've had a handful of men go through the original version of the course when it was just the course, not the current program. Um, I'm talking about the, the course, not that low, it's not the $37 product that would probably have a bunch of men.
I don't know. Um, but right now it's all women inside of the main program. Yeah, you really are providing a lot of freedom and opportunities and really great options for women. Yeah. We have new moms and they're brand new moms who are juggling two days a week of day care. So like one, one new mom has, she only gets like two days a week where her baby goes to day care.
And so she uses those days for her VIP days. We have another mom who has two, two children, and she's pregnant with her third and wants to get this business model like up and running before she goes on maternity leave in May, um, and a few months. And so... and then, we have another woman who has a full-time job and she does hers either on the weekends or she splits her days up kind of like into evening hours.
So I'm gonna say the thing, um, they're, they're able to take this model and make it work for them. So not everyone is doing an eight hour day rate. Some of them are doing two half days or evenings or a weekend, so you can really make it what you want. And I think that's the beauty of it is that... it's not like this is the only way to do it.
It's take this model and let's customize it to suit your life and your business so that it works for you. That's a really important message for people to hear. Yeah. For anyone running a business that you can take something that's really working for somebody and you can morph it into what works for you.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So as you're doing this signature program, I'm curious, is this a rolling enrollment or do you do it launch style? How does that work? Yes. Rolling enrollment, similar to how we did the course with the webinar and the limited time like we did in limited time discount for the webinar. Now we do rolling enrollment.
Um, and when you apply, we have a special, like seven day fast action bonus. So if you decide to enroll within the first seven days, you actually, we have a bonus that goes along with that, but, and you can join anytime. And it's a 6 or a 12 month program. Six months. Okay. Okay. Cause I heard you say it's a 12 month.
Yes, that's a great point. So it is a 12, we have a 12 month roadmap. Um, but what we found last year running the beta version of this coaching program is that some people. I can kind of get through all of it or as much as they want to do in six months. And then they're, they're good. They're ready to be set free where others needed that full 12 months.
So we've intentionally made this a 6 month program so that for the people who can get it done in 6 months, great. But you can renew and stay with us for another 6 months. If you want to do a full 12 months, you can stay with us for two, you can stay with us as long as you want, [laugh] but we wanted people to not feel like they were stuck in a 12 month program.
If they didn't truly need 12 months. Hmm... hmm... That's a really great model. I like that model. It's very respectful of people's learning styles. Yeah. Yeah. And again, just like, I think just experience like beta testing and seeing what's working for other what's working and what's not working is really how we've evolved to what it is now.
Yeah. Yeah. So if we were to look at the soft skill that really led to your success in your business, what would you say that is? So many, I feel like I have so many little things along the years. Um, I would say, well, I have two of them. Okay. Tell me which one you want to talk about, but one of them is continuous learning... continuous... evolving never being complacent with what I've already created and giving up. So I'm always trying to learn new things. That's a big one for me. Hmm... Um, the other one is taking imperfect action every single day, taking messy, imperfect action and not waiting and overcoming perfectionism. Oh gosh. Yeah.
Yeah. That's so important, so good. And then what would you say is the hard skill that really made the biggest difference in your success? Um, no understanding and knowing how to use all of my tech and really just no understanding all of my techs so that when I have these big ideas in the middle of the night, and I want to take action on them the next day, I don't have to wait for someone else to do it for me. Aha...
I think that's just a result of, of the type of business that I ran for so long learning all the different platforms and learning how to do everything behind the scenes and being super resourceful. And so I would say for anyone, listening, there's so much value and yes, you want to outsource a lot and you can outsource your brand design.
You can outsource web design, but make sure you hire a designer or a strategist that will show you how to use the tools that she's created or he or she has created for you. Hmm... So that you're not like left at the mercy of someone else in order to make progress with your business. Hmm... hmm... And that reminds me of a question I had that I was thinking about when you were talking about the evolution of your business and how you learned all these different platforms, all these different tech software, things that are out there.
How did you do... did you just say, I have to figure this out and then you went on YouTube or like... or you just right in the program and you just started fooling around with things like *** those. Well, it comes back to that whole like undercharging, overdelivering people pleasing and not knowing how to say no to anyone, because why would I say no?
When someone's willing to pay me to create something for them, that was like my money mindset issues back in the day. I didn't know how to say no to anyone. So if someone came and said, I have a website on Squarespace and can you help me update it? Well, the first time I ever like laid eyes on the back end of a Squarespace website, I was like, sure...
And then it was always say yes, um, get them to, you know, pay to positive women and then figure it out. Like literally figure out how to do it as I go along. So YouTube videos or just going in, I mean, I'm pretty tech savvy to begin with. So just going in and like playing around with things, I was usually able to figure them out.
Yeah. Yeah, that's impressive. [laugh] That's really great. Um, so if people wanted to get in touch with you, if they wanted to hang out with you, where's your favorite place to hang out these days and... when do you have that you think would be really helpful for people to get their hands on? So hanging out would be on Instagram so they can find me on Instagram @sarahmasci just my name.
They can send me a DM if they want to chat. I love chatting with people about this business model and kind of what's possible with it. I also love talking about, you know, efficiency and... Taking messy action and overcoming perfectionism and money mindset, all that of stuff, anything like that. I'm always sharing those kinds of tips and things on Instagram.
And then of course, my website is www.sarahmasci.com I've got a bunch of free goodies over there, including a couple of different masterclasses, kind of the way I've designed my website is... as you kind of go through, you're going to discover a mass like a free training, a checklist. I have a really amazing checklist opt-in that they can grab to just kind of it's the ultimate VIP day checklist.
And it's really, it's good. It gives there's a lot of good stuff in there so they can check that out. And then also learn more about my program focused in free is in there as well as my favorite QuickStart. Oh, that is great. That is great. Thank you so much, Sarah, for your vulnerability and your openness and like sharing your whole journey.
I think it's so encouraging to hear like how you went from. You know, different step to step to get to where you are today and also just you're persistence and consistency and your heart to serve others is just huge. And it definitely came through in what you shared. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I was so happy to share it and, um, yeah, I look forward to, you know, sharing more.
It was so wonderful to have Sarah on the podcast today. And we will have all the links that she mentioned in the show notes. So definitely go say hi to her on Instagram and check out her website with all of her wonderful offers.
And if you're looking for more support, challenge and inspiration in running your online business, I would love to have you apply to my mastermind.
Check it out! @jenargue.com
