Kristen Doyle 0:00
Have you ever felt stuck waiting for a project that you had hired someone for to just be finished already? Or maybe you’re the service provider, and you’ve been on the flip side of that coin, wondering when your client is ever going to get you those last revisions or those last files so you can wrap up their project.
Kristen Doyle 0:22
Imagine skipping all the back and forth and just getting it done in a single day. In our last episode, we talked about the possibility of adding some services to your offers, and today, I am diving into my very favorite way to both offer services to my own clients and to get services done for my business when I’m the client.
Kristen Doyle 0:48
Today, I’m introducing you to VIP days. I’ve invited my VIP day mentor Sarah Masci to join us. Sarah teaches service providers how to create VIP day or VIP week offers that are a win win for their clients and for the service provider too.
Kristen Doyle 1:08
Whether you’re thinking about adding VIP days to your business or you’re curious about maybe hiring someone for a VIP day to knock out a project quickly, without all that back and forth waiting. This episode has something for you. Let’s get started.
Kristen Doyle 1:27
Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like teachers pay teachers, Etsy or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you’re in the right place.
Kristen Doyle 1:42
Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no fluff, tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process. Things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations, and so much more. Let’s get started y’all.
Kristen Doyle 2:07
Hey Sarah, thank you so much for being here.
Sarah Masci 2:10
Hey, Kristen, I am so excited. I’ve been looking forward to this.
Kristen Doyle 2:14
Me too. So let’s dive straight in, because I know we have a lot to talk about today. Let’s talk about what a VIP day actually even is. What do we mean when we say VIP days?
Sarah Masci 2:28
This is such a good question. So many people are confused about what a VIP day is, and I find that I have to explain it like more than I thought I would. So I’m glad we’re kind of kicking right off with that. But essentially, a VIP day the way I teach it, and the way, you know, my students and everyone runs it, it’s a, usually a virtual day, or it could be a half day where you are providing some sort of a transformation for your client in a very focused and efficient block of time.
Sarah Masci 2:55
So instead of taking a traditional project that might take a couple of weeks to finish with a lot of back and forth check ins. Over time, we just compress everything down into one day and get it all done. So at the end of the day, you can cross it off your list and be done working with that specific client.
Kristen Doyle 3:13
Yeah. And as you know, I shifted over almost completely to working in VIP days several years ago, 2020 I think, or 2021 it’s been a really long time when I first took your course, and I have found I knew that there were going to be benefits for me as the service provider for VIP days, because it solved so many of the struggles that I was having with projects dragging out so long.
Kristen Doyle 3:38
And then, of course, what happens then is all the clients whose projects you’re working on, they all want you again. They’re all ready to work on it at the same time. So then you’re overwhelmed, and then a week later, it’s dead again, because no one’s responding to you. And then you’re overwhelmed.
Kristen Doyle 3:53
And I just I knew this was going to solve a big pain point for me as a service provider. But one thing I learned is it actually is so much better for clients too, on on their side of things.
Sarah Masci 4:06
Yeah. I mean, I very quickly, once I started doing my own VIP days as a service provider, and realized like how amazing it was for me, I quickly became a fan of being the VIP day receiver as well. And now, whenever I hire anybody for any kind of services in my business, I go for the person that can get it done in a day. Always. Copy, social, Facebook ads, anything that I need to done, done to hire out I want it done in a day.
Sarah Masci 4:37
Because, I mean, we even as the recipient of the services we want. We want it fast. We don’t want to wait six weeks for our project to be completed. I love the fact that I can I know we’re going to start in the morning, and by the end of the day, my project’s going to be completed. And typically, I have found that a lot of times it’s almost more affordable just to get it done in one day, versus paying for that big project.
Sarah Masci 5:04
Because I do think a lot of service providers account for the length of time that a project takes, and so the price is higher, whereas if they know it’s going to be done in one day, they can make it a more affordable option. So I feel like it’s more affordable. I love the efficiency of getting my results in one day.
Kristen Doyle 5:22
One big thing for me as a web designer is, instead of juggling four clients projects this month, I’m working on one a week. And so it really helps me narrow in, just in my brain, on their brand, their business, and just focus on nobody but them for that day that I am working on their stuff.
Kristen Doyle 5:43
And even the lead up in that week, the days prior to the VIP day, I’m already starting to think about how I’m designing things on their side. I’m rolling those ideas around. And it’s not getting muddled because I’m working on several projects at a time. It’s very focused in on that one person and what they need.
Sarah Masci 6:00
And the other thing that I personally found as a VIP day, like when I was doing traditional projects, and all those projects were lingering and dragging out, and I felt like I was working on five or six or seven clients at any given time, I wound up finding myself to be resentful towards all of them.
Sarah Masci 6:19
By the time we got to the finish line, I was so like, sick of working on all those projects that I was feeling kind of like, just resentful towards everything. And when I compressed everything, we started working with clients, in just one day, the client relationship was so much better, because that client knew that they were getting your undivided attention, like you said, all focus was on them, and they could have a conversation with you and know that, like, like, we’re making progress. We’re getting this done, and it was just a much better relationship overall.
Kristen Doyle 6:53
Yeah, and I’ve had that same experience. Actually, one of the things that really pushed me into VIP days was a specific client right before I took your course, I think it may have actually been the client that prompted a friend of mine to tell me about your course, to say, you need VIP days here. Go look at this.
Kristen Doyle 7:11
I had a client who the project had dragged out. Not my fault, not their fault. It just had. This is how they they work when you don’t have that deadline at the end, and the project had dragged out, and by the time we got to the end of it, I was kind of tired of the project. I was over it, but you could tell they were too.
Kristen Doyle 7:28
The client wasn’t even excited about their brand new website anymore, because they had just dragged out so long that excitement was gone. And it’s so much better doing it in a VIP day where we’re working really focused for a shorter amount of time, and everybody’s excited at the end of it.
Sarah Masci 7:46
Yeah, there’s so, yeah, I totally agree.
Kristen Doyle 7:49
So let’s talk about what a VIP day might look like, because we’re calling it VIP days, and when I do them, they are typically one day or two day projects. But it doesn’t always have to be a single day to still fit that same model. So let’s talk about some of the options for people listening who maybe are thinking about implementing some VIP days in their business.
Sarah Masci 8:10
Yeah, we there’s so many, and one of the kind of the one of the more popular ones, is to do a VIP week. So if you feel like you want to do this VIP day model, but there’s no way that you can get everything done in one day. Then you could start with looking at what a VIP week might look like.
Sarah Masci 8:27
And that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re working every single day for a whole week, but you take one project and you figure out the hours that you’re going to work Monday through Friday, or maybe you’re only going to work three of the days in the week, but you call it a VIP week, and you can provide that same transformation just spread out over several days.
Sarah Masci 8:46
That seems to work for a lot of people who are just getting started with this model and maybe just don’t have the confidence to work really efficiently and quickly and get it all done in one day. It also works really well for people who might have a full time job or a day job, and can only work in the evenings, like I know you and I have had that conversation about teachers, for example, wanting to do this model, but not being able to do it, you know, during the day because of their other their day job. So that’s an option.
Sarah Masci 9:16
Another option is a split day. So it’s really, it’s kind of like you price it the same as a single VIP day, but you’re doing two half days, so maybe you’re doing, like, three or four hours on Monday and three or four hours on Tuesday.
Kristen Doyle 9:31
I typically do a full day VIP day. I start in the morning my time. I end around the time my kids are getting out of school, and that works great for my schedule, but I have had clients on the other side of the world who want to book a VIP day, and because I need to be able to communicate with them throughout the day. You know, we’re not sitting on Zoom or anything, but we are texting back and forth throughout the day.
Kristen Doyle 9:53
I’m asking questions, I’m showing them what I’m working on. And so for those clients, a lot of times what works, depending on what part of the world they’re in, is to do maybe two mornings back to back, or two late afternoons back to back, so that it’s in their waking hours, but it’s still, you know, within my workday as well.
Sarah Masci 10:13
Yeah and one thing I have actually done for that situation when they’re on the complete opposite side of the world, like 12 or 14 hours ahead of me, typically, if it’s an Australian client, is I will get up and like will almost like compromise. So we’ll do half of it really in my super early morning and half of it in their super early morning.
Sarah Masci 10:36
So neither one of us are like, having to get up at 5am two days in a row, but like, I might get up, you know, four or 5am work for three or four hours, and then we put the project to rest while they go to sleep, and then they wake up, and it’s my evening on the same day, and we’ll wrap up the project and evening.
Sarah Masci 10:56
So I’m still getting it done first thing in the morning and at the end of the day, and then I still have my whole day in the middle to work on whatever else I need to do. So yeah, there’s that option, there’s there’s so many others. Some of them, I actually had one. I hired a VIP day for someone to have some work done for me, and it was a 24 hour turnaround.
Sarah Masci 11:15
So we kind of started at like three o’clock in the afternoon. She was also in another time zone, kind of pretty far away. So we started at three o’clock in the afternoon, my time. I don’t know what time it was for her, but we wrapped up around three o’clock the following day, and both of us got our sleep in, both of us got our family time in, and the work got done.
Kristen Doyle 11:37
That sounds like a really good compromise, too. So really, I guess what we’re saying is a VIP day doesn’t necessarily have to be a day. It’s really more about just having that scheduled, set time in the calendar and having some boundaries around that time.
Sarah Masci 11:52
Yep, exactly. And just being really clear with when you decide what the hours are going to be and what your structure is going to be, just make sure that you’re clearly articulating what that is in your terms and in your conversations with your clients, so everybody’s on the same page, like Kristen said, like so if you have strong boundaries around that time.
Kristen Doyle 12:13
So a big question I get when I talk about VIP days with other people is, yeah, but how? How do you build a whole website in one day? And it really comes down to something I learned from you. So I’d love for you to expand on it a little bit. It really comes down to having solid prep work and strategy and communication in place before the VIP day.
Kristen Doyle 12:37
Because there is, I mean, there is literally no way that I could pull up somebody’s website for the very first time, log in and make them a website in one day. That’s not going to happen there. There does have to be some communication and planning beforehand.
Sarah Masci 12:49
Yes, okay, so the first thing I will say to this so is, the more you do VIP days, the faster you’re going to get. So if you’ve never done one before, you have to keep your expectations for that day pretty small. So when I first started off doing website in a day, it was a like two-three page max website in a day, because that I hadn’t done it before, and I didn’t want to over promise and not be able to fulfill on the promise.
Sarah Masci 13:15
So I started out with smaller expectations and also priced accordingly, smaller expectations. It was a much cheaper VIP day. It was $500, $750, you know, I kind of raised my price a little bit right at the beginning. But $750 for a very small, little website, which eventually, over time, I got more efficient. I got faster. I had tips and tricks and things that I could pull from to create a much larger site in a day, and that’s when my price went up to like $3,000 per day.
Sarah Masci 13:46
So all that said, that’s one thing to keep in mind when you’re starting, but also, like what you said, Kristen, is making sure that you have every single thing you need in order to do the job that you need to do before the day starts.
Sarah Masci 14:01
So what I found worked for me was to have very clear like, instructions, expectations, everything the client receives all of that right when they book their day and they know that if it’s not done, either the day is not happening or there the day will still happen, but they’re not going to be happy with the result, because you’re just going to make the best of the day with whatever they’ve done for pre work.
Sarah Masci 14:28
So you have to be really, really clear and setting those boundaries and expectations what the pre work is when it needs to be done by and then having a kickoff call or a strategy call or something, a few days before the actual VIP day to make sure that everything is done and ready to go. Because if it’s not, again, the day is either not going to go well, or you’re going to cancel the day and they’re going to lose their deposit, basically.
Kristen Doyle 14:55
And you know, one thing I’ve actually started doing recently, and I don’t know if I’ve even told you this yet. Yeah, but instead of doing one kickoff call right before my VIP days, I actually split it into two. So it’s still it’s the same amount of time I would have spent on my one call, except instead of doing it all a week before the VIP day, what I was finding was sometimes people didn’t ask for everything they wanted on their website, or they didn’t tell me a really important piece of information until a week before our day, and then I’m kind of scrambling at the last minute.
Kristen Doyle 15:28
And nobody likes that feeling. So I split it into two calls, and I do one at the very beginning, a week or two after they book, and we go ahead, and that’s our strategy. That’s our planning. Let’s talk about all the things you want on your website. Let’s make sure we are I have your prep work created.
Kristen Doyle 15:29
So I’m going to get everything I need to make this site that you want and to include all the things that you want on it, and then that our more traditional kickoff call, like right before the VIP day, is almost just a quick check in. Let’s make sure we’ve got it all. Everything looks good, last minute questions, that sort of thing.
Kristen Doyle 16:02
And that has helped me so much with just not getting to that point where you’re almost at the VIP day and you suddenly realize they want something they haven’t asked you for yet.
Sarah Masci 16:12
Yeah and I’ve heard, I’ve, I think you have told me that, and I’ve heard a few other people are also doing kind of that strategy on the front end, with the smaller, little kickoff call closer to the day, and it seems like it’s working. I never actually did that, but it seems like everyone who’s been doing it has really loved it.
Sarah Masci 16:29
And I think that’s the other beauty of this model, is it’s so versatile, and you can really make it whatever you want. And at the end of the day, what makes a model so great, it’s not the VIP day that makes it great. What makes it great is you going all in on one core delivery model that you can then structure all of your terms around. You’ve got boundaries in place, systems to support that one core model.
Sarah Masci 17:00
You know, you’ve got your email template, you have everything ready to go because you’re selling the same thing over and over and over, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and have do custom proposals and custom invoicing and check where this client is, and having projects at all different sizes and scopes.
Sarah Masci 17:18
When you have everything really streamlined into that one core offer, you can then build almost this like productized system around it, and whether it includes two kickoff calls or one kickoff call, or 10 days of post-intensive support or 30 days of post, it doesn’t matter what all of the little things are. What matters is that you created a system around that one core offer, and the VIP day is just, it just works.
Kristen Doyle 17:47
And I love how much it has just simplified everything about how, how I run my business. And I’ve had clients where I’ve done as much as, I think, four VIP day projects. But it’s nice that we don’t have to, I don’t have to try to figure out how to quote a giant project. I think about it in terms of the container I have. I think, Okay, here’s what the client wants. Now, how much can I get done in one day?
Kristen Doyle 18:12
Okay, I’m going to do this part on day one. I’m going to do this part on day two. And sometimes even for the client, it it makes it a lot easier to do big projects, because we might need to do days one and two now and wait a couple of months for them to be ready for day three, and it just lets us space it out, schedule everything and plan it out in the way that’s going to work really well for them too.
Sarah Masci 18:35
I’m glad you mentioned that, because one of the big objections that I hear from people about not wanting to do VIP days is they think that they’re going to have to sell to, like, 150 new clients a year in order to meet their revenue goals, in order to sell the number of days to meet their revenue goals. Some people aren’t factoring in that one client is multiple days. Typically, like on average, my clients were two to three days each, because they wanted so much more than what we could get done in one day.
Sarah Masci 19:09
So like you said, we just booked them for multiple days. I had so many come in and book me for three days, you know. Or we’d start with two days, and then a month later they would come back needing whatever a funnel setup. And so we would do another day, and then two months later they would come back for another day. So I always had clients kind of coming back for additional things.
Sarah Masci 19:30
And that’s where the beauty of like having a flexible framework comes in. You want to have almost like you don’t have to what I’m I guess what I’m saying is it doesn’t have to be just one thing that you do. So if you’re multi passionate or you’re good at a lot of things, you can still do all of those things.
Sarah Masci 19:47
You’re just going to sell days and do the things in days, rather than custom proposals and projects and packaging and hourly and all of those other things. Just have your array of like your your buffet of deliverables that they can basically pick and choose from, and you can do in a day.
Kristen Doyle 20:06
And I’ve done a lot of repeat VIP days. Most of my people who come in, they get one, maybe two VIP days to begin with. But what I get a lot is people whose business is growing, and so the first day we either build their first website or redesign an existing one, and it’s a pretty basic website. I do a lot of websites for people who write blog posts, so I do a lot of setting up their blog on their website for them.
Kristen Doyle 20:32
But then, you know, six months a year down the road, they come back and they say, Well, I want to add a store to my website, or I started a podcast. What’s the best way to put my podcast episodes on my website? And so we come back and we do another day, or sometimes even just a half day, depending on what they need, so that we can add to their website. And I just love having that flexibility. And I think part of that too comes down to making sure you build the website in a way that you can add to it, that you’re not having to start over every single time, too.
Sarah Masci 21:00
Yeah. And the other thing, as far as the flexibility of it goes, it’s, like, not really related to having one client come back multiple times, but for you as a provider, if you’re doing VIP days, it makes your business and your life so flexible, because you can choose exactly what days you’re going to work and like, let’s say you want to go on a family vacation. You don’t have you’re not going to lose any income.
Sarah Masci 21:26
All you’re going to do is take the one or two days that you might have done that week, and you’re going to plop one of them into the week before and one of them into the week after. And now you have a whole week off that you can go do whatever you want, but you’re still going to get paid for, like, an extra day, maybe on the week before the week after. I used to do that all the time, especially leading into summer, when I knew that my kids were going to be home and I wasn’t going to want to be working very much.
Sarah Masci 21:50
I kind of like front loaded all of my client work into, like, May and early June, while the kids were still in school, so that July and August were very flexible and open. And then anybody who came to me in July and August wanting work, if it was possible and if the timing was worked for that client, we were I was bumping them into September, so I had a busy September and a busy May.
Sarah Masci 22:15
But I always keep my summers as you know, light as possible, and this model is what really allows you to do that and still feel like you can predict how much money you’re gonna make every month.
Kristen Doyle 22:28
Yeah. I really love having that flexibility, and also just the flexibility to, like, maybe I decide I need a little extra income this month. Okay, open up another day.
Sarah Masci 22:39
Yeah, yeah. I love people are like, Well, I wanted to go. I wanted to take my family to Universal Studios. So I just sold a VIP day to buy the tickets.
Kristen Doyle 22:48
I love that.
Sarah Masci 22:49
mean, I remember we planned family trips. I’m like, Okay, well, that trip, you know, the Airbnb is $5,000 so I only need to sell two VIP days, and I pay for the Airbnb for a whole week with my family. Yeah, yeah. I love it.
Kristen Doyle 23:02
I do too. So you mentioned one objection that sometimes service providers have a little worry that they have, but another one I hear a lot is from service providers who are worried about the deadline and they’re worried they won’t be able to perform to deliver the thing in that one day. What’s your advice for those people?
Sarah Masci 23:24
So you will quickly realize what you’re capable of and how much you can get done in a day. And as with anything else, the way to find that out is to test it and try it. And so every single person that I talked to about wanting to do VIP days, the very first thing that I have them do, and even, like in our programs and in our courses and even my workshops and everything that I kind of create for helping people with this model, step one is to test it.
Sarah Masci 23:53
You have to just do a few beta tests to see what’s possible, what you can actually get done. You know, what works, what doesn’t work, what you enjoy doing, all of that. So I recommend everyone test with three to five beta clients before worrying about a sales page and having all the systems set up and having a framework set up before any of those details. Just test it out with anyone. Anybody on your warm you know, if you have a warm lead or a small email list, find a few people who are willing to be guinea pigs and test it out with them.
Kristen Doyle 24:28
Yeah, that’s what I did, too. I when I first started offering VIP days, I had some clients who had already paid deposits. They were on my schedule for a traditional project. And the first couple I kind of sneakily, did a VIP day. I did it in a day, but I didn’t tell them I was going to do it in a day. It was just like, Okay, let’s see how much I can do. Let me time myself and see how fast I can get this done.
Kristen Doyle 24:52
And that helped me a lot. And then I was able to reach out to some people and say, Hey, I have you scheduled for a VIP day and or for a web design project in November or whatever, and I’m trying something new. How do you feel about Are you okay with being one of my beta testers for this? And they were great. They were, I don’t think anyone told me no. They were all like, Yeah, sure. Sounds great.
Sarah Masci 25:16
I mean, why would they? Why would they say no? Like they everybody wants it done fast, right?
Kristen Doyle 25:22
In those first couple, I definitely walked all over the boundaries of time. I probably went over on every single one of them, because I had sold them a certain deliverable, not a day of work. And so obviously I’m going to deliver the whole thing, whether it takes a day or two or whatever. But it helped me so much to just hone in that process and figure out what I can do in a day, and how can I make this faster? What should I do before the day?
Kristen Doyle 25:47
Because there were some steps in my process that had me kind of sitting around waiting on, like a tech thing, a process to finish running. And if I do that the day before, then I’m not wasting time on the VIP day. So lots of little, small things like that that I learned.
Sarah Masci 26:02
Right. I mean, there’s so much learning that happens in those beta days, and I’m so glad you mentioned that you tried to put a whole project into one day, and quickly realized it doesn’t work that way. And so that’s why, and and what I teach is you cannot guarantee, like, very specific deliverables.
Sarah Masci 26:21
Of course, you can still say by the end of the day you’ll have a website, but we’re not going to say by the end of the day you’re going to have a six page website with this many words and this many images and this, these integrations and this and this and this and this. You can’t get that detailed with a VIP day, because so many things could happen if, like, what happens if the client does disappear halfway through the day and you can’t get like, you need feedback on something, or you need a password to get into something?
Sarah Masci 26:51
Let’s say you promise them that you’re going to set up their um email integration, and you go to log into their their Mailer Lite account, and it’s two factor authentication, they’re not available, and so you’re sitting there and can’t do it well now it’s not your fault, right? It’s not your fault that that’s not done.
Kristen Doyle 27:09
I think really the biggest thing there is having that clear communication with the client about how available they need to be, how you’re going to communicate all of those things I tell my clients early on, like this part of the day, I probably won’t need you, but if I need you first thing in the morning, it’s because I can’t get logged in and I can’t do anything until you get back to me. So please be on your phone. Please pay attention. Get back to me as quick as you can.
Kristen Doyle 27:37
And I think just being really clear about how this works and how the client can make the most of the day as well has really helped. And I will say, I know we don’t guarantee anything, because I am a good student and I have learned about boundaries, but I really am four years in now I am at the point where I probably could guarantee what I can deliver for you in a day, provided that you respond to questions when I have them and your like, your web host doesn’t completely go down for the day or anything crazy, some crazy tech problem.
Sarah Masci 28:14
Exactly. And that that’s exactly what it comes down to. Is because you’re four years in, you’ve been doing this a long time, your prep work is nailed down to a science, like, everything is perfect at this point. But when you’re first starting off and things are kind of still like, kind of willy nilly, and you don’t, you know, not everything is refined and optimized, and as efficient as it can be, it’s it can get kind of tricky, but that’s the other reason why I have everyone do these beta tests, because those beta tests are going to give you social proof and portfolio pieces and examples that show what’s possible.
Sarah Masci 28:48
So even if you can’t guarantee deliverables, you can still say, I don’t guarantee deliverables. But here’s four examples of work that I completed in one day because that client was prepared. They did their work. They were attentive to my needs. They got back to me right away. If you can be that good of a client, then you can also have this type of transformation, right? And so that really is a big reason why that beta is so important.
Kristen Doyle 29:14
Yeah it is, for sure. So one other thing I have learned is that VIP days aren’t just about whether I can perform in a VIP day and whether I can create a website in my case. In that day, it also is about making sure you pick the right client to work with in a VIP day.
Kristen Doyle 29:31
I have had situations where the client was not a good fit for VIP days, especially early on before I was able to recognize that in talking to a client. So what would you suggest we look for in clients who are a good fit for a VIP day, whether it’s a service provider who’s looking for those clients or maybe somebody listening, who’s wondering if they would like hiring somebody for a VIP day.
Sarah Masci 29:54
Well, what I have found personally is that VIP day, clients, the good VIP day clients have more money than time. Okay, they’re they’re advanced in their business. They’re not brand new. They’re not sitting around every day like trying to figure out their business. They know what they do. They’re clear in their messaging.
Sarah Masci 30:18
They they have a good idea about what they’re doing, because clients that are brand new, they kind of have time to DIY and they’ll sit there and pick things apart, whereas clients that have been, you know, in business a little while, they just want it done. They just want it off their plate. They would rather just have it done, and that therefore they’re they’re kind of transitioning the decision making over to you. They’re giving you more control as the provider to just get the job done for them.
Kristen Doyle 30:45
You know, I also find, I think, that people who have been in business longer, who are more established in what they’re doing and what their expertise is, tend to trust you as the expert more as well.
Sarah Masci 30:57
Yeah, 100% and then the other thing, and these are just some red flags. So if you get on a call with someone and they bad mouth with their previous designer, or they tell you they’ve had the most awful experience blah, blah, blah, there’s a good chance that it wasn’t just the provider that created that bad experience.
Sarah Masci 31:18
They might not be a very good client. They might not they might be difficult to please. They might not know how to make quick decisions. They might try to micromanage everything. So if they come into a discovery call, kind of complaining about previous situations, then that could be a potential red flag.
Sarah Masci 31:36
Then I did have another client. She actually was a friend of mine. Knew what I did, loved my work, booked me for a day, but then felt like she could just keep emailing me, like 10 times a day with questions about, what do I think about this? What do I think about this? What do I think about this? Like, it was very like she just walked all over those boundaries of like, how this day works, and she she was trying to do her pre work, and she couldn’t make up her mind on certain aspects of the pre work.
Sarah Masci 32:10
And I just knew right there, I was like, if she can’t make up her mind on this pre work, there is no way we’re gonna get through her whole website in one day. And so I refunded her her deposit, and I sent her to a provider who I knew would be able to take more time with her and hold her hand and spend a month or two, who knows how long they ended up spending together? Yeah,
Kristen Doyle 32:30
and I think it’s just so important to recognize that kind of thing. And I know some people that I have worked with, they offer VIP days, but also offer longer projects, and sometimes it means knowing which person to move to a different service that you offer, or just being willing to let go of a client and send them to somebody that’s going to be better for them.
Sarah Masci 32:49
Yeah. I mean, that’s really what you have to do, and it’s hard, especially if you’re just kind of getting started with your business. And your VIP days are your, kind of your main thing now, and you really want to do your VIP days, but you have clients coming in who need something that is just so big.
Sarah Masci 33:06
I had one lead. We had a discovery call, and the project she wanted was massive. She wanted everything you could think of, from branding to web design to collateral to building out a course platform to everything, right? An ecom store, who knows, but it was like a $20,000 like project, and I had been doing my VIP days. I was in, you know, in a really good groove with my VIP days. I was loving them. I had just wrapped up all of my big projects, and then I had this discovery call.
Sarah Masci 33:39
And, you know, I’m sitting there like, Okay, well, I could, I could pitch, I could quote a $20,000 project. But do I want a $20,000 project? Do I? Because I had done big projects in the past that dragged on for over a year. They were big, high paying projects, but at the end of the day, I spent, you know, 12,18, months on them, so the profit margin was like zero, you know. And so it was learning how to be okay, saying no and turning down the work that’s not a good fit for your model.
Kristen Doyle 34:10
Yeah. And I think that’s so important for all of us. It makes us enjoy our jobs more, and it also is just so much better for the client. If they are not a good fit for the way that I work, then I kind of owe it to them to tell them that and to refer them over to somebody that’s going to do a better job for them.
Sarah Masci 34:26
Yeah, and you’ll and, like I said, it is hard at first to turn down that kind of money. You know, basically when you’re first starting out, you’ll take anything. People will pay you for it. You’ll take it. But that’s how you end up in the situation that Kristen was in and that I was in before doing VIP days, where you had all these projects at all different levels, paying all different things and overlapping, and you were just miserable because you took on everything that someone would pay you for, and there was no organization, and there was no structure in managing it.
Sarah Masci 34:57
And so that’s kind of the big takeaway here. Is that if you have this really dialed in process with a VIP day, everything is very organized, very structured. It makes your life so much easier and so much more enjoyable. But you’ve gotta, you have to have the mindset to stick with it and see it through, because it’s so worth it in the end, it’s just hard at the beginning to wrap your head around it.
Kristen Doyle 35:22
Yeah, it is definitely worth it. So if someone is thinking about maybe testing out VIP days for the first time, what advice would you give them? What is one action step that they could take?
Sarah Masci 35:35
Don’t overthink it. That’s the biggest thing is that so many people will sit on this idea. Sounds like a good idea. Maybe I should try that. Well, let me go and figure out all the things you don’t have to figure out, all the things you just pitch a VIP day to your next warm leads someone who maybe comes to you wanting something from from you that you think is doable, even if it’s like a half day, a half days worth of stuff, or two days worth of stuff. Pitch one or two days. My first one was a client who came to me with a punch list of random things that she wanted done.
Sarah Masci 36:10
She didn’t come to me saying, I need a website. She I had already done her website, and she came back meeting me to change out this image and to add a blog post and to connect to her Active Campaign, and to do this and this and this, and it was all these little things. And I said, How about you just pay me for a day and and I’ll get I’ll just go through your list and we’ll get it done.
Sarah Masci 36:33
And I charged her $500. I way undercharged, but it was like the turning point for me. I had nothing, no preparation. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I just said, How about you pay me for a day. We’ll get it done, and then look at what happened. So I guess my advice is, if you want to do this really, truly, don’t overthink it. Pitch a day to the next person that comes to you needing something from you, and see how it goes.
Kristen Doyle 36:59
Yeah, I mean, you really don’t have to plan it all out and change your whole business model in order to start offering VIP days. You can just try one and see what happens.
Sarah Masci 37:08
Yeah and I’ll also say, and I know there was a transition period for you, Kristen, but like for me, when I did my very first one in February of 2018 and I still had a ton of projects and retainers and maintenance clients. I had all this other stuff that I still had to fulfill. So I fulfilled on all of those obligations while trying a few VIP days here and there.
Sarah Masci 37:32
And it wasn’t until December of that same year, so 10 months later that I kind of wrapped everything, all those other lingering things, up and went all in on this model. So it took me about 10 months to transition from the old way to the new way.
Kristen Doyle 37:48
Yeah, and my transition was definitely faster, but I had help, because I had my course, I had someone to tell me how to make this happen. So my transition was a little more like I very quietly, without telling anyone, tested it out on a couple of clients whose websites I was working on right then, and just to time myself and see how it went.
Kristen Doyle 38:10
And then I kind of soft pitched it to people who were already on my list. Like, is it okay if we try this out? They had already paid me for a website, and if they had said no, I’d have stuck with what they had paid me for initially, and I obviously didn’t change what I charged them or anything like that. And then by the time I had done a few of those, I was pretty confident to start booking people at the time that I was going to be wrapping up those projects, because then I could put an end date on those projects, because I knew that I was going to get them done.
Kristen Doyle 38:40
I had put them on my calendar. So then I was able to start booking actual VIP days with those first few clients. I think I started this. It was in the fall. I think I started this around August or September, and by probably November, I was only booking VIP days.
Sarah Masci 38:56
I remember, I remember that. I remember that season, though you came into the course, a whole bunch of other people that are still in there came in, and it was fast for a lot of you guys. And I think, I think the fact that it was 2020 and for everyone, every business was just hopping in late 2020 people were just making decisions and moving and, you know, grooving, and it was great.
Sarah Masci 39:19
But I remember how fast it was for you. I think we did a do it messy challenge, and you booked like five or six of them in that one week. And that was kind of a record for for anybody that had been through the course.
Kristen Doyle 39:31
That’s the most clients I’ve ever booked in a week.
Sarah Masci 39:34
Yeah, it was awesome. It was fun. A lot of fun. So, yeah, that’s my that’s my advice. Is just do a messy try it out. Let’s see how it goes.
Kristen Doyle 39:43
I love that. Well thank you so so much for being here and for having this conversation with me today. Will you tell everybody where they can find you and where they can learn more about VIP days from you?
Sarah Masci 39:54
Yeah, everything’s on my website so they can go to sarahmasci.com. There’s a handful of options for kind of learning about it, you know, learning more about the model for free. I’ve got a couple low ticket things on there.
Sarah Masci 40:07
My course is all on there. And if you ever want to connect with me, Instagram is the best place. I’m @sarahmasci on Instagram, and my DMs are always open.
Kristen Doyle 40:15
Thank you so much, and we’ll drop links for those in the show notes so everybody can find you. Thank you again, so much for being here and for chatting VIP days today.
Sarah Masci 40:24
Thanks everybody.
Kristen Doyle 40:26
Thank you so much for listening today. If you are a service provider and you’re interested in learning more about Sarahand her VIP day programs and coaching, check out her links in the show notes. And if a VIP day website project sounds like the perfect fit for you, whether it’s building a new site, redesigning the one you have, or maybe making some updates you’ve been putting off, you can find all the details about working with me in a VIP day in the show notes as well. I’ll talk to you soon.
