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You have probably heard of the 4 Hour Work Week before.
Some people claim this is just a pipedream. In fact, not only is it possible but by offering your services as a freelancer with skills you already have, you may be much closer than you realise.
This podcast will show you how a 21-year-old has set up an online business that only requires 10 hours of work a week… to earn $50k+ a year.
In this podcast with Drew DuBoff we chat about:
- What exact rate you should charge clients when you are starting.
- How and where you can find people that are desperate for your help.
- The dream package for a freelancer, and how you can get this.
- Why Drew wishes he listened more carefully to his college teacher.
If you’re like me, you probably can’t wait to hear about this!
Listen on Apple Podcasts/ Google Podcasts
Drew DuBoff Background
Drew is still a spring chicken.
The difference between him and most 21-year-olds you will meet is this…
He will never need to get a “real job” because he has already found a way to make serious money online.
By checking emails and managing social media groups he has created an income of over $50k a year… and he only works 10 hours a week!
So how has he found these clients that are willing to pay him for this?
No Cold Outreach
This is a great point that Drew made…
Get to know the people before reaching out to them.
Drew has done a few things to put his name on the map:
- Being active on Facebook blogging groups
- Buying courses that help his online blogging knowledge
- Contacting the owners of the courses with questions and thanking them
- Willing to help them out with a problem they have… for free initially!
Do you notice that they are all easy to do?
But they are also easy not to do.
The difference is Drew did them!
Freelance Retainer Package is Key
This is the golden key to freelancing.
It is possible to charge a flat fee per month rather than an hourly rate. Some of the benefits of this are:
- No need to track hours to bill clients
- Get paid on the same day every month
- Helps with cash flow & financial statements
- Charged by results rather than the time you put in (you are not always trading your time for money)
- You are in control
This means that you know exactly what your income is going to be each month and makes it very easy for you to know exactly what is expected of you.
Now, I can almost hear your mind saying…
How Long Will it Take to do a Task?
Let’s just use an example:
Facebook group management.
The main job is to approve or deny requests and also ensure you help engagement in the group i.e. join in discussions.
The best way to know how long it will take is to watch how much is going on each day in that group.
For example, how many new subscribers join each day/ week and how many comments appear every day.
You can use this as a rough estimate to judge how much time will be needed accordingly.
But it won’t be until you try it out that you will be able to know exactly how much time you are putting in.
Example Rates to Charge
Drew breaks down a real example.
If you’re like me, then this will be super helpful and really open your eyes.
His example is to charge $1,000 per month to manage someone’s FB group and email.
- Facebook groups- check once per day to approve people (~10 mins a day= 1 hour per week = 4 hours per month)
- Email- 30 mins a day = 4 hours per week = no more than 20 hours per month
Therefore, to manage someone’s email and Facebook group you can get paid $1,000 per month for less than 25 hours a month AKA 6 hours a week.
That works out around $40 per hour!
Have you noticed the key is that you don’t offer your services for $40 an hour though?!
Related content:
- Why You Should Make Money Online Part Time
- Blog Income Reports Study- How the Best 7 Niches Make Money
- How to Make Money at Home
What Could You be a VA for?
Just think about what you enjoy doing the most or something that you are naturally good at.
For example:
- Do you have an inbox with 0 emails unopened?
- Do you spend a lot of time on Facebook?
- Are you good at writing?
- Or do spelling errors stand out to you like a white man in China?
- Do you understand Clickfunnels or CRM?
- Do you have a great funnel in your business in a certain niche?
- Maybe you can write amazing quizzes.
As you can see the options are endless.
The key is to pick something and give it go.
If you become really good at something then marketing yourself will become much easier. In fact, you’ll end up at a point where you have to turn work away.
Figuring Out Your Starting Rate… With ACTUAL Numbers!
I really rated Drews answer to this.
No fluff.
Just real useable numbers.
Start at a $25 hourly rate.
Drew said he got lucky because his first client gave him a number and he based all of the future clients off this number.
Without a doubt, the first one will be the hardest as you will need to figure out how long things do actually take you.
But use the example above to guestimate how many hours a job will take. Then you offer a rate of $25 an hour.
If this can be a monthly retainer then even better!
Make sure you reassess after your first month to see how many hours it actually takes.
Not sure how to do this?
No worries, Drew has you covered…
Best Tools
If you’re like me you always love these tips.
Anything that saves time = good (in my eyes)
- Track time with toggl.com
- Trello, Slack or Asana- project management software to keep conversations in one place- clear deadlines and who is responsible for what.
- Autoresponder- send automated emails so the readers don’t even know (Drew uses ConvertKit… which I also highly recommend)
- Calendly- scheduling app links to Zoom (to make calls) & links to payment
- Gutenburg on WordPress- Free atomic blocks plug in to build landing pages- you can redirect to a questionnaire to automate the process
Automating allows you to go away for a weekend or go on vacation.
Let me ask you this… would you be willing to do VA work if you can just work an hour a day anywhere in the world? Find out more tips to Save Hours of Time & Money with these Resources
Drews Tips to Start
Create a “hire me” page on your website (if you have one).
Drop this link on your Facebook profile (and other social media platforms you use).
Find your ideal clients by finding out where they hang out i.e. use Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc.
Drew’s opinion- avoid boards such as Fiverr, Freelancer or Upwork (there are scammers on there and it’ll take a lot of work to find the right clients). Typically freelancers undercut themselves. *He does know some people that do have success on these platforms though!
Top 3 Tips if Drew DuBoff Could go Back in Time
If Drew could go back to his class with his social media marketing teacher, he would give himself these 3 pieces of advice.
- Get started… do it sooner!
- Ask for help sooner (you don’t know it all)
- Believe in yourself.
Drew was very honest here and admits how hard an online business can be.
But he also shares some of the best parts about starting an online business (*cough earning $25,000 in the last 6 months* cough cough)
Full Drew DuBoff Podcast Transcript
Links
You can get in contact with Drew on his website:
And keep your eyes out for 2 potential new projects too:
- Favoured Freelancer
- Virtue Freelancer
Also, he’s super active and helpful on Facebook in loads of groups so see if you can spot him there, he always responds!
Drew DuBoff Podcast- Virtual Assistant & Freelancer Expert!
So over to you!
What did you find useful from this chat? Are there any other questions you have for Drew?
Did you like the way he just gives you a number to start with ($25 per hour)?
Drop a comment below…
I currently work as a freelancer and I also love to surf on Facebook so this job will be a very awesome pick for me. I really like it to be honest and will like to try it out. I see that there are other freelancing options as well. Drew sounds pretty cool as well. Thank you for sharing this opportunity.
Hey Henderson, you should definitely look at getting a Facebook group management freelance gig then! I find some people are great on there and some people you hardly hear from… I’d say I’m in the middle!! 😉
Using your strengths is super important for freelance gigs for sure
Hey Mike, thanks for this post! I’ve been a long time fan of “The Four Hour Workweek” and have been struggling to get things going online. Your article is very encouraging to me. I attended some internet marketing conferences over the last couple of years. At each one, I ran into people that were looking for clients as virtual assistants. I had kinda forgotten about it until I read your post here today. I didn’t realize you could make good money at it. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get this kind of gig going?
Hey Greg!
Yeah as Drew points out you can do it pretty quick. I think the key is finding someone that you’d like to work with, figuring out exactly what they need (finding where they hang out i.e. their blog, Facebook, Twitter etc.) and then offering to help.
Becoming their friend is so important rather than just spamming people saying what you can do for them when you haven’t spoken to them before.
I hope that helps. Drew really knows his stuff here so do feel free to reach out to him on the links attached too
That podcast is really interesting and Drew seems to be a very cool dude. I didn’t think that he would have actually had so much going with him before. It is a good thing to at least hear that he was able to earn through freelancing at the end. This is something that I will be of great help to me because I write sometimes as well and I have other friends as well that give different services too. I will share this with them.
He certainly is a cool dude! Hope it can help, do reach out to Drew if you need any more advice/ tips.