Pivoting Your Business Model with Sarah Masci

Jaclyn Mellone  

Welcome to Go-To Gal episode number 169. As always, I’m your host, Jaclyn Mellone. But two things, well not as always, I am recording this intro from my bed. I’m hiding from my family. And I’m squeezing it in today. I did this interview today, which doesn’t really mean anything to you. But the day before this aired, we had those conversations very much in real time. And I decided I wanted to air it right away and needed to record an intro.  So here I am hiding in my bedroom in bed recording this intro for you. Also, not typical is this is a new episode format. Not sure if you would notice the difference, but it’s a much more casual type of conversation. It’s not as structured of an interview, and it’s a new format I’m leaning into and hoping to do more of an embrace but I really want your feedback on this. So after you listen today, come over to Instagram, let me know what you think. Do you like this more casual conversation? Do you like it when it’s a more structured interview? Let me know your thoughts. Alright. So today, our guest today in this conversation is with Sara Masci. Sarah and I have been friends and connected in this online world for many, many years. And it’s been cool to see her business evolve. So you may have heard their other podcasts talk about day rate and moving to the day rate model. And we’re going to talk about this a little bit. But I wanted to go in a little bit of a different direction with this conversation and kind of zoom out a little bit. Sarah was a service provider, a done-for-you service provider who switched to day rate, and then, now, switched from day rate to a course business. So she teaches day rate but because this course business has taken off that kind of led her to switch her business model once again. And every time we switch business models, it’s a little messy. This pivoting, sometimes who you’re selling to just behind the scenes, it’s messy. And that’s something that all of us, if we’re evolving our businesses, are doing at some point or another if not all darn time. So I wanted us to explore that you’re going to hear both of us share a little bit about what it’s like pivoting, switching business models, figuring out how to do that, when to do that, what it looks like and what are the challenges. All of those things. So before we dive into this conversation of all about business models and pivoting, let me formally introduce you to Sarah. Sarah is the founder of Day Rate Mastery™, an online company that teaches creative service providers how to work less and make more with a streamlined “day rate” business model. Years of running a traditional design business, filled with scope creep, inconsistent timelines and overlapping client projects eventually resulted in classic burnout – becoming the catalyst that sparked Sarah’s desire to create a better process. Since its inception in 2019, Day Rate Mastery™ has helped thousands of freelancers rediscover joy in their work and freedom they lost along the way. On a personal note, Sarah is an upstate New York transplant. Yes, I knew this and love this about her, who has called Charlotte, North Carolina, her home for over 20 years. An outdoorsy ‘boy-mom’  through and through, she enjoys non-working hours with her husband, their four sons, two dogs and their backyard flock of chickens. Aside from her family, there’s nothing Sarah enjoys more than long summer days, crisp mornings in the mountains, live outdoor music and hiking with friends. Sarah is grateful for a business that gives her the freedom to enjoy them all. Alright, let’s get to it. Here’s my conversation with Sarah. And looks like time’s up because Eleanor’s peeping the door. Thank you. Sarah, I’m so excited to have you here today.

Sarah Masci  

Thank you, Jacqueline. I’m excited to be here.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Yes. All right. Before we dive into our conversation today, tell us what do you do and who do you help?

Sarah Masci  

Well, right now, I help designers and other jumpers use service providers to pivot to a generated business model. So anybody who’s now a copywriter, designer, anybody doing service work, who is looking for a better way to do their business, that’s who I help. And this is what I do. I have a course where I teach them how to switch to data rights. 

Jaclyn Mellone  

I love the simplicity of that. And this is such a different business model that it makes so much sense. Now, we could probably spend this whole conversation talking about day rate but I want to hit this a little bit of a different angle. But did you start your business doing a day rate or did you start doing something else? 

Sarah Masci  

Yeah, no. So I’m glad you asked. And that’s why I wasn’t when you said who you help. My business has changed so much over the years. So I won’t give you my entire backstory because it is really long and drawn out. But prior to helping other service providers with their business model, I was a brand and web designer for about eight to ten years. And I was doing traditional freelance style design work. So, there’s the typical six to eight week web design projects that always ended up being six to eight months, or in some cases longer. But that’s really what I was doing for about ten years before going into day rate.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Oh, wow. So what inspired you to switch or where did that idea come from? It feels so daunting to be okay, this thing that I normally do whether it’s over the course of days or weeks or months or just on going and just switch it into like a one day thing.

Sarah Masci  

Yeah, I was super overwhelmed. At any given time, I had six to eight to ten clients, all kind of in progress. So I was always in progress with a whole bunch of clients. And all of those projects were always staggered. And some would take four weeks, some would take four months, some took like way longer than that. And it was very inconsistent. As far as my income, I never knew when I was actually going to finish a project because I was always waiting on clients. I just felt like I was always emailing and waiting for replies. I never knew when payments were going to come in.  And so waiting for payments, I would go and take on more clients. And then, those original clients would all of a sudden be ready and they would be ready to move on. And now, I’ve got all of these new clients and it just was very overwhelming. I felt like I was working like 80 hours a week. I have four kids now. And so it’s just a struggle to balance being a mom, being a business owner, keeping my clients happy all of that.  And so one day, I had a client email me. She was a client I had worked with before. So I was familiar with their business and she wanted to know how much it would cost for me to do this. And this whole like punch list of things. And I don’t know, if Jaclyn, I’m sure you have experience working with designers who are like, oh, let me let me give you a custom proposal for that. And so just the thought of itemizing and writing out a proposal for all of these different things. I was like, this is gonna take me two hours just to write the proposal. So I just suggested I was like, well, how about you just pay me for a day at this rate. And we’ll just get all of it done. And so that was like my first step into changing things up. And I had no idea what I was doing. I was doing it messy and just kind of praying for the best. And so she agreed to pay me for a day, I did the work. It went amazing. It was like just such a relief to just do it in a day and then be done and not have to think I got paid and I never had to think about it again.  And so leading up to I had thought about doing like a day rate, but I never really thought I would really get like a whole website done in a day or so. I started out just doing punch lists and eventually led into doing full websites and brand identities and stuff in a day. But it definitely started out slower than that. It started out a lot messier than what it became.

Jaclyn Mellone  

I love it starting messy because you don’t know until you try. I feel like, well, I don’t do free work now. And most of them, I only did free work a little bit in my business. It was never my main business model with this business. But there was a short period of time where I had a couple clients during done-for-you Instagram work for them, which I don’t know if I could have done that in a day. But I am notoriously horrible at knowing how long things take. And I’m very positive and optimistic. They always think I can do it in less time than actually I could do it. That would be my biggest fear if I was in that position of like, okay, so I could do all of this in a day. And what if there’s no way I could actually do it. How did you know that you could, how are you that confident that you could do it in a day? Are you just way better at that than I am?

Sarah Masci  

No, I’m also notoriously over optimistic about what I can get done. But I know that about myself. And so that first one, like I said, it was just a punch list. It wasn’t like let me build your website in a day. It was here, all these things I needed to get done. So that I knew that I would easily be able to get those things done. But then, once I realized how much I loved doing that day rate model and I knew I wanted to do more of them.  And then, I had another client who came to me and wanted just a very simple website. And I said, I remember emailing her and being like, well, I’m trying this new thing and it’s not like all buttoned up, it’s not perfect, but this is what I’m trying to do. Would you like to be a test client for me? Can I test this out on you? And I was like, don’t worry, if I don’t get it done in a day, I’m not gonna leave you hanging, I’m still gonna finish it. But I want to try to get it all done in a day. And so that was really, for me, that’s what worked. I think I did about three or four of trying it out kind of clients. Letting the client know, I was trying it. Let’s just see what we can get done and the more I tested it and tried it, the more clarity I got and really what I could do in a day. And then, those three or four practices were enough lead time for me to figure out, okay, if I want to do this going forward, I need to under promise and over deliver.  And so I really got clear on saying, I can’t guarantee we’re going to get a website done in a day. But I can guarantee you that I’m going to give you my best effort, and I’m going to get as much done as we can get done. And so it just kind of evolved into not promising a set of deliverables but promising my time rather. And being able to show them that this is what I’ve done for these clients. So we can most likely accomplish the same thing. I mean, I could go on and on and on about this. But it really does come down to each individual client, because some clients are picky, and they want a million changes. And some clients are happy with the first draft. And so that’s why, from that point on, I can’t promise you a deliverable. But I can give you my day and we will do our best to get as much done as we can. And so that’s kind of how it evolved from there.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Which makes a lot of sense. I think this concept of under promising and over delivering sounds really great in theory, but one thought it’s like, okay, well that that makes sense. And then we’ll over deliver. But the other part is like but if I’m under promising, are people going to want to buy that under promised version of it. And that fear if it’s not perfectly packaged with everything they would possibly want or all of these guarantees or whatever that is, is that good enough to sell? Sounds like yes, but did you grapple with that at all?

Sarah Masci  

Yeah, for sure. And I really had to like work on my pricing strategy to kind of overcompensate for not being able to promise a deliverable. So in my head, I had a lot of money mindset work to work on, especially when I first started. I was like if I can’t promise them an entire website, just for example, I can’t promise the website that I shouldn’t charge them what I would charge for a website. And it took me a long time to like I was charging $500 a day when I first started. And now, I’m charging $3,000 a day. So a huge shift and abundance and money mindset.  Like all of those mindset things I had to go through to realize, no, I can’t promise you a set of deliverables. But I can promise you a high quality, high quality product, a high quality outcome transformation. I can promise you my guaranteed dedication to you and only you for the entire day. I can promise you the convenience of getting this done today versus waiting four months to have it done. Like all of those things, I never factored into what I was charging.  And now looking back, I realize the people that paid for these kinds of intensives have more money than time. They just want it done. They will pay whatever it takes to just get it done. If they want to save nickel and dime, you and save money, then they’re gonna go out and find that traditional Freelancer that charges an hourly rate, a low hourly rate. And even if it takes six months to get a job, these people who will pay more, they just want it done yesterday. And so they’re willing to pay that extra for it. And the other thing is those people are also very understanding and they know okay, she’s gonna do as much as she can do in a day. And if she doesn’t get it done, I’ll just book her for another day. And we’ll get it done. Because again, they’re more concerned with getting it done than how much it costs.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Oh, I love how you broke it down like that. I’d never thought of it like that before. But I know I have hired some people over the years to do things at a day and day rate or whatever you would call that. And I’m that person where it’s like, okay, I don’t want this. I could see where I’m on the service provider side. It’s scope creep and just like filling in all of this stuff, but it’s also for the person hiring, like oh, I’m gonna do a website project or copy like. It can take up all of that space in my schedule too, even though I’m not the one doing it a lot of times because we’re kind of working in tandem. So having it knocked out in one day when I always want things immediately, because that’s just I’m instant gratification for the win. So that’s always exciting for me. But yeah, that idea that it was just gonna get done and not drag on and feel like I wasn’t gonna be energetically available for it for ongoing weeks or months, I think was a big motivator for me.

Sarah Masci  

It’s one of those things like if you and I were working together on a project, say I was designing for you, it’s so exciting. I don’t know, think about a project that you’ve worked on, like when you first started it’s so exciting. Just get sit down and get started with it. But then think about if it’s dragged on for three to four months, by the end of it, you’re just so over it. You just wanted it done. It’s just not as exciting anymore, because you’re just like this is taken forever. I just wanted to be done with. This is dragged on and on. Whereas if you can like get it done really quick like that, it’s just exciting for you as a client. It’s exciting for the provider. There’s like that adrenalin. It’s just like this whole exciting thing. And so for me, you said you’ve hired people that do day rate but even now, I am a client of so many like intensive. So whenever I need anything done, I’m looking for the person who can just get it done in a day for me or get it done in a week. Because I don’t want to be on the receiving end of having to wait either. I think we’re all in this world of instant gratification now. Just wanting everything done right away. 

Jaclyn Mellone  

Totally. Well, if it’s something for our business, speed is money a lot of times too. So it’s helping us move things along faster in our business too. Okay, I love how you’ve kind of unpacked some of this behind the scenes of that messiness of trying out something new with your business model. So it was like, okay, going from those done-for-you service to them the day rate and testing it out. And that leap of faith with some of those clients and allowing it to be messy, allowing it to be imperfect to try out something new and make that shift. Now, I think you mentioned the day rate. I don’t think you still did day rate. But what does your business model look like now? Do you still offer those day rates for someone who’s like, oh, I just want to hire you for that. And I know that’s not the majority of your business. What does your business model look like now?

Sarah Masci  

So yeah, now, well, I still have day rates available for my previous clients. So I’ve always been available for previous clients to come back and book me for a half day or another day if they need additional work done on something that I’ve already created for them. I did officially stop taking new clients at the end of 2020, which is crazy because I’ve done it for so long. I’ve always done that for your service provider. And for me to just stop taking new clients was really a big shift for me, huge.  And so I have this course now where I’m teaching other people how to do what I’ve done. And it’s pretty much consumed my entire business, which again, was never intentional. Creating a course was never even part of the plan. I always suggest a backup like when I first started offering day rate, I was like, oh, I have all this free time on my schedule. Now what am I going to do with all this extra time that I have. So I created a branding course, a branding membership, a logo, a little like a logo product small like a $27 product. I created all these little things because I had time. And so I was marketing to people who wanted my full VIP services. And if they couldn’t afford my done-for-you services, I liked the DIY courses. Here’s how to design your own brand. Here’s how to design your website, all of those things. And so I realized, oh, this is how I can scale my business. I can actually scale with courses and products. And then another weird unexpected thing happened all of a sudden had designers asking me about my day rate model. And I was in like the small mastermind group. There were about 50 designers in there. And a few of them were like, tell us more. What are you doing? How do you do this?  And so I was, well, let me just create a little loom video and I’ll show you guys what it looks like. And so I did like a 20 minute video, shared it in our group, and they were all blown away. They were like, this is amazing. This is awesome. How we want to do this. And so that like sparked an idea of well, maybe this is more than just a loom video. Maybe this is a course. And so I just emailed my list which again were mostly like my target audience for done-for-you work. I was like, I know there’s not a lot of designers here on my list but if you are a designer and you’re interested in learning more about this let me know because I think I’m going to put something together. And so I kind of built this small little waitlist. And before I knew it, I had about a 100 coupon waitlist. I launched a data course and about 15 people joined. That was like two years ago.  And so that course has just evolved and grown. And now there’s like thousands of designers coming out of the woodwork. Not just designers either, anybody. Done-for-you service providers who are all of a sudden interested in this model. And so like I said, at the end of the year, I was just I had to make a choice. Do I keep doing day rate or do I go all in on the course. And so that’s what I’m doing now. It was kind of a test. I was like, let me just go all in on it for now. But knowing I could always go back to the service work if I wanted to, which I haven’t done yet. So that’s where I’m at now.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Yes, that’s interesting to hear you say that though because it’s true. Whatever our business model is, if we’re feeling that pull to change something, it’s like we can always go back to tha. And we don’t even have to take that dramatic stance of burning down the barn and like giving up everything. It sounds in both of these shifts of changing your business model, baby step two. It wasn’t like getting rid of everything you already had. It was like oh, okay, I’m already doing done-for-you work. I can start doing some day rate here and there. Or okay, I’m doing day rate, with this other free time, try to start selling some courses and what that looks like.  I am trying to think with my own business. My journey has not been as clean as yours. Probably the only word I can. We didn’t get into your whole story. So maybe it’s not a, when I say clean, I mean because I’m thinking I’m like, I have many points and probably even currently, I just have so many different business models at the same time that it’s not like, oh, I’m just doing this and then there’s like a little bit of “overlap”. Multiple different ways that I’m making money at a time. But my first ever business model was a membership, which isn’t done for you. But it felt very similar to how you felt with the done-for-you. And then it was like I was on all the time. There was never a break from it. And that there was always more to do. They were always there. There were always more questions in the group. Like, every day of the year, there was always something. And that felt heavy to a certain point.  And when I shifted that business model, which wasn’t entirely because of just that business model, that there was a big piece of it with that. It was really the whole brand that needed to go. I had to shut down the whole thing and take that leap of faith of can I do coaching. Can I have these new packages and be targeting a different audience. And maybe there’s a little bit of overlap, but it really required me shutting down the membership to go all in on the other, which was way scarier and not really is advisable.

Sarah Masci  

When you did that, did you have to change like your audience as well? Was it a completely different audience to coaching versus say a membership or was it the same people you were talking to?

Jaclyn Mellone  

It was interesting, because I thought it was the same people. And on the surface, it was the same people but it was the way I was talking to them and the messaging of who from the audience I was gonna attract.  So my first business Chasing Dreams and Littles, it was for mom business owners. I had started working with some mom business owners one-on-one through selling Todd Herman’s 90-day year as an affiliate. So I had my audience growing. I had this membership for mom business owners, and then I was an affiliate for Todd. So I sold to my audience and these eight women that joined his program through me, I offered them one-on-one for like an intensive or something like that as my bonus. So I had this opportunity to work with them. And they were like, a couple of three of them said to me individually, in one way or another, I never would have thought to hire you. But I was like, really like your mom, you’re a business owner, like you’re kind of in my audience if you just bought this program through me. Like why wouldn’t you have thought to hire me?  But they weren’t attracted to my branding. They didn’t think that it was for them. And so even though their business looked the same as like, quote unquote, the same as the women I was serving in my membership, their mindset of the business that they wanted to grow of where their ambitions were, of where they were going was very different than the women in my membership who were drawn to chasing dreams and littles. And okay, maybe I just want to bring in that $600 a month to pay for dance class or save up for the big family vacation. They weren’t trying to build a bigger business.

Sarah Masci  

That’s so interesting. So it was not just a side hustle Mom, but the mom that it was more of a hobby.

Jaclyn Mellone  

It was more of a hobby. Yes, exactly. Yes, very much a stay at home mom who was building something designed to make a little bit of money, but most of them did not have those bigger ambitions. And I didn’t even realize that I was intentionally talking to that crowd. That by selling this other program to the same audience, it really brought that up to the surface. And then when I realized I really needed to dbrand. That this mom business owner, who I was working with one-on-one then, wasn’t attracted to the brand and like, okay, they’re not attracted even talking about mom and business in the same sentence. So I needed to dbrand and that’s when I went to a personal brand. And then I’m like, okay, well, it doesn’t really make sense to have this chasing dreams and littles incubator now, does it? So I needed to shut that down. And I had tried selling one-on-one to that audience, but I really struggled with that. They were not really willing to invest in it. And so it took really shutting that down, and then going in a totally different direction of audience pool, if you will to bring on those first one on one clients.

Sarah Masci  

Yeah, yeah. I’m at that stage right now with burning the brand down. Do I burn it down? What do I do because I have built up my entire, I’ve built up over a decade of business as a designer. And so my website is rockin house branding, everything on my site is still about branding and design. And as we’re having this conversation is very new and recent, so that I’m not selling that anymore. Like I need to burn this all down and rebrand as a personal brand. But now I have my course and I have a high level coaching program that goes after my course. And so I’m at this stage of rebrand as a personal brand, or do I rebrand under the umbrella of my new programs. And so it’s always that business name or personal name kind of branding thing that I’m struggling with right now. 

Jaclyn Mellone  

That’s such a good question. So, one, I love this. So if somebody is going to buy your course, is there a way to get to that from your website right now? Are those all linking pages? Like how does this connect right now.

Sarah Masci  

So they go to my branding website, it’s right on the homepage. And it says, if you are you want to learn more about this process, click here. So it’s definitely right there. And then if you click on my work, when the page says, I’m no longer currently taking clients, but if you want to learn more about this, click here. So it’s in there. That’s where all of my social media, everything has been built around that brand name. And so I’m like, if I re-do this whole thing, then I have to change everything. And so it’s scary. 

Jaclyn Mellone  

It is. I’m going through the same but the opposite right now. So after I burnt down the barn with Chasing Dreams and Littles, I’ve been a personal brand since so that was in 2017. So early 2017 that I just put everything over to jaclynmellone.com.  And now, I want to launch. I haven’t even said this on the podcast yet. So here we go. But now, we’re launching go-togal.co at some point this year, hopefully sooner rather than later. I have no idea when or how, but it’s happening. And I want to start building things up on that and it doesn’t exist yet. So it’s trying to figure out okay, well, what goes on in my personal life whenever I’m doing updates to that. And then what’s going to go on go-togal.co. And yeah, like what goes where and when. And trying to figure that all out is messy. And maybe it doesn’t make sense to have goals. But the way the business is going and building Go-To Gals, a media company, I have to have that site up and running.

Sarah Masci  

Yeah. So that’s pretty much for what we’re dealing with right now is whenever I chat with anybody and people say, where can I learn more about this and this? This doesn’t really make any sense to send you here, but just trust me if you go here. And so I have so many GoDaddy redirects. Like I have so many domains and I’m just trying to make it easy for people. Go to sarahmasci.com and it sends them to my member vault page or go to Day Rate Mastery. So like everything is just going to different places. And it’s messy, but I feel like I’ve become known as just doing a messy job. Just take act. Just do it. Put one thing out there and put the next thing out there and eventually it will all come together. So, yeah. 

Jaclyn Mellone  

Yes, permission to do it messy and permission to do the redirects. I totally do the redirects. I think we just hit on something that’s like not talked about, but everyone’s doing or how many redirects do you have?

Sarah Masci  

In your GoDaddy account that are going to all these different places? Yeah. 

Jaclyn Mellone  

Yes. Well, and I have stuff with Farnoosh too, so our podcasting programs. So we have domains for that and we don’t have a website for that but we have domains that all forward to different landing pages that work for now. And maybe eventually it won’t make sense to have a website. But I think like as we have these different things, we don’t have to have the perfect website for all of them. I did find it early on when I had Chasing Dreams and Littles and then I had All Up in Your Lady Business was my podcast back then with a co-host. And so it’s like, well, how do I have to send people to both places and that’s someone you should really just have your name.com. And early on, I was very much, I don’t know if I want to be that like out there. But I had to get over that real quick of okay now. It makes sense and it’s almost the easiest thing because your name is,some people’s names I guess do change, but is the most likely not to change. We can get sick of brands or outgrow brands or not realize that our branding is wrong, like what happened to me. But most of the time, our name is going to be that constant.

Sarah Masci  

Yeah. And that’s why I’ve had my name domain forever. But I haven’t actually gone to the process of re-branding under my name and creating a whole new website and all that. So for me, I just have the domain and wherever it makes sense to redirect it to at any given time. So for a long time, it just made sense. It’s just easy for me to say, go to sarahmasci.com, because I know it’s going to take them someplace else. But it’s so much easier for me to just log into GoDaddy and change wherever that link is going, if I need to be focused on something else a month from now. So I don’t know, it just seems like the most portable to just own the domain and send it where it needs to go rather than stressing over creating a whole new website and building out an entire new platform when you can just have that domain go to whatever it needs to go to. And yeah, it’s not perfect, but it works for now, until one of these days when I sit down. And that’s the other thing, even like being a designer, I’m at this point now where I don’t want to design my own website. I don’t want to design my own brand. I just want to hire one of my students to do it for me. So yeah, it’s been a challenge for sure with this whole pivoting thing.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Absolutely. Okay. So with things like pivoting business model challenges, what are some other things that have shifted behind the scenes? I know with your team, that’s been a big thing for you. How did your team change going from, I guess, service provider to day rate, and then from day rate to your business model now.

Sarah Masci  

So before day rates, when I was just a service provider doing traditional, I had a VA. I needed that VA because I was so all over the place with so many clients. I have so many clients at any given time that I just needed support with getting them all done. So I had a tech VA who could really help me with the websites, and all of the technical stuff. And then I went to the day rate, and all of a sudden, my calendar just opened up, I had all this freedom and like simplicity. I no longer needed my VA because I was only doing single intensives. And that was bringing in enough money. My revenue stream was just the intensives. And I was only working five or six days a month. Life was so simple and so easy that I had a lot of my VA go because I didn’t even need that help. So that was amazing. But then I started building courses and products. And all of a sudden I needed a VA again, for community management, just helping with emails, like all of that. I was building a list at the time. So I bought another VA for that work.  And so it just kind of transitioned from like needing a VA to not needing anyone and then needing a VA again. And then I was just me and my VA up until last year really, until middle of last year. My course really took off last summer. So it was in the fall of 2020 that I needed more help. I needed to bring more people in. I think I had also just gotten so good at doing everything was in my head. I was not very good at delegating and outsourcing. I just always knew what had to be done. And so I just did it. And I was never good at laying it all out and planning ahead.  But I realized, I had several hundred students in my course. So there was a lot of management, admin billing support. So I brought someone in in the fall. And then I just recently and this year, I just brought in a new assistant, my own admin assistant. And so right now there’s four of us on the team. It’s not very big, but it’s still running. Wow. I’m leaving to learn how to be a leader and a CEO. Kind of while all this is happening. It was a really weird shift for me.

Jaclyn Mellone  

What do you think is the biggest difference between how you were operating before and then leaning in to be more of that leader, CEO?

Sarah Masci  

Before I always had stuff to do. There was always something I knew I needed to be doing. Whereas now, when you look at my calendar, it’s pretty empty. And I know you and I have had the same mentor in the past, Adrienne Dorison. I’ve gone through her clockwork program and she calls a design time. So you need to build in design time. And it’s not the same design time that we’re talking about when we’re talking about designing websites, we’re talking about designing your business. So for me, I have all this white space in my calendar, because I have people doing work for me. And I’m not doing any done-for-you work anymore. But I use this white space time for thinking ahead and projecting where are we going to be next year? What do we need to be working on now to kind of get the ball rolling for where we want to be six months from now.  And that’s something I never thought of before when I was just doing service work. It was always just kind of, I would make projections about how much I wanted to make, but there was never more than that. There was never anything like projects and things. And now there’s all of these little projects and other things that you don’t have to do when it’s just you.

Jaclyn Mellone  

I really did that so much. And I love how they call it designing clockwork and we’re both in clockwork. And yes, I love it. We worked with Adrian a while ago and now Adrian being part of clockwork and that really being her thing. I’ve learned a lot from it. I feel like I need to have Adrian back. I had Adrian a couple of years ago. But now that I’m like inside clockwork, and I’m planning to share more about this.  So with the designing, yes, I wanted to go back to though, what you were saying about when you were the one doing it all with the course business. I’m imagining it was like this back when you were doing the done-for-you to a degree is it was all in your head. And that’s like, I’ve always struggled with delegating, because there’s just things that either I just like know how to do or what to do. And I don’t know, I always struggle with figuring out the best way to delegate that or to explain it in a way. I still don’t know how to do that. I literally need someone to have enough time with team members to just like spew everything out or for them to like literally watch me do something and then we unpack it. But I think there’s figuring that out of that how do we get it out of our head? Whether it’s how do we package this into a day rate or how do you then take that leap to being able to scale and hire team members. Any tips on that? What does that process look like for you or has any that process changed at all over the years for you?

Sarah Masci  

Yeah, so the VA I brought in, the second VA that I brought in. Like once I started meeting more to help her every day like chatting about everything that needed to get done. So she kind of became my second brain.Iit got to the point where we were working so closely together on a day to day basis that she knew my business like the back of her hand, she knew inside and out everything that needs to be done. And so I kind of promoted her from within. And so she’s no longer my VA, but she’s more like my operations manager, because she knows my business so well. She created the SLPs that we needed in the business. And she kind of oversees our click up project manager and to know where everybody. I mean, I get yelled at by her for not keeping up with my tasks and making sure that I’m checking things up or whatever.  I almost needed someone else because she comes from a more of an operations and productivity background, where I’m more of that creative. I’m always thinking on the fly. I think of something to do. I think of 10 things that I’m trying to figure out how I could do 10 things. I’ve never been very good at task management and putting things in the right categories in the right buckets. I used to be organized a long time ago, I used to be super organized. And then I had four kids, and all of like that organizational brain space is gone. I have like none of it anymore. But I just have all the ideas and all the things that I want to do. And so having somebody on your team who’s really good at compartmentalizing, systemising, or systematizing, I always get those two confused. But getting everything systematized and organized on your back end,, that’s what’s helped me, keep me moving forward.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Oh, that’s so great. That’s having someone who can actually do that for I don’t have to outline that whole process, because that would never happen with me being in charge of that. So that’s my hack to hire good people. And they can take that and run with it for you.

Sarah Masci  

The other team thing that I’ve really learned is like if you bring somebody on, don’t bring someone on with a roll like you know what you need to have done, but let that person’s role evolve from within. So you might bring them in to help with X, Y and Z. But then once you get them in the door, you realize that they’re really actually so much better at this other thing. And so being open and being flexible to bring people in add kind of a very entry basic level. And then letting their role kind of create itself from within. And they can kind of evolve into that role. I found that to be that’s really helped me over the past six months as I’ve grown my team. 

Jaclyn Mellone  

That’s really great advice. Okay. So I know that you say that it’s messy for you too. And I only kind of believe you. But I also see that there’s just this simplicity, that from going from the day rate to the day rate model was just there was a simplicity there. And now with the way that you’re running this course business, there’s a simplicity to it to where it’s running smoothly. You create the space for yourself because of the simplicity of the systems which absolutely I can see you have your back end systems in line. But sometimes the marketing can have the scope creep on our schedules too, and it doesn’t feel like that’s happened or is happening for you.  So I have to ask, what were you doing to market your day rates or is that different than obviously, it’s gonna be different how you’re marketing your courses now, but is there a trick to how you’ve streamlined this where you actually have free space in your calendar? Because I know a lot of us, we can get things off our plate. It’s just the more things fill up. So what is this magic that you’re creating here?

Sarah Masci  

The marketing is, that’s the hardest. That’s like the least simple part of the business right now. Yeah, I mean, the business model itself was so simple with a race. And it’s so easy to just, I already had a fairly large audience. It’s just easy to sell easy. Once you got a few of them under your belt, and you started doing them. Now you have a portfolio of examples. And once you have a portfolio of daily rate work, it becomes so much easier to sell just by sharing case studies and testimonials on Instagram or wherever. That was easy.

Jaclyn Mellone  

But wait, before you go to the other thing, I’ve one question for you that I know people are going to be thinking of. Do you think it helps with the day rate to have just one thing that you do or one or two things that you like? I do rate for logos and websites or like something like that or can it be more complex than that?

Sarah Masci  

It really depends. I started off doing punch lists. And then I was like, well, I can do websites today. Oh, I can do branding today. Just whatever you want. You just come to me and tell me and we’ll figure it out. Some people only have one very structured service that it’s like, okay, you’re gonna come to me, we’re gonna do this, this, this and this, and we’re going to get it done in a day. There’s that type of a day rate. But then I personally found I like the flexibility of getting on a call with a client, listening to what they need, listening to their problems with their current website or brand or whatever. Hearing them, okay, what do you need? Okay, so it sounds like you need branding and your website. Well, we can’t do all of that in one day. But we can do a simplified, a very simple brand with a simplified website, we could do that in a day. Or we could spend an entire day dedicated to your brand. And then another day or two dedicated to the website.  I like the flexibility because it keeps it interesting. But I would say I mean, I’m also a huge proponent of having a niche, becoming known for something. I mean, for me, I became known for my book for a day program. And now I’m known for my day rate course. And that has served me well to become known for one thing. So I like to tell people to start off with a few things and kind of find your groove. Find what works best and what feels best for your day rate offer. And if there’s two or three things, great. If not, stick to one thing. 

Jaclyn Mellone  

Okay, so carry on. I interrupted you. So now, what does the marketing look like now with the course?

Sarah Masci  

So now, marketing my own day rate now, all of a sudden, all of my marketing has shifted to my former competition. So now I am all of a sudden selling my program to all of these designers who were once my competition. So that’s been weird. But it’s actually I found it easier than what I expected because I speak the same language as them. So I’m able to say exactly how I used to feel and how I feel now. And they can resonate with that. And they get it. It’s just so easy to talk to people who were once in my shoes.  So it’s easy to sit in the market now but it is a complete 180 on who I was marketing to versus who I am now. I’ve been terrible at things like having a content plan or a content strategy. Now that I have a bigger team, I have a dedicated person on my team who helps with marketing. Whereas before, I would just post because I had all that white space in my schedule. I had time to just post whenever I thought of something. I didn’t have to plan so far ahead. So It’s not really a straight answer. It’s definitely been a shift. And it’s definitely one of the more tricky parts of our business now.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Yes, well, in any case, over the course of all of these different models, I can see that you know where to draw the line, where you’re not going to take on. More like there’s a boundary there that I don’t know if it’s conscious or not conscious, but do you have some internal checkpoints if that’s enough. I’m not gonna do stuff like that. How do you make sure you’re not just filling your plate to fill your plate? 

Sarah Masci  

Yeah, I actually just got an inquiry from a client who needed design work. And I started to reply to her. And I was thinking, oh, I have all this free time, I might as well just do this. And I wrote out the whole response. And then I was like, wait a minute, what am I doing?Am I doing this? I don’t need to do this because I don’t want to do this. So don’t do it. Just because so I don’t know if you have a word of the year, or anything like words to live by. But I have a bracelet and it says let it be easy and that’s like what I live by is if it doesn’t feel simple and easy, then I’m not going to do it. Because life is busy. I have four kids, my husband’s home, we have two dogs, we have chickens.  We have all this stuff going on in our life and I didn’t go into business to be stressed out, burnt out, overwhelmed, overworked. I went into business to be able to be home with my kids and do things like enjoy life. I got to a point a couple years ago, where I had no hobbies. I didn’t know what I enjoyed doing any more. I just felt like I wasn’t living. I felt like all I was doing was working. And once I got a taste of the freedom that day rate gave me, I knew that I could never go back to that over just all of the working and that whole burnt out mentality. I don’t know if you’ve experienced burnout, but it’s real and it’s not fun and I want to go back there.

Jaclyn Mellone  

I’ve definitely experienced burnout many times, and I had burnout in September. So I can’t even be like, oh, like five years ago. And I like no. I had severe burnout in September. And yeah, it’s so important. I feel like I have spent more time this past year focusing on hobbies. But I’ll still joke like one of my hobbies is still like throwing out bananas because I optimistically buy bananas every week. We don’t always finish them and they all go bad.  But I guess, with everything going on, sometimes it’s hard to fit in the hobbies. But it’s also about being intentional about putting them in. And I’ve been working on that. But talking to you just inspires me to lean more into that and be firmer with those boundaries, because that’s why we’re doing this. Going back to why do we even have businesses and there’s parts of our business that really fill us up and light us up. And when we’re able to just focus on that or able to do that so much better. And then we have all the other things in our life that we want to have that same energy for and we don’t if we’re pouring it all into every crevice of our business and getting completely drained. 

Sarah Masci  

I think it’s hard, especially some of us, like our business lights us up more than anything. We got into business for freedom. But then we found a business and we fell in love with our business. And it’s so easy to get so sucked in because we love our business so much. I know, I mean, that’s how I’ve always felt. My default is to work because I love it. I love what I do. I love getting up early and sitting down to work. I would much rather sit down and get work done and go work out or do any of those other morning routine things because I love what I do. And so I had to really be okay with saying okay, I don’t do a one hour morning routine because my business fills me up in the morning. Like that, I get out of bed, thinking about it. I can’t wait to sit down and get work done. I get more work done in the first two hours of my morning while everyone else is sleeping, than I do the rest of the day. And so I think we all need to assess. If you love your business, then do it. Do it when you’re feeling amazing. But also knowing, okay, we’re in the middle of the day. It’s time to turn it off and go for a walk or do something whatever, whatever it is that lights you up. But just really knowing what those boundaries are and knowing when to turn it off.

Jaclyn Mellone  

It is, it is. Okay. Back to your quote that you live by, did you ever work with Lisa Carpenter, is that where you got that from? Totally. Cause years ago, I was working with Lisa and that was something she had instilled into me. Let it be easy. And I’m like I’m embarrassed and how much friction there was around that. That was like mind blowing to me of how hard it was for me to let it be easy. And it’s still something I come back to. And I credit Lisa Carpenter with that, but I have heard other people say, and actually Susie Moore is ready. I think her book is going to be called let it be easy. And I can’t wait to read that. Because it’s not my default, of all it is definitely something I need to keep reminding myself of.

Sarah Masci  

Yeah, I think a lot of us are taught to work hard. You have to work hard. If you want to be successful, it needs to be hard. You need to work. That’s how I grew up. Do good in school, get good grades, go to college, get a job, work hard. I mean, yeah, those things are great and they served me and they got me to where I am today. But now, I always need to remind myself that it doesn’t have to be hard. I mean, sometimes some days are harder than others. But overall, letting it be easy, keeping it simple. And whenever my business starts to take on this, like overwhelm or if I feel like I’m doing too much, I mean, I have my team members now to remind me. Sarah, your core value is simplicity, you need to slow down. Your business is not simple anymore, we need to take some things off your plate. And so it’s a constant reminder, which is why I had to get my bracelet that says that so I can just remind myself every day.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Yes, and I love that that’s one of your core values. And I picked up on that. I don’t think I knew that, at least not consciously. And that your team knows that and that can be something that you guys are all kind of like checking in on is really important. 

Sarah Masci  

Yeah, for sure. 

Jaclyn Mellone  

All right. I have loved this conversation so much. Anything else you want to add in before we wrap up?

Sarah Masci  

I know, I think we’ve covered so much. Yeah, I feel just if anybody is feeling like their business is overwhelming. Just think about what can you take off your plate or how can you simplify what, in the case of day rate. I have so many people say well, my process takes me forever. My process is so complex. There’s no way I could get it done in a day. Can you simplify it? Can you streamline it? Because there’s really nothing greater than having the white space in your calendar and the freedom in your life to be able to do other things and just work in your business. It’s healthy to get out of your business and be able to do other things. So to anybody listening, just consider how you can simplify or streamline what you’re already doing just to make it easier for yourself.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Okay, and I’ll have to tell you later, but you just inspired me to change something in my business too. We’re gonna try it out. I’ll have to report back but thank you so much. You’re so inspiring. I love what you’re doing. How can we stay in touch with you? 

Sarah Masci  

Well, we just talked about. I don’t know where to send anybody because I have so many different websites. So the best place for people to go would be to go to a dayratemagic.com, that is where I do have a free masterclass on day rate. And I share more about my story there and I think that will be inspiring for anybody who’s considering shifting their business model to day rate.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Amazing. Thank you so much, Sarah.

Sarah Masci  

Thank you, Jaclyn.

Jaclyn Mellone  

Can I just say thank you so much for listening. I don’t think I say it enough. But I love that you are here. If you enjoyed today’s episode or if you’ve been getting value from this podcast, do me a quick favor, head on over to iTunes and leave a rating and review. When you leave a rating and review, it basically tells iTunes that they need to spread the word and tell more people about this podcast and I am on a mission to get the word out.  I’m so grateful for your support. We want to make sure to shout you out so if you do leave a rating review, keep your eyes and ears open. We will be either shouting out the podcast or Instagram stories.