Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How an IT Project Manager Built a 14K Monthly Side Hustle in Salesforce Consulting
Transcript
- Lucas: So you know how every company seems to be running on Salesforce these days? Well, one IT project manager turned that into a 14-thousand dollar a month side hustle. Luna: Fourteen grand a month. That's not just pocket change — that's a whole second salary. Lucas: Exactly. And what's interesting is that Maria Chen didn't quit her day job. She's still a full-time IT project manager at a logistics company. She started the side hustle two years ago when she realized small businesses were getting oversold on Salesforce implementations. Luna: Oversold how? Lucas: She noticed that realtors and medical practices were paying consultants thousands of dollars to set up Salesforce, but the consultants would just toggle on standard features and vanish. Clients ended up with a bloated system they didn't know how to use. Maria thought: 'I can do a better job, cheaper, and actually teach them how to use it.' Luna: So she started by offering fractional consulting. That's basically pay as you go Salesforce help, right? Lucas: Right. She set her rate at 150 dollars an hour. But she didn't go broad — she focused on two verticals: real estate agents who need pipeline tracking, and small medical practices that need patient scheduling and follow-up automation. Luna: That's smart. By niching down early, she can reuse a lot of the same templates and workflows. Lucas: Exactly. Her first client was a friend who was a realtor. She built a simple lead-tracking dashboard in about six hours. That client then referred her to two other agents. Within three months, she had five recurring clients paying around 500 dollars a month each for ongoing maintenance and minor tweaks. Luna: So the monthly recurring revenue started stacking. And 500 per client times five is 2,500 — but she got to 14,000, so she clearly scaled up. Lucas: She did. She added project-based work too. A single custom integration project could run 3,000 to 5,000 dollars. For example, she built a Zapier automation for a dental practice that synced Salesforce with their email marketing tool. That project alone took ten hours and paid 1,500. Luna: And she's doing this on evenings and weekends. That's a lot of hours. How did she avoid burnout? Lucas: She was very disciplined. She set a cap of 15 hours per week on the side hustle. No exceptions. And she turned down clients who wanted immediate 24/7 support. She made it clear from the start: 'I have a full-time job, I respond within 24 hours.' Most clients respected that. Luna: That's the key — setting boundaries upfront. If you act like you're on call, clients will treat you like you are. Lucas: Right. She also raised her rates after the first year. New clients now pay 175 an hour. She lost a couple of price-sensitive prospects, but the higher price actually made her seem more expert. Luna: One thing I'm curious about: Did her employer ever find out? Most IT project managers sign agreements about outside work. Lucas: Great question. She checked her contract carefully. Her employer's policy allowed outside work as long as it didn't compete with the company and didn't use company resources. Since her side hustle served small businesses in completely different industries — real estate and healthcare — and she used her own laptop, she was in the clear. But she was always transparent with her manager. She told him she was doing freelance consulting on the side, and he was fine with it. Luna: That openness probably built trust. If you hide it, it's a risk. Lucas: Yeah, and she kept her day job performance high. She never let the side hustle interfere with her primary responsibilities. In fact, her project management skills — keeping timelines, managing stakeholder expectations — directly transferred to the side hustle. Luna: So let me ask you — because this comes up a lot with our listeners — how did she find clients? Was it all referrals? Lucas: Mostly. But she also did one very smart thing: she wrote a short LinkedIn article titled 'Three Salesforce Mistakes That Cost Small Business Owners Thousands.' It got shared in local real estate groups. That article drove inbound inquiries for months. Luna: Content marketing. But specific, actionable, not fluffy. Lucas: Exactly. She also joined a local chamber of commerce and offered a free 30-minute consultation at their networking events. That gave her face to face credibility. Luna: How much of her 14K is recurring vs project-based now? Lucas: About 60% recurring — monthly retainers from nine clients ranging from 400 to 800 dollars per month. And 40% project work. The project work is lumpy, but it pays more per hour. Luna: And she's still full-time as an IT project manager. That's impressive discipline. Lucas: It really is. And you know, this kind of behind the scenes look at how real people build these things — it's exactly why we do this show. Quick honest thing: a handful of listeners chip in monthly through Buy Me a Coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these episodes ad-free. No sponsors, no ads, just listeners who find value and want to keep it going. Luna: Yeah, I've seen the numbers — it's a small group, but they make a huge difference. And we never interrupt the show with ad breaks because of that support. Lucas: So thank you to those who do. Back to Maria — one of the smartest moves she made was automating her own onboarding process. She created a simple questionnaire using Google Forms that collected the client's current setup, pain points, and goals. That saved her hours of discovery calls. Luna: So she practices what she preaches — using automation to scale without scaling hours. Lucas: Exactly. She also uses a tool called Calendly for scheduling, and she batch processes her work — does all the admin on Sunday nights, all the client work on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Luna: Batch processing is a classic productivity hack. It reduces context-switching. Lucas: Right. And she keeps a personal 'client health' scoreboard — simple spreadsheet with columns for satisfaction, last contact, and revenue. If a client hasn't been contacted in two weeks, she sends a quick check-in email. That's why her retention rate is over 90%. Luna: That's a great tip for anyone doing service-based side hustles. Don't wait for clients to come to you; stay top of mind. Lucas: Exactly. So the bottom line: Maria used her existing technical skills, niched down, set boundaries, and leveraged content marketing — all while keeping her day job. It's a blueprint for anyone with a specialized skill that small businesses need but can't afford a full-time hire for. Luna: I think the takeaway is that you don't need to be a superstar developer or have an MBA. You just need to be better than the average freelancer in a specific niche. Lucas: And consistently show up. Maria's first year she made about 40K total. Second year she'll clear 150K from the side. She's thinking about going independent in 2027, but for now, the safety net of a salary and benefits feels right. Luna: That's a nice position to be in — having a choice. So if you're an IT project manager or a Salesforce admin listening, this is your cue. Lucas: Yeah. Check your contract, set your rate, and start with one small project. That's all it takes.