Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - The Truth About Making $1M+ on Fiverr | Alexandra Fasulo - Author of 'Freelance Your Way to Freedom'

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Lessons - The Truth About Making $1M+ on Fiverr | Alexandra Fasulo - Author of 'Freelance Your Way to Freedom' · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, explore how freelancing platforms launch aspiring entrepreneurs
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  before they scale into independent businesses. Discover how marketplace experience builds discipline
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  and client management skills. Understand how communication and time management ensures stability
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  and uncover how smart pricing and delegation turn a solo hustle into a thriving agency.
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  When you decided to do this, like this is something that somebody could totally
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  side hustle and not just go all in on, but when you're starting to sell a service or a product,
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  do you think that it makes more sense to use a marketplace like a fiverr or even like an
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  upwork or any top towel or any other, or is it more, it makes more sense to figure out a website,
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  market yourself. So I think in the beginning, a freelancing platform like a fiverr is definitely
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  the best way to go because they handle so much of it for you, right? Like you don't need to set up
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  a website, you don't need to do your own marketing, you don't need to worry about client disputes,
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  they'll handle all of it. And I think starting out if you try and just be your own independent
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  freelancer with your own website and everything right out of the gates, you're going to be so overwhelmed.
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  I think it's going to be too much. So I think a freelancing platform's ideal in people's
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  first few years because you get to learn, you know, time management, you have to start to understand
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  discipline, not procrastinating, you know, customer service. That's a lot to learn. You've got to
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  give yourself a couple of years for that. Once you feel like you totally got that on lock, you know,
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  how to sell people and all that stuff, then I think taking it off of there where you own 100%
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  of your business is obviously the end goal. That's how you get the agency going, that's how you hire
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  help. You start growing it into something huge. You can make, you have seven figures if you want.
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  But I think a freelancing platform is perfectly fine in the meantime because you can make six
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  figures on a freelancing platform, which is like crazy. And you can do it by yourself.
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  And how much time did you actually have to put in to hit that to hit any, any significant
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  amount of revenue that would replace your PR job? Was it eight hours a week?
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  Yeah, so like in only two months, I knew it was going to work. Yeah, I mean, I was working a lot
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  in the beginning. Like I was working 50, 60 hour weeks, never 80 hour weeks. I've never been someone
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  who's like not going to sleep at night for I've always thought that's like stupid and college and
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  people are like, I'm pulling on all night and I'm like, well, that's dumb because you're going to
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  be exhausted tomorrow. Like I've never like gotten that, but I would hover around the like 50, 60 hour
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  mark no days off. And I say to people, you don't have to do it that way. Like I'm just being honest
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  about what I did. I'm not saying you have to do it that way, but I think, yeah, did working 60
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  hours a week in the beginning get me to six figures faster probably. If six figures is not your
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  goal, then don't work 60 hours a week. Don't worry about it. Very cool. Okay. And then just,
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  I'm curious as to because you mentioned a few other things like when you jump into entrepreneurship,
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  there's other stuff that crops up. There's customer success. There's, you mentioned a few things
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  actually. I'm blanking on some of the other stuff. But what are some of those, what are some of
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  those things that you don't think about when you're starting because you have your skill that you
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  want to sell to the world? What are the other things that you have to be aware of that you generally
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  don't realize until you're in it? Yeah. Oh man, so many things. And not marketing sales, right? Like
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  when you're messaging customers, how do you get them to book more with you? Customer service,
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  like customer satisfaction, they need to leave you five star reviews. You have to offer revisions,
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  you have to be professional in your communication with them. If they lash out at you, you have to
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  still be professional back to them. Time management, if somebody places eight orders with you one day,
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  you cannot procrastinate. That's the, you know, because if you were already procrastinating,
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  another huge order due tomorrow, you now have a situation. So, you know, very like, what is that
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  soft skills or like real world commonsense stuff is a huge part of this that, you know, you didn't
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  need to have to do well in college or anything or you sometimes don't even really need to do well
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  in a nine to five because your boss, your manager, you can care of it for you. So it's like all those
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  things. You got to give yourself time to learn those things, but those things, once you learn them,
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  I think you're infallible. I think once you, you know, conquer procrastination, you know,
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  how to sell things to people, you know, how to take criticism and not take it personally,
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  I think you can go do anything then. It doesn't have to be freelancing, like I think you're set for
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  life when you like get through that. 100%. Now, this, this is something I'm curious about. Do you
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  think that, because I always preach that you shouldn't jump right in, but I think there could be
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  a benefit because when you jump right into entrepreneurship, you force yourself to ramp. Like there's
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  like no looking back. Like you, you could have a little bit of a nest egg, but I mean, chances are,
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  you have to, you have to make rent in a couple months and that's going to be an issue if you don't
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  make money. So do you think that by maybe not jumping into, if you jump into a side hustle just
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  part time, you think maybe the drive isn't there and that may give a false, a false response to whether
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  or not you could be successful versus if you jump right in and you're like forced, you're like
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  sink or swim. Yeah. Um, I think being forced into it ensures success more and that you're going
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  to make it work. Um, but I have seen a lot of people segue into it half and half where they start
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  at part time while they're at their nine to five. And if they hate their nine to five enough, they
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  make it work part time. So it's almost, I just see it always works. If you are so miserable at whatever
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  it is you're doing, like that's when it works. Because if you like kind of like your nine to five,
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  still, I don't think you're going to make it work. So it takes a lot of work. But for the people I
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  know who are just like, make it stop. I hate this with every fiber of my being. I cannot go on another
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  day. Um, I see them make it work. So it's really like a will thing. Yeah. And okay. So now it was
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  a nightmare in it. You're doing it. And, and the one thing that I always was curious about with
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  someone who offers a service in a freelancing environment where the customers are always
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  different industries, different niches. How do you stay? How do you be effective across so many
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  different niches? Because of course, copywriting is you definitely have to. But I think there's other
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  things like if you are doing any sort of product specific work, you have to find a way to execute
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  whatever service it is that you offer against that product in like record time at a very high
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  caliber. So what's the, is it just research? Is it mindset? Is it, is there a strategy to find
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  the best information in a short period of time, even though you've never learned about that thing
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  before in your life? Um, yeah, that's, that's why the questionnaires are so important in freelancing.
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  Because if you have a proper questionnaire set up, the client will essentially give you everything
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  you already need. So you'll say, you know, what pages do you want done? What's the topic? Do you
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  have a title in mind? Do you have a blog that you really like that you want this to sound like?
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  And by the time they're done with your questionnaire, they've kind of given you like everything
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  you need to then just write it for me at that. Okay, so this is like the, this is like the customer
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  onboarding piece. Like, this is like what, this is when you're first bringing them on. Like,
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  that is like integral to being successful. Yeah, basically. And the questionnaire is everything.
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  It can, it also minimizes miscommunications because like in the beginning, my questionnaires would
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  have like two questions in them. And the client would, I wouldn't know what the client wanted.
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  Then the client would get pissed at me and I'd get pissed at the client, you know, all this stuff.
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  Then when you have the 10 questions by the end, when they answer all 10 questions, like they can't get
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  mad at you because you literally followed like everything they told you. So it's like they don't
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  have a case against you at that point. Because you listen to them. Yeah, because like, I mean,
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  occasionally you get a crazy person who you will follow everything they ask of you and they're
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  like bipolar or something and they'll say like, that's not what I want. And I'm like, okay,
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  or they could, or they could be, they could be, they could be, you know, doing that on purpose
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  because they want or they think they know the game, right? They think if they, if they complain,
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  it's like the person who like, like after they ate the meal at the restaurant, they're like,
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  this was shit. Like they think like they're going to get a free, free something out of you if they
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  just complain enough. Exactly. And if you, you know, have your questionnaire set up like that,
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  fiber will see that and be like, okay, we see this buyers an asshole. This person is trying to
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  get free work basically. All right. Okay. Cool. All right. So you, so now you are growing your business
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  on fiber. The next, the next step in entrepreneurship or solo partnership is pricing and making your
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  business more viable, of course. So what are some of the, because this is something that I've been
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  in consulting before, not copywriting, but it's something that I struggled with personally. I know
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  a lot of people struggle with pricing their stuff. How do you price your stuff? And how do you know
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  when to increase the price on your stuff? So on a fiber, it's really easy because everyone's
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  prices are public. So you just go find your competitors and just copy it. That's what I did.
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  Two times I raised my prices on fiber when you advance a level, raise your prices.
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  When you have more work than you can humanly do in a 10 hour work day, raise your prices.
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  It's all very like we're, you know, just fluid, like just pay attention type of stuff.
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  Could you raise your prices even more than those two triggers? Probably. I always tend to operate
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  on the lower end of the pricing spectrum. That's a me problem. But I say to people, you know,
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  those are the two instances. Don't be shy. Okay, very good. So walk me through the, like,
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  the current version of your business. So obviously started on fiber. You grew some additional
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  products. I just want to get at like a holistic and maybe I'll think of some questions to go into
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  or some strengths to go into with. Then I want to just keep going down your story in CNBC and some
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  of the things that have come out of that as well. So what's the current iteration of your business?
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  All the product services that you're doing right now? Yeah, so my business has now officially
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  made the jump from just being on fiber to being its own agency essentially. So I have a person
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  below me, my best friend who's actually the manager now of three different writers. So I am no
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  longer the girl alone on fiber writing every day. I've always been transparent about that,
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  which all the trolls are like, she doesn't tell the truth. I'm like, you guys, what? I'm always,
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  I don't understand why my business can't grow. Like, how is that a sin? Like, um, we'll talk about,
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  we'll talk about some of that stuff in a second, dude. Well, so I've done this for seven years.
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  I would be an idiot at this point if I didn't have people helping me. Like, why would I just keep
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  doing this alone? So I have my best friend for the last two months now. It's very, it's very new,
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  is building out an agency essentially below me. So I'm helping with the hiring of people,
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  looking over their work before it's delivered, making sure it's up to par. And she's basically doing
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  the rest because I'm looking to now, you know, move more into almost a coaching, like informational
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  realm with this, my, my season of my podcast is starting next week. I want to get more into almost
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  freelance reporting. No one else is doing that. I want to feature different people's stories,
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  talk to other people and freelancing. I'm really like, create this community of it that is just
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  so lacking online today. That's where I'm heading with it right now. So I am the most removed from
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  it I have ever been. But I think I deserve that. It's been seven years. Thanks for tuning in.
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  If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.
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  And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description
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  to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.