Lessons - The Truth About Making $1M+ on Fiverr | Alexandra Fasulo - Author of 'Freelance Your Way to Freedom'

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