The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 118. Tips to Owning Your Own Freelance Business with Micala Quinn

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Have you ever heard of freelancing? On today’s episode, we are chatting with a fellow Kansas-City based entrepreneur, Micala Quinn. Micala teaches people, typically moms, how to start and run their freelancing businesses from home while having the flexibility to spend time with their babies, through her course The Live Free Academy. She shares her own journey from teaching to freelancing after motherhood, and highlights the services that a Virtual Assistant can provide. We chat about how blogging skills can translate into freelancing and Micala shares advice on how to start a freelance business. We can’t wait for you to dive into today’s episode and learn more about either doing this in addition to your blog or hiring help in your own blogging business!Thanks for listening! Let us know your thoughts on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsThank you to our sponsor Lulu for sponsoring this episode! Check out more about how to self-publish your next book HERE.Sign up for URL Genius here!Check out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode118

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Welcome back to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Today, we get to bring on a fellow Kansas Citian, Mikayla Quinn. And it's so funny that we are practically neighbors and we didn't even realize it. So that is just so ironic that we're doing kind of similar work and at least dealing in the same kind of industry and we are just a hop, skip and a jump away. So welcome, Michaela, to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Thanks so much for having me. I am so excited to be here and so glad you guys reached out. Yeah, I had no idea you were that close, which is crazy. Michaela owns a virtual assistant business. I'm going to let her talk more about this. And it has been something

that we have known about for quite a while. And we've actually hired a couple of virtual assistants from Michaela's arsenal. And so Michaela, I would love for you just to start this particular episode out by sharing what it is that you do and who it is that you serve. Yeah. So currently, I run a program. My business is called the, well, my business is my name, Michaela Quinn, very creative there. But my program, how I actually make money in my business is a group coaching program called the Live Free Academy, where I help women, mostly moms, that tends to be the bulk of my audience, but there's been a handful of dads, some grandpas, there's some moms, and then some college kids too throughout the years. But I basically help them create

their ideal career that's flexible and gives them the freedom they want to live the life they want to live. A lot of them are working moms who want to be stay-at-home moms, but still need to bring home an income because life is freaking expensive. That was kind of how I got started into all of this, but that's what I do now. I help show them the opportunities out there with freelancing and taking their current skill set, no matter what that is and how they can take that and support other businesses to help them run, to help them grow and also support the life that they want to live. I love that vision that you have is helping them create the life that they want to live and knowing that that can look different than what we were

maybe taught that it needed to look like. That is nine to five and dropping your kid off at daycare if that's not something that you want to do. So you briefly mentioned this is how you got started, but I'd love to hear just a little bit about your own personal story. Did you start out freelancing yourself or how did that kind of look for you and with your wants and desires with your own family? Yeah. So I'm one of those weird people who knew exactly what they wanted to do when they grew up. My mom was a teacher. And so I grew up watching her be a teacher and played school in our basement, makeshift school with my American Girl dolls. And so I wanted to be a teacher, went to college, became a teacher,

got my dream teaching job fresh out of college and did that. And really did love it before I had my own kids. And when I got pregnant, my husband and I got married on the younger side, 25. I think I was 25. He was maybe a little older. No, I was 24. He was 26, and we got pregnant right away, and so this was my second year teaching, I think. I got pregnant and still loved it. I was a really good teacher. Even though I was a first-year teacher, I was given, I taught at a small private school down the street, high school, and I was given the pre-AP curriculum. And they're like, we want, we want to start a pre-AP curriculum. We want you to create it. So I had so much freedom

to create this curriculum and worked a lot. Like even before I was getting paid in the summer to prepare for my first year, like seven to four all summer long. And then you became, students started coming and I was working seven to four in the classroom. And then again, in the evenings, probably while I was planning my wedding till like 10 or 11, it was fine. I had nothing else to do at the time. I was engaged, but living at home with my parents and first time making money. So anything felt great. But then we got married, had a baby my second year and started to look at daycare. And I didn't want to put my daughter in daycare. I didn't know that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but I didn't want to put her in daycare. And looking at daycare, that was just the one

I wanted to do that I was comfortable with was going to be $1,500, which I got paid $2,000 take home after taxes. So it was like, well, that's not an option. And so we ended up finding a cheap daycare, whatever. But when, when she was born, like in June, it was the hardest year of my life. Like I, everything changed. I hated dropping her off at daycare. I hated, I just hated how I didn't get to spend time with her. I got, once school was over, I got maybe from four to 6.30 with her before we did bath and bed. And then I did the same thing every day. And I was like, this is not how I want to live. But we were young. We bought a house at the top of our budget. how I want to live. But we were young. We bought a house up to top of our budget.

My husband was like, you have to work. And so I just felt stuck for quite a while and tried to figure out, okay, what can I do? Back at this time, I was never that extroverted, really. And so the thought of... This was back in 2016. I didn't really know of ways to make money or start a business. I thought, okay, maybe I can make some hair bows and sell hair bows. So I tried to sold maybe like how many bows? I don't know, 30, 40 hair bows before I was like, I am just, I cannot make another bow. I am sick of the hot glue. Like I spent more on supplies at Hobby Lobby than I made to make a thousand000 a month, I would have had to sell 100 hair bows. I was just like, this is not going to work. And so I was just looking and searching and telling everyone, I'm miserable. I need to find a way I can work from home. I want

a way I can work on my own time, maybe early morning nap time so I can do fun things with my daughter during the day. I wanted to go to Science City. For those of you listening, Kansas City. I wanted to just explore our town, do the mommy and me things. And so just kind of started telling anyone and everyone who had listened, this is what I'm looking for. And finally told the right person, my husband's cousin. I was like, oh, I'm a virtual assistant. You should look into this. I quit my job and I'm doing this. And so I went down the rabbit hole and just kind of figured it out and dove in. So built my business while I was still teaching so that I could eventually quit and then quit. And I walked out on maternity leave with my second child in April of 2017. And then in August of the following year, that's when I kind of transitioned into

helping others get started. So can you talk a little bit about what is a virtual assistant? You know, you came across this as an opportunity for yourself. And I imagine it looked one way you were working on something specific. But what was that? And what does virtual assistant mean to you now that you have so much more experience in this field? Yeah. So virtual assistant is basically a admin assistant, but in a virtual capacity. And the role looks so different depending on who you're working with, who your clients are, and what their needs are. But you're basically there to help save them time and take off some of the tasks that are sucking up all of their time, but are some of the backend tasks that don't necessarily have to be the business owner doing them. So email inbox management, scheduling social

media posts, repurposing some content, doing some email reach out, creating PDFs and Canva. Those are just kind of some sample tasks that my first couple of clients had me do. But you're basically just there to be an extra pair of hands, kind of like a honey-do list, but it's not your husband. It's a business owner saying, hey, here are things I need done. And sometimes the clients have daily tasks that they need done. Sometimes they have weekly tasks. Sometimes there's monthly tasks. Sometimes there's random projects that pop up that they're like, oh, I can have so-and-so do this.

Now, virtual assistant is one specific service that you could offer. It falls under the freelance umbrella. Under the freelance umbrella, there's so many different services that you could offer. Virtual assistant is a really good starting out place or entry level point for a lot of people, people that maybe don't necessarily come from a marketing or a business or a blogging background. A lot of nurses, teachers, stay at home moms will get started in the virtual assistant role because it's in that capacity, business owners are hiring more so based on like your soft skill set and your personality. Like, are you organized? Are you a problem solver? Can you figure things out? Can you get stuff done? Versus do you know how to use Entreport or run Facebook ads?

do you know how to use Entreport or run Facebook ads? Yeah. I think this is kind of mind-boggling when we think about everything that you can do while sitting at your desk at home. Yeah. And I love that you've been able to give women this vehicle to do that based on a need that you had in your own life. And then you've turned it into this gift now that you... We say it all the time. You turn around, you grab somebody's hand and say, Hey, let me show you how to do this. And really, obviously, this is a blogging podcast. So our reason for wanting to share this with bloggers today is that when you start blogging as a beginner blogger, you're not making money right away. But just like Michaela said, you're building this skill set. You're

doing the social media posts, you're writing the articles, you're doing the SEO research, you're doing the backend site stuff for your website. All of those things are skills. So when you think about what you're doing to create and start a blog, I want you to for just a minute, not focus on whether or not you have traffic to your website yet. And I want you to, for just a minute, not focus on whether or not you have traffic to your website yet. And I want you to think about the skill set that you're building. And this is how becoming a freelancer could be a vehicle for you to start earning revenue right away in your blogging business. This is something we're passionate about because a lot of people start blogging and then they're like, Oh gosh, I didn't realize it was going to take quite so long to make money.

start blogging and then they're like, Oh gosh, I didn't realize it was going to take quite so long to make money. And maybe they've quit their job or maybe they needed X amount of money. We're not like an MLM who's promising you, you can make X amount of money in your first 90 days. That's not what this is. It looks different for everybody. So having this idea of like, okay, what skill set do I have now that I can turn around and help somebody else with? That's a pretty awesome thing that you can stay at home and do the thing that you love while also supporting other people doing what they are doing. And quite honestly, feel really burned out with probably. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's so much that goes into running any sort of business, especially this online business, I'm sure you guys started

maybe the two of you bootstrapping it, doing everything. And there's only so many hours in the day and only so many things you can get done, but there's so many things you need to do to grow and run your business. And you either get to a point where you're working too many hours and burnt out and you're like, I started this business. Now I want to enjoy the life that I've been able to build. Or you're like, there's so many more things that need to be done. I don't have more time to do them. Who can help me get these things done? So there's a lot that goes into running, growing, maintaining a business. And there's so many businesses out there that need this support and that are looking for people to come in and help them. Yeah, that's so true. And if we're talking to somebody who's sitting there now going, okay, I think this maybe sounds like a great way to get started and bring in a little revenue.

I'm sure I could support somebody. But maybe they're feeling some doubts. What are some skills that they should have or some things that they should be able to do in order to start this business? Are there any qualifications or how do they know that they are capable of doing this? like qualifications or how do they know that they are capable of doing this? I mean, I think if they've gone through your training and they've been able to build their own blog, like that is way more than other people have that have got started and are now helping and working with business owners. I think no matter what your background is, no matter what training you have or don't have, you're always going to doubt like, oh, but can I do this? Would anyone want to hire me? And there's people with more experience than you.

There's people with less experience than you. And there's no reason why you can't do that. But if you already have the foundation of you've built your blog, you know how to make social media posts, you've done those things. You have that skill set where you can help someone else. Yeah. I think the confidence is where people, women especially, we just struggle. You said it perfectly. How do I know that I could do that? And I think that no matter what the skill set is that we have, we have a little bit of that self-doubt, but it takes maybe just that first step, just putting yourself out there, trying to get maybe one client to do... Maybe you're just designing their Pinterest pins. I'll just use some examples. Maybe you're just making their Pinterest pins or creating social

media images on Canva. Maybe you are doing their email newsletter. Maybe you are cleaning up their email list. A number of different things that I think what happens is we say, Oh, it doesn't take me that much time to do that. But we say that about like 25 different tasks. And then those 25 tasks really do add up. Yeah. If you are hiring out, I mean, we can use this from a hiring out lens or something that you're wanting to help people with.

If you are hiring out something that needs done, it's going to free up time in your own business to focus on the things that you want to do too. And also, that could also lend itself to you supporting somebody else as well. There's no rulebook that says in blogging, you have to do every single thing in regards to your blog. And I think that's a very common misconception that we tell ourselves that we have to do every single aspect of it. And if we don't, or if we're not, like we're a fraud or something. But Newsflash, a lot of us have help. Yeah. I mean, I'm a small online person. I have someone who, executive VA, I have someone who helps with like project management, director of operations, someone who helps me support my students inside the program. I have someone who helps with kind of like marketing and copywriting and then a social media VA who helps assist the director of marketer, if you give her that title.

Yeah. Oh, and a podcast manager. Yeah. I have four kids. I only have right now probably 10 to 15 hours max a week manager. Yeah. I have four kids. I only have right now, probably 10 to 15 hours max a week at my desk. I have been able to grow so much because I prioritized hiring from the very beginning because I knew there's only so much I could do, but there's so many things that need to happen and be done to run this business and to grow it and to reach more moms.

Thank you to Lulu for sponsoring this episode of the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Blogging is about so much more than just creating content for your website. Blogging in 2024 also means sharing your own products and services, affiliate links, brand sponsorships, podcast interviews, and so much more. The thread that is woven through all of it is sharing our stories and passion. And one way to do that is by creating and selling your own books. As a blogger, you can easily create and sell your own books with Lulu. Lulu is an on-demand print company that prints your beautiful books and mails them directly to your consumer. You don't have to worry about the hassle of inventory or

shipping, and you get to remain focused on what you do best, creating. Visit lulu.com to learn more about how you can self-publish your own cookbook, novel, journal, notebooks, etc. Creating another stream of revenue by selling your own books without the hassle is an awesome way to grow your brand in 2024. Visit lulu.com, that is l-u-l-u.com to learn more about how you can get started self-publishing your own books today. So to the person listening who's like, I think that this could be a way, maybe they have time in their schedule to start supporting bloggers. They've set up their blog. They know a lot about it. Maybe they really enjoy podcast editing. There's a number of

different things that you can do, like we've talked about. How do they say, okay, so I'm going to have this other revenue stream in my business. How do they then do that? Because it's like the reaching out and making sure you have the contracts that you need and all of that. And how do you do that? So is that what you teach in the Live Free Academy? Yeah, that's exactly what I teach in the program, break it down step by step. But to give everyone kind of an overview to see the process that I walk students through is first, you have to know, okay, what service are you going to offer? What is going to be the thing that you want to help people with? You can start out general virtual assistant and kind of help people with anything and everything. Or you could

niche down from the beginning and start with something super specific. If you know you love podcast editing, there are people who hate that. Like people like me, I have never edited a single episode of my podcast. I will never edit a single episode of my podcast, but you could start right there. You could start with social media. You could start even more specialized than just social media. You could focus on creating reels. How to give like, oh, how could I help someone create reels? Don't they have to be in it? My assistant will send me a reel and be like, hey, let's do this. Here's going to be the text on the top. This is the clip I need from you. I go record it, send it back to her. She does it all, writes the caption, posts it. I had to spend 30 seconds to

get the five second clip and that's all. And there's people out there who really like creating reels. And then there's people who don't. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you got to figure out, okay, what is this service? What do I want to help people do? What do I love doing the most in my business? If you don't know what that is yet, or you're like, Oh, I don't feel like I could be an expert in any of these start as a virtual assistant. Because that's a really, really great starting point. Because in that, offering that, it's the client's job to tell you what they need. They will come to you and say, I need you to do X, Y, Z. And some of the more specialized, it's going to be your job to come to the role and say, this is what we're going to do. This is the plan. So if you don't feel comfortable yet being in that strategy and

bringing that plan, start as a virtual assistant. So steps in don't feel comfortable yet being in that strategy and bringing that plan, start as a virtual assistant. So steps in getting started, number one, figure out what service you're going to offer. Step two would be figure out who do you want to work with? Who is your ideal client? What types of businesses would you love to support? Do you want to support other bloggers? Do you want to work with local boutiques? Do you want to work with Etsy shop owners? Do you want to work with therapists, chiropractors, real estate agents? What is the type of business you would love to work with? So figure that out. And that's really an important step.

You can't just say, oh, anyone who's going to hire me because everything else that you do in your business, just like with building your blog, you have that ideal reader in mind. Everything else you do to find those people you want to work with and support as a freelancer is going to be based off that ideal client. So from there, then you'll kind of think about, okay, how are you going to price and package your services? You'll need to build a brand for your business. Like what is your name? Maybe it's a subset of your blogging, but figure out like names, colors, those kinds of foundational branding items. And then from there, figure out, you'll need to build a digital portfolio, which can just be like a one pager that just explains

who you are, what services you offer, how you can help someone, how they can book a call with you. You don't have to build a new website too, if you don't want to. It can just be a super simple one pager in Canva. What else do you need to do foundational? Oh, you'll need to set up kind of like a tool to send for people to book calls with you. So that, and then a tool where you can send invoices, contracts, proposals, and then figure out once you've kind of had the foundational elements, that's like step one is okay, build a solid foundation. Step two is then start to figure out what is your plan to connect with these types of clients you want to work with. And there's lots of different avenues and routes. There's Facebook groups where people are in certain industries are in these groups and collaborating and posting. I'm having trouble with this. I need to hire this. You can be in there, join the conversation, get known. There are local networking events, local meetups with small business owners and entrepreneurs that you can attend and go to.

can attend and go to. Full disclosure, I never would have done that when I went the Facebook group route. Again, I'm a shy person. Maybe if I would have worked up the courage to go to one of those, I would have been in the back of the room, not talking to anyone. So that wouldn't have worked for me. There's also social media. There's direct outreach. If you already follow people or know people in that ideal range that you would love to work with, you can reach out to them directly and not in a spammy copy paste, send the same message to everyone, but send a genuine like, Hey, you know, just want to introduce myself. I've been a follower of yours since X, Y, Z, love everything you do. I just wanted to reach out and see, do you already have someone editing your podcast for you? Do you already have a virtual assistant on your team? Or are you potentially looking to hire right now?

That works really well for a lot of students, Facebook groups, local networking, and then your personal network too. Telling friends and family and anyone you're comfortable with sharing when they're asking like, hey, what's new? Instead of just saying, oh, nothing, same old. Tell them like, oh, actually, as you know, I started a blog. I'm also looking to help support other bloggers, helping them write and do their SEO or whatever it is you want to do. You wouldn't happen to know of anyone hiring or needing help with XYZ, would you? So kind of figuring out ideal client, understanding all the different areas and avenues you can take to connect with potential clients, and then picking the one that you're comfortable with and that you know you can connect with your ideal clients in. And then from

there, it's just being consistent. In my program, we run 30-day challenges. Every month, there's a new Landry First for Next Client Challenge. And students that join these that have the solid foundation, they know who they want to work with, they know what they need to do daily, weekly, monthly, and commit to doing it for the 30 days. On average, students that are at least 75% consistent in that challenge are able to land anywhere from one to three paying clients in 30 days. Yeah, that accountability has to be huge. Oh yeah, absolutely. And that's where I have Taylor. She's, so it's done in a Facebook group

and our director of student success, she's in there every day. The students that kind of to hold themselves accountable, share what they did. And if they have a question, how they're feeling, where they're stuck, you know, progress that they're making and Taylor's in there answering, progress that they're making, and tailors and mayor

answering, cheering them on, helping, and just kind of tracking the success of it. Yeah. I love that that accountability is there because when you are an online business owner, whether you're a blogger, a freelancer, a virtual assistant, sometimes you need somebody like, yeah, you can do it. You can do it, you know, because you don't have a coworker, you don't have somebody, you don't have the recognition and that, but having, I love that you actually wrote it down, the director of student success. I love that title. I mean, I think that that's so true for anybody who's like considering doing something like this. It's why we have our membership as well for bloggers too. We find that when you have that

accountability, no matter what it is that you're doing, you're more likely to stay focused, stay engaged, and in turn become more successful when you have the accountability to somebody. Absolutely. And the focus of that challenge is to take your mind off of, oh, I need to make money. I need a land clients. You can't control if that happens. What can you control? You can control if you show up each day and do the things that you say you will do that you know will lend to that outcome happening. So don't stress about what you can't control. Focus on what you can here in the present day. And that's to show up and participate and connect in the Facebook group, to go to the

local networking event, to respond to any job postings you find. What are those things and do you do them? Do you want to know how you can grow your mobile and affiliate conversions by up to 200%? You can do it with URL Genius. With URL Genius, you can compose links for social apps, brand apps, or even your own app. URL Genius makes sure the consumer goes straight to the product or service you're sharing right away to make the sale with less effort. Use the link in our show notes and get your first 500 links for free. It is quick and easy to set up and you don't have to install anything either. URL Genius is here to help you boost your mobile conversion and engagement. Check out the link in our show notes for more information today.

I love that you teach that. And I think that's just such an important perspective to have. You have to manage what you can control and consistency in blogging or in any sort of business you're building is probably one of the keys to success because there's going to be days where you feel discouraged. It feels hard. It feels like it's never going to happen. And I think it's really encouraging that you said, you know, a lot of your students who do commit to that consistency are able to land a client or more than one client in 30 days. And that's very exciting. I think my next question would be, as more and more people get into this field, are you seeing that it's getting saturated?

Are there more people trying to provide services than are needing services? Or is this a growing area where we can continue to look forward to opportunities? I think it's a growing area. I think there's probably going to be some avenues that are more saturated than others, but they're like specifically maybe in Facebook groups. I still think Facebook groups are a great way to connect with potential clients and land clients. But in some of those online spaces, there might be more people applying for some job postings than there are job postings. That's not the only way you land clients though. Not everyone who's hiring is going to post in the Facebook group. I'm looking for a virtual assistant. What they're going to do is go search

the group for a virtual assistant or social media manager, see who's commented, or they're going to ask people for referrals. But one really cool growth area we're seeing in the freelance space of more and more businesses hiring is in the local community. The local community is not saturated at all. If you looked at your neighborhood and did a poll, I'm like, okay, how many of you are virtual assistants in your neighborhood? There might not be a single one. How many people in your neighborhood own a business that probably needs some support? And the great thing with freelancing is you probably only need three, maybe five clients max to hit your income goals. And if you do things, I don't want to say right, but from my perspective,

if you're not wanting to have a constant hustle of finding new clients, focus on retainer services, you put in the effort upfront and you land the client and there it's a service. Retainer just means recurring, ongoing on a month to month basis. The client's going to need that help. They're going to need a virtual assistant month in, month out. They're going to need their podcast edited every single month. And so you put the work in upfront, land those clients, and then you just get a focus on doing the work and maintaining a good working relationship with the clients. The people on my team, I've been working with Mackenzie for six years, Stacy for five, Chase, I think three, Emma three, two, Taylor, maybe two. So there is longevity,

there is stability, there is consistency and income there. I think there's two really awesome things about that. One is the recurring income. When you give them what they want, and you over deliver by being on time, doing what you say you're going to do, all those things, then you're likely going to keep the client, which means that you're going to keep the income. And the other thing is that you brought up the idea of a local community. And I know that we're using the term virtual assistant or freelancer. But if you haven't heard the story yet, I started as Jennifer's virtual assistant as her next door neighbor. So you don't necessarily... It doesn't have to be virtual. My work was all done virtually. But then I could go to her house like walk through the yard and go next door to Jennifer and see what she needed so it is like looking at it like when you said like think

of a business owner like I'm thinking of a lot of my friends who own businesses quite honestly and like what areas could they use help in yeah where are they maybe lacking some or whatever and I think it's just once again we we're in a creative business. Like blogging and online content creation, freelancing, this is a creative business, which means there are no parameters, there are no rules when it comes to making money. And so you can think as big or as small as you need to. You know, you can look at your budget and like, what do you need? I need to make X amount of money per month,

which means that I need to do X amount of work per month. And that can be it if you want it to be. Maybe that's three clients. Maybe that's really all you need in order to meet your income goals. And knowing that you are in control of that and the beautiful thing about this is most likely you're going to be in control of the time and when you get to do it. And I love that you mark it like moms. Yeah, you have to be in control. That's the thing about freelance work. If the client is controlling when the work is getting done and those certain parameters, it's outside of the freelance and crossing into the employee role. So as the freelancer, you do get to say, so long as deadlines are met, you get to decide, do you work early morning hours? And maybe not put the kids in daycare. I called it the nap time hustle. I worked early morning, five to seven, and then I worked one to three. That was four hours a day. Back in the day, now I do have some childcare support, but back in the day when I just had the two little kids, early morning,

nap time, four hours a day, Monday through Friday, that was 20 hours right there. 20 hours times like $30 an hour, that's $600 a week times four and a half. Let's just go with four because that's easier. But times four, that's $2,400 a month. Yeah. That was more than I made teaching. Working eight hours and I didn't have to pay anything. Like, it's incredible. If that's lower than what you need,

if you have some six-figure salary, you might have a higher level skill set that you can charge more for. I didn't have that to start out with. But as I started, I got there and I was able to grow what I was charging and the services that I was offering. And I would assume that as

you get more clients and you work through this, you're going to develop skills where you can start to specialize even more. You kind of start to either gain more experience or figure out what you're really good at. And just like with blogging, I think it really comes down to like, can you niche down a little bit more? Can you offer a more specialized service that is unique? And you're really offering that value to someone, then they're probably going to be willing to pay a little bit more for it too. And then you might not have to have as many clients or work as many hours either. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. So something else that I love about what you offer, Michaela, is the hire form. Mm-hmm. So something else that I love about what you offer, Michaela, is the hire form. The people who have gone through your course and through the academy can then market themselves to business owners, bloggers, content creators, whatever, who are looking to hire a virtual assistant freelancer. We have used this. Two of our virtual assistants right now have come from you. And that was one of the main reasons that we wanted to bring you on is because we have firsthand experience with two people that you have taught

that are serving our business really well. And you mentioned a little earlier about when you're ready to hire somebody, you're probably working too much or there's things that you're doing that aren't in your zone of genius and things. We were there times 100. We had not really hired anyone besides our podcast manager for, I don't know, pretty much all of our business. We had a virtual assistant for a little bit, but we were bootstrapping it up until 6 months ago. And it did get to a point that we were feeling very burned out. And we are burning the candle at both ends here. And so we put a job posting on your hire form and had a ton of applicants. And we're able to utilize that and interview people. And I just find that to be a really cool way to connect with

people. And so I'd love for you just to talk a little bit about that particular thing. I wanted to just share our experiences using it, but how that can benefit somebody who is wanting to be a freelancer by taking the academy and then what that exactly is and how that can serve them. Yeah. So as I was building my course and transitioned out of doing done for you client services, people would come to me and be like, hey, do you know of anyone who does this? And as just the program, I didn't want to be, I'm not an HR. I don't want to be hiring for other people.

I know what I'm looking for and what I want, but I don't want to play matchmaker. And so I was just like, oh, I have a form. I created a simple Google form that any business owner who's looking to hire or outsource something can fill out. They can put the job description, anything that is important to working with them or the role, what they're looking for. For example, when I've hired, if there's a specific call time that I need someone to be available for, if there's any, like I need my email inbox checked two times a day, once in the

morning, once in the evening, and everything kind of responded to and handled at each time. Like those types of anything specific to the specific job, put it all in there. Budget, are you open to working with a beginner? All that things that business owners can fill out. And then the women in the program can see those and apply to the ones that match their experience, their budget, what they can commit to doing. And then the business owner person hiring can just then sort through and reach out to those people who they feel like might be a match might be a good option, good fit for them. That's another way that freelancers in the program can land clients too.

It's a really great resource, quite honestly, because I think whether you're the freelancer yourself or you're the person who's needing a freelancer to help you with something, there can be that kind of uncomfortableness with, I'm not really sure how to find what I need on either side. And so it kind of marries it. find what I need on either side. And so it kind of marries it. Worthy and like, how do you know if you don't know anyone in person? I've been very, very lucky and blessed that everyone who's gone through the program has been great. They've invested in themselves. They've invested in their business and learning how to become a freelancer. invested in their business and learning how to become a freelancer. And so business owners that are hiring, they see that in the quality of candidates they get. At least that's what I've

been told. Yeah, definitely. I think you've been told right. I really do. I think it's, we had like a great experience with it and it, it really was great for us because it was a, it was a challenging situation to be in that it's like, okay, it's time. We need this. But when you've built a business that's been your baby, it's hard to give out certain pieces of it. And so building that trust on either end, I think is really important. And I mean, I think as a freelancer coming in, recognizing that a lot of people who are going to be contacting you, I mean, I think as a freelancer coming in, recognizing that a lot of people who are going to be contacting you, I mean, they have built this thing from the ground up.

It is something that has taken their blood, sweat and tears and they take it very seriously. And so taking that big step by hiring it out, even if it's a simple task like checking your email, that's a big task. And so just knowing that that's a safe place to do it with this community has just been a really awesome thing. And just a bonus that we're all in Kansas City too. So we get to support another Kansas City mom doing her thing. Yeah, thank you. Mikayla, will you please share with our listeners where they can connect with you and your program and all of that?

listeners where they can connect with you and your program and all of that? Yeah. So Instagram is probably the best place to connect. I'm at Michaela.Quinn over on Instagram. But also my website has everything listed and it's just my name, MichaelaQuinn.com. If you're at the point where you're looking to outsource, potentially bring on some help, the link to fill out the hire form is just MichaelaQuinn.com forward slash hire. And then if you're in the spot where you're like, Oh, maybe, maybe I want to support other businesses. I want to learn more about freelancing. I have a free intro kind of intro to freelancing crash course on kind of what freelancing is, how to get started, what it takes to be a successful freelancer. And you can grab that at Michaelaelaquinn.com forward slash cc. Awesome. We will put all of that in our show

notes. And Michaela, thank you so much for just really talking so openly about this, about your story, about how you're helping women on both ends of the spectrum here, and just serving all of us who want to be more present in our own lives and create a life that makes us happy. So thanks. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp. The

link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.