3 Tips for Offering VIP Days
Branding with Friends | Episode 33
Featuring Expert Guest, VIP Day Expert expert, Sarah Masci!
Watch or listen to the video interview below or scroll down to read the transcription.
Meet Sarah Masci, VIP Day Expert, and Founder of Day Rate Mastery
Annie: Hi there, welcome to a new episode of Branding With Friends. The show where branding meets key business topics. Here you're going to learn tips straight from the experts on everything from inclusivity, to public relations, even to authentic marketing. We're going to focus on what you can do with these topics plus the power of branding to attract your ideal clients.
I'm your host, branding expert, Annie Franceschi of Greatest Story Creative. I help service business owners tell their story and show their value through clear messaging and consistent branding. I'm also a former Disney storyteller, professional speaker, and the author of two best selling books, Establish Yourself and Permission To Try. And today I'm really excited to introduce you to one of my new friends in the business world. If you are curious about creative and profitable ways to offer your services, your coaching, or consulting, you are gonna love today's episode. My guest today is the incredible Sarah Masci that is amazing. Is that the right way to pronounce it? So, Sarah Masci, I'm so glad you're here. Sarah is the CEO and founder of Day Rate Mastery, an online company that teaches expert service providers how to work less and make more with a streamlined VIP day business model. Years of running a traditional design business filled with a lot of scope creep, inconsistent timelines, and overlapping client projects eventually resulted in burnout becoming the catalyst that sparked Sarah's desire to create a better process. And since its inception in 2018 Day Rate Mastery has helped thousands of freelancers rediscover joy in their work, and the freedom that they've lost along the way. Who doesn't love that? Sarah, welcome. I'm so glad you're here.
Sarah: Thank you. Thank you so much, Annie. I'm excited to get to know you today and share what I can about getting started with VIP days.
Annie: Yes, I love this topic. We were looking for the absolute right person. I think with the work that you've done with Day Rate Mastery, you are the right person to be talking about this topic. VIP days. So for those of us who don't know what a VIP day is, tell us. Like let's clearly define the term. We don't want to be jargony here. So VIP days, that sounds great. Do we get a spa mask? How does it work?
Sarah: Yeah, so funny story, when I first started offering them back in 2018, I did not call them a VIP day either. I actually first referred to them as an intensive, like a design intensive or a one day intensive. Later on, a lot more designers and creatives were calling them day rates. And then most recently, everyone's calling them VIP days. But essentially, it's the same thing, whether you call an intensive, a VIP day, or a day rate or even a VIP experience. But it's the practice of like working with one client for typically one day for a premium price point and getting a lot more done in one day that you would normally spread out over six weeks, eight weeks, or even several months. So it's really the idea of compressing your consulting or your services or whatever it is that you do for your client into that tighter timeline. Really like kind of banging out as much as you can in one day and having like a significant transformation for your client for that premium price point.
Annie: Yeah, I mean, when I first heard about VIP days are intensive, like, my mind was sort of blown, right? Because I primarily do branding services, I write coaches and consultants clear messaging, consistent visuals, website, that process can take like 14 weeks to do all of those things I just talked about. And that's pretty – we're off to the races of like it can't be done. It can't be done in a VIP day. But I have proven myself wrong. I have offered days that are creative focus, so days that are like knocking out multiple pieces of creative for a client. But I've also done days, and this is really where I grew my business coaching, is doing coaching days. So moving from just an hour session where we can't get really as much done to a VIP day up to two hour sessions and a follow up call. And clients love it because they're actually getting more done. They're busting more of their branding and business bottlenecks in what I call magic strategy day. So, I was so thrilled that you teach this and I know you want to teach all of us and those of us that are watching Branding with Friends, how to get started with them.
So I'm assuming a lot of us, people who are gonna watch this episode have never even heard of this or have never thought that it could apply to their business. So I think that's a perfect lead into our tips today. If you've never watched Branding With Friends, we're going to do our first, we're gonna do three tips today from Sarah about how to get started with VIP days. And she's also brought along their free gift for you. So what we're going to do is the first two tips, your free gift, and then we're gonna do that last tip right at the end to make sure that you get all the value you can run today. So with that being said, where should we get started? What's the best place Sarah?
#1 Action TIP
You are a good candidate for VIP Days.
Sarah: Okay, so yes, first of all to know that you are a good candidate for VIP days. Um, you should be doing, well, honestly, I have found very few types of businesses that cannot do some sort of a VIP day or intensive experience. And like you said anything like yours is two, two hour sessions, it doesn't have to be an eight hour day. So like mine is a seven to eight hour design intensive. But we have clients and students who do all different things kind of ranging, you know, down to a week. But what you want to really think about is, are you in a position now in your business where maybe you have a, maybe you're doing one on one coaching, maybe you have a group coaching program, maybe you have a course or maybe you're doing done for you services? Those are kind of the main categories?
Are you at a point where maybe you've got a group coaching program, and you have clients who actually want a lot more from you, they want more access to you, they want your brain on their business one on one. And so they're asking, like, what is that next level beyond the group coaching program is. I mean, can you work one on one with someone in a one day timeline or like a one day format, and help them you know, do even more than you can do in that group coaching program. Maybe you want to create a group coaching coaching program, but you don't quite feel ready. And it could be because you're new and you're still trying to figure out your own process and your own frameworks and your own like, structure, how you run your business and how you help your clients.
So a VIP day is a great way to like help you practice your methods, you practice your methods, one on one with people and you say I'm going to sell five VIP days. And we're going to try to accomplish this, this, this and this. And then after you do five of them, now you have a lot more clarity on what works and what doesn't work that you can then package up into a course and a lot of my students are in that boat, they come to me doing one on one services, and they want to create a course. But in order to create that course, or even to raise their VIP day rates, they need to like practice and practice out their methods and prove that it works with that one on one format. So this is another great way to offer a VIP day. And then of course there are the done for you service providers who are just completely maxed out on client work. That was me, that was my situation. I, the first time I offered it, it was not planned, there was no like forethought on oh, I'm thinking I'm going to start offering VIP days. It was a matter of being burnt out, stretched too thin, working with way too many clients one on one. And clients coming at me from all directions asking for my help. And I at one point, I just kind of broke down. I was like, I cannot take another hour to write another proposal to start another project. So when this client came to me and said, I need this, this, this, this and this, how much is it going to cost? I said, how about you just pay me for a day. And I'll do all of it in one day. And it made it so much easier. Like I didn't have to do any of the proposal process. So there are people in that category as well. So whichever of those categories you're in, there is a spot for you in the VIP day world. Um, so like, how do you figure out what it is to sell is that tip number two, or is that kind of –
Annie: That's really getting into like you know what your pricing is going to be. But I think that you know, just to recap a little bit of what you're saying it sounds like lots of different types of businesses can offer some sort of VIP day, that it can be a bridge between you maybe going from a group model to a course and giving you a way to sort of practice. I think it's been an excellent bridge for me to practice other ways of working with clients after I've done initial branding. It's been excellent for me. I'm working on kind of behind the scenes of how, what I call “Packaging Your Process.” And that's what I think is going to outgrow from my current VIP day, which is much more any sort of business or branding bottleneck. But really getting what I've learned from having done it as you count them like 20 or 30 of those days with clients over the past few years, is really realizing seeing where the threads are and where the common problems are. And so doing it and practicing it I think.
I love that you brought that up because I think VIP days are – not only are they a profitable option for you, because it's a one day thing, you can charge more because people are valuing the time exchange and the value exchange more than the money, right? So you can charge more for a premium result. But you can get it done more efficiently like you said without the hours spent on the proposal and things like that. So, constantly moving to a better result. The better the result, the bigger the transformation, the more you can charge more because the more it's worth to the end result is worth to a client. So I love them. And I love that you've sort of given us lots of different ways to think about how that could be. You pointed out that you're days are seven or eight hours. My days are two, two hour sessions. And many of my clients opt to do them like, two mornings together. They don't even have to literally be on the same day in like, coaching, for instance, or with my design days, I wasn't even meeting with the client, but like for maybe half an hour, like a 15 minute check in, or a 15 minute at the end, that kind of thing was working and I wasn't with them. So VIP days can look a lot of different ways. And I think that's a great way to think about getting started, like, could it fill a gap for you? Could it help you transition from one to one degree or vice versa? That sort of thing? So that was sort of where do we start? How to figure out if VIP days are right for you. In most cases they might be it sounds like.
Sarah: Yes, yeah, nine times out of ten, they are probably going to work for you. There's very few people who just have tried it and it really just did not work for them. But there's so many great different ways that you can do it. And I think the big takeaway from that first tip is that you don't have to have it all figured out. In order to get started, you just have to kind of see a thread there somewhere, whether it's going to help you get more work done in less time, whether it's going to help you get clarity on your framework and the transformation that you provide, or whether it's just a timing thing, and it just works better for your clients to have it all done at once versus spreading it out over an extended period of time. So that leads us into pricing.
Annie: Yeah, so our second tip, so if our first tip was figure out, if VIP days are going to be right for you, what is the second thing we should consider?
#2 ACTION TIP
Be transparent about your pricing and don’t be afraid to charge a premium for your services.
Sarah: So pricing, and I know we're talking a lot about it being a premium offer, a premium service. You can charge a lot for your VIP days. Well, I was charging $3,000 for a design day, I'm now charging $5,000 for VIP days. Consulting days, just kind of meta like a VIP day to teach you.
Annie: VIP days, it's like a Russian Doll.
Sarah: You can charge you know, there's all different prices, some people charge $15,000 for a VIP day, while other people are charging $1,000. So the price can really fluctuate. But what I have noticed is that a lot of people come into VIP days thinking they need to be charging these high premium rates. And they struggle with selling their VIP days at that, even at that like $2,000 rate. And it's because they've never done one before. And they don't have the confidence in what they can get done in a day because they've never practiced it. So I highly recommend you come in at a lower price point, just for your first few like come in. I mean, if you're just like, I have no idea what to charge, charge $1,000. Like charge $1,000 for the first three clients that agreed to kind of be a test to VIP day. Be transparent, let them know like this is a brand new offer, you're testing it out, you're fine tuning your systems, and you would love to work with them for a day at this low, very limited time price.
So, you can start there. And by doing it this way, you're going to get clients in the door faster. You're going to experience the thrill of a VIP day a lot faster, and you're going to increase your confidence in the process. Because if you just price them high, nobody buys them, then you're just kind of stuck sitting there like with that lack of confidence, not really knowing if it's going to work. So, try it out with that low and then this also gives you leverage for slowly and incrementally raising your prices over time. I started at $500 the first one I did. And then the last design day I did was $3,000. And so and now I have the confidence to say I can charge $5,000 for a day of my time. But that didn't happen overnight. It happened –
Annie: Well you have the experience, right, and the credibility and the referrals, and the interest, and the value that you're delivering from the expertise. So, it's not even just like I can do this, it's – I'm really glad that you brought up competence. Because one of the things I keep repeating that I almost wish I put in my book that came out in March, is that because so much of business is behavior. And so if you are not confident in anything you're selling people pick up on that, right. If people are kind of like and I almost repeated my whole business by not being confident in sales conversations, because I'd be like, “well, you can work with me or you can do it yourself. I just believe in you,” like so I think that, that has so much to do with it. And I love that you've given sort of this bridge strategy of you can get to the higher value thing, but you know, get those first few folks in the door.
And I did a similar thing to give some color to that. Like when I first launched what I call Magic Marketing days. That was my add on to Hey, did you have a couple of projects come up since our branding and you want to get these projects done. I launched them for like $950 and I gave a deal where it was like a deposit so you could do a deposit and a balance payment and that helped make it affordable. And I booked I think like six of them just from sending emails about them. And they were prime. They were clients I'd already worked with. They knew they could get stuff right away. And then I raised that rate over time right, with experience. And as I learned what the value was and how I got better at delivering result, and you said this, but I also want to call out one of the biggest things I teach in business coaching, my number one profitability tip that I think plays really well into this. Track your time, like, go ahead, and that's a great way to get started along with this. For VIP days, you should know how long it takes you to do certain things, especially your client work in this case, right? So I was able to create a magic marketing day where I would say, hey, I can do two to three big projects, or a handful of small ones. And I'd have list of example projects to say, but I knew how long it would take me to do a PowerPoint deck versus a PDF layout or whatever, because I've done them enough that I knew how long it took. So I think knowing your time can help you right size your VIP day. So you can get the transformation you want. And the amount of time you want to be working and what you want to be charging for your time as well, right.
Sarah: Yeah, I always tell everyone, if you're thinking about VIP days, maybe you're not ready to pitch your offer just yet. Don't wait too long, because we can get so stuck in that procrastination and perfection and trying to make sure we have it all figured out, which is absolutely the opposite of what you want to do. But the very first thing that you should do, like you said, is look at what you are doing. And like start today search tracking how long it's taking you to complete certain tasks or projects for your clients. How long are you spending going back and forth and emails and waiting on things. And if all that waiting time was gone, and you weren't wasting time, jumping from one project to the next. Because that was me, I used to work on like six clients in one day and it would be like jumping from one to the next, to the next, to the next day in and out of my inbox with all of these clients. Yeah, like, the multitasking thing is not not the right way to do it. But yeah, when you strip out all of that admin stuff, and you just look at the time spent on the actual work, it's really amazing how much you can get done.
Annie: I love it. Yeah, I think it's such a great thing. I think it's also some permission too as we've been talking that your VIP day might not look like your signature service. Like my signature service still takes 14 weeks to do, right? I can't do that in a day. But I can do elements of it enough to have to bust a bottleneck to have be more clear about what you're saying you do and what you want to be doing your business. So, you can right size things you don't have to like shove everything you're known for into a day, or even do like I don't do branding in a day because I don't believe branding in the way I do it can be done in a day. I think you need more time to think about it, right. So I think there's just a lot of permission around that. But I love that you've kind of given the structure and some flexibility to it. So yeah, the other thing I just do want to call out because it's Branding With Friends, is I think there's also value in how you present it and how you brand it. So, maybe not, you know you can start calling it a VIP day but name it after a result, right. So like I'm working toward a package or process day, for example, a magic strategy day, what is that result that somebody is looking for that transformation? How can you brand it? Can you have a logo for it, you know, fonts, colors, things that tie back into your overarching brand? So it really feels like a premium thing that they are investing in versus just maybe something you came up with off the top of your head, though many things begin in business that way. There's something about when you have it branded, when you really put it out there as something finesse that it feels like a very worthy experience of investment. What do you think about that?
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, just giving it like that kind of exclusive name. A lot of people get worried about calling it a VIP day because maybe it does take two days, maybe it takes a week. And so it's like, it can be a VIP experience. One of my clients calls hers a brand expansion experience. And so she's not doing that brand in the day, like you said, like the branding process takes weeks to do. But she does have clients to come back and hire her for a brand expression day. And that's like if they are maybe creating a course and they need the assets to go with her course. And so she'll spend a day doing like the sub branding for that course or whatever. So yeah, think about like expansion. It's just a really great word. Just think about what it's like kind of magical words that kind of evoke that premium feeling whether it's an experience or intensive. I mean some people also say intensive stresses them out and so –
Annie: I’ve come around to that like that intensive feels intense, like a lot of my clients I think can fill intimidated by technology by branding by how complicated all this gets. And I used to call them intensives or like referred to – and like who wants to do an intensive. Like nobody wants intensive, they want something that's going to make life easier for them, that's going to make their business easier to run and more enjoyable. So I'm all for that. So we've been sharing, you brought along two great tips, and we've had a lot of discussion around them. Figure out if VIP days could be right for your business, determine where you're going to start with VIP day pricing. I know we've got one more great tip to really pull it all together and get you selling a VIP day if you're interested in doing that. But I know that you brought something along for our listeners. What is that? How can our audience learn a little bit more about you and get something from you?
Don’t miss this special opportunity for “Branding with Friends” fans…
Grab The Ultimate VIP day checklist here.
Sarah: Yeah, so I created, after being asked about this over and over and over again, of course, I do have my signature course. And I have like all of that stuff. But for people just getting started trying to figure out if this is even going to work for you. I have a pretty comprehensive checklist. It's called The Ultimate VIP day checklist. And it's 15 like bullet points that are pretty descriptive for you to kind of figure out, do I have this. Do I have this? It’s like all the things that you need to have in place in order to have success with this model. Things like SOPs, a booking system, your contracts, your pricing strategy, all of that. So that's all on the checklist. And the link is, I think you have to link.
Annie: We'll put it in the notes. So anywhere you're watching or listening to Branding With Friends, you're going to see a link to Sara's ultimate VIP checklist. And I'm going to go check it out as soon as this is over. Because I know I can even learn things having been doing VIP days in some form for several years. So thank you for sharing that. And be sure to check it out. If you want to connect more with Sarah all her information will also be here in the episode so you can follow her, connect with her, learn some Day Rate Mastery from her. And if today got you thinking man, I need to be clearer, more consistent with my branding. I would like to have that logo that look for how I'm going to position my VIP day and package my services and you know, on a value ladder. I do this through branding services and business coaching. So you can always grab a free consult with me hop on my calendar at GreatestStoryCreative.com. Sarah, I'm so glad you've been here. We've just talked about how to figure out if they're right for you how to price them. What's that third thing we want to keep in mind about getting started with VIP days?
#3 Action Tip
Social proof sells!
Sarah: Okay, yeah, so my biggest tip for marketing is this, social proof sells. Social proof is my hands down number one way to sell anything that you're trying to sell. So that's how it really got started for me as when you're just getting started. Maybe you don't have an example of something that you've done in a day because you have never done one. But that's why it's so important to get those first few clients in at a really like no brainer price, so that you can deliver them with like an amazing experience and get their feedback. So not only can you ask them for a testimonial, but you can also screenshot their comments.
Like what I have found is like working – my VIP days are not face to face. They are me working behind the scenes doing a lot of work sending things over to them via like messenger and saying, what do you think about this? How does this look, kind of thing. And then their responses are typically I love it, it's so good. Oh my gosh, you're so fast. And it's just screenshot as much as you can, their positive reactions. And then go head over to social media or your email list and share what you've just done. Share those screenshots, of course, you can block out their names. But like, let people know that what you're doing in a day is really worth their time and attention and paying attention to it. Because that's really how I was able to kind of like just kind of blow up with this whole VIP day thing was I would do one I would share. I would get more clients and I would do a couple more share, get more clients. And the clients just kind of kept coming in when they would see the results that we were getting for other people and just one day.
Annie: Yeah, I love it. It's like don't keep it a secret, right. And I think the tip that I wish I'd known earlier in my business but I've been doing since 2020 is just what you talked about with the screenshot. So learn on your phone, how to like take a snapshot of emails and those sorts of things. So I've just been keeping a photo album on my, I have an Apple phone, so I keep it in like an I photo album. And literally I was in a call last week with my virtual assistant. She keeps me on the straight and narrow because I always want to create all these things and I meet with her every week. I'm like, Ah, I really want to create content around my book and around my business with all this social proof. I have all these albums. I tell you what, let's spend 10 minutes and I wrote Mad Libs. So I gave her like different options to write captions relating to what was ever in the screenshot. And I literally just uploaded this. I had like 150 screenshots or something over the years of just emails and just like you were describing, and she's working to put them in Canva and put them in a social media tool, I don't have to touch it, I can totally delegate it. So in like 10 or 15 minutes, because I’ve just been doing this as I have it. I'm going to have content for like, a year, two years. So like, if you ever watched my social media, you're gonna start to see this stuff. And I'm like, I didn't have to do it.
Sarah: Like, it's so smart. Yeah, I have all the screenshots and all the folders on my phone, in my slack. And it's like, I'm always like, kind of grabbing them and putting them in here and there, plug them into some emails, put them on a sales page, just put them everywhere. And like I said, you can cross off their names, or even better as you can have a contract with your clients that allows you to use their names, and then you can share that.
Annie: Right. And I think a lot of folks here are like coaches, and they worry about, you know, NDA. And so I think being able to, like, you can gray out pictures, you can close that, you know, but we're all seeing this as consumers. So, you know, it's also I think, a really great tool to be sharing and screenshotting that too like for yourself in terms of coming back to business behavior, and business confidence, right. And I talk in my book about like courageous confidence and like having that photo, that album on your phone, when you're having a rough day, like flipping through it and going, you know what, I do have value. I'm on the right track, I'm figuring this out, you know, can be just such a great tool for any solopreneur kind of business owner like you are. I don't know, I don't assume that you are a solopreneur anymore. But I am to no small extent. So thank you so much for sharing that.
So we need to, you know, figuring out if this is the right fit for us. Where to start with pricing, and then really giving that almost anybody can have social proof. So I love, it's not all about social media, but about social proof. So thank you for giving us that way to get started. And I think we can't wait to hear what Branding With Friends folks, what you guys are gonna do. What VIP days you're going to create and what results you're going to get for your clients.
So let us know if you're following us or you email us we'd love to hear and I hope that you enjoyed yet another episode of Branding With Friends. Many thanks to our special guests, Sarah Masci. Tune in next time when we'll tackle another topic where branding meets business. Until then, I'm Annie Franceschi of Greatest Story Creative. You can find all our episodes, branding resources, and so much more on our website. GreatestStoryCreative.com.
Stay awesome everybody and thank you so much!
“Branding with Friends” Episode 33
Show Notes + Resources
Here are 3 key tips for VIP Days in business:
You are a good candidate for VIP days.
Be transparent about your pricing and don’t be afraid to charge a premium for your services.
Social proof sells!
Resources:
Dive deeper into branding and growing your greatest business with Annie Franceschi:
• Subscribe to the Greatest Story Creative newsletter to have new episodes of “Branding with Friends” sent right to your inbox the day they premiere!
• Find past episodes at BrandingwithFriends.com
• Connect with Annie for consultations, resources, and more here on greateststorycreative.com
• Follow Annie & Greatest Story Creative online:
--- Facebook - facebook.com/greateststorycreative
--- LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/anniefranceschi
--- Instagram - @annie.franceschi
