Notes from Chris

Episode 1611

Deya Aliaga Kuhnle likes to say she never worked a nine to five job; because it was more like nine to whenever she finished—sometimes as late as 2am. Maybe some of our listeners can relate. That’s the life of climbing the corporate ladder. You have to pay your dues and earn success the hard way.

Deya had fallen into the social pressure of working at a big company through two internships. It was six months into her stint at the second when she realized something … doing this her whole life was not how she wanted to exist.

Yet she couldn’t just walk away. She admired those who quit with no safety net in place and risked it all ... but that felt scary. She had no savings and no backup plan.

Instead, Deya followed the tried-and-true model of working on her side hustle while keeping her day job. She called it “Try before you buy.” As for what this side gig would be, well, she wasn’t exactly sure yet. But she threw herself into anything that came her way to try to find out.

Deya didn’t mind. She was still working her day job and considered this a testing phase. In taking on odd jobs for digital companies over the course of a full year, she realized that working on small projects was great, but what she really liked was looking at the business holistically, on a process and systems level. Seeing the whole picture and diving into the nitty gritty details with the business owners was what she excelled at.

It was that service she’d offer—and she came up with her own name for it: “Digital Business Management” (DBM for short), something akin to an outsourced chief operations officer. She planned to pitch this service on the pain points it addressed.

At her peak earnings as a DBM, Deya takes home nearly nine thousand per month from four different clients, some of which take ten hours per week of work, and others that only needed a few tasks done now and then.

Being a systems thinker, Deya eventually turned everything she knew about freelancing as a business manager into a course called DBM Bootcamp. Since launching earlier this year it’s already turned into another lucrative project.

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Learn more about Deya and her business at her website, dbmbootcamp.com.

SEE ALSO:

• Q&A: How to get my first customer as a digital personal assistant?: Today’s listener wants to become a digital personal assistant to help people with tech support. How should he proceed?
• Famous iPhone Photo Leads to Series of Online Courses: A 365-day photo project transitions to a hustle teaching small business owners how to create videos using their smartphones.
• Q&A: Why do online courses cost so much … or so little?: Online courses are everywhere! Some cost $20 and others cost $2,000 or more. Why is there no consistency in pricing—and how can you determine what *your* price should be?

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work! Yours in the revolution,

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