Intern Manages Businesses For Six-Figure Income

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Hey there, what's up, Chris Guillebeau here, your host of Side Hustle School. Got a really interesting story for you today that presents an interesting idea. So interesting story first, you're going to hear about an intern who manages businesses for a six-figure income. I guess she's a former intern now because she actually created a new job title that led to a full-time income and a new online course. So a lot has happened here, but I really love this idea of creating a new job title for yourself. Can you create a new job title for yourself or for your hustle or for

your service and instantly become more valuable? And I always think when you're making up a title, who decides these things? If you're working in a company, then presumably there is somebody that has to approve that title or generate that title in the first place. But if you're just doing something on your own and you're not claiming some title that requires licensing or government approval, you can't just go and decide to be a doctor or something. But otherwise, I remember a few years ago, a couple of friends of mine, this goes back like maybe a decade, I should say, a couple of friends of mine created International Minimalist Day. And that's when

minimalism was getting this, lots of attention, big boost. And so they're like, well, let's just make a holiday, International Minimalist Day. And how do they do that? Well, they just made it. They just decided it was a thing, got some people to write blog posts about it and value have this pseudo holiday. So it's not like a nationally celebrated holiday, but the point is they made

their own holiday. So what about a job title or service title that you invent? Today's featured case study, as mentioned, did exactly that. She created a service she calls Digital Business Management. What is that exactly? And how was she able to earn this full time income before

actually quitting her full time job? Alright, that's the story. It's coming up in 30 seconds, quick message from our sponsor, really appreciate our sponsor, and I appreciate you our listeners. Stay tuned. Daya Kunal 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. Daya 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, risking it all. But that felt scary. She had no savings and no backup plan. So instead, Daya followed the tried and true model of working on her side hustle while keeping her day job. And she called it try before you buy. As for what

her side gig would be, well, she wasn't exactly sure at first. But she threw herself into anything that came her way to try and find out. It started by freelancing as a content assistant. That led to work as a freelance project manager and all around organizer. She searched for clients any way she could think of on job boards, freelancing websites, as well as cold pitching businesses where she knew someone. These were all free marketing sources, but they took a lot of legwork. Daya didn't mind.

She was still working her day job and considered this a testing phase. And taking on odd jobs for digital companies over the course of a year, she realized that working on small projects was great. But what she really liked was looking at a business holistically on a process and systems level. Seeing the big picture and then diving into the nitty gritty details with the business owner was what she excelled at. And it was that service she'd offer. And she came up with her own name for it, Digital Business Management,

or DBM for short, something akin to an outsourced chief operations officer. She planned to pitch this service on the pain points it addressed. And this is what her pitch looked like. If you're struggling with getting things done in your business, if you're bogged down by hundreds of Slack messages from your team, if you can't seem to figure out how to set up clear systems or automate your process, I'd love to help. Those words got conversation started using the same sources she tried before, job boards and freelance websites. But it still took a while

for Daya to be taken seriously in this new role. Her model was to go into businesses and take care of the pain between getting things done and then organizing for things to get done. And that took time to persuade potential customers. But after several months, Daya was soon offering her Digital Business Management services for one client paying a monthly retainer. Focusing solely on that client meant she could do an amazing job, integrate into their business and really have a meaningful impact in a short space of time. But Daya had a secondary motive since she knew getting clients would be

helped by strong word of mouth. By her second year, she was booked solid based solely on referrals. This was also around the time she quit her full-time job to go all in, a decision she has never regretted. At her peak earnings as a DBM, Daya takes home nearly $9,000 a month from four different clients, some of which take 10 hours a week and others that only need a few tasks done now and then. Being a systems thinker, Daya eventually turned everything she knew about freelancing as a business manager into a course called DBM Bootcamp. And since launching earlier

this year, it's already turned into another lucrative project. So what does a DBM do, Digital Business Manager? Again, it's essentially a strategic operations person who's looking at both of those things, I guess, strategy and operations. But according to Daya, she's got it broken down. 30% checklist and planning aficionado, 25% manager of all the things, 20% official fire putter outer, 15% behind the scenes ninja, and 10% brainstorming and strategy fiend. I believe that adds up to 100%, but I did not audit those numbers. So I think the key point

is what I mentioned in the beginning, this is freelance operations help, it's valuable, but what kind of takes it to the next level is creating a whole brand around it, creating a brand and as I said, giving it a title like DBM, which I had never heard of before. But that's not surprising, because Daya made it up. So she also says I'm a super risk adverse type a warrior. So I knew I couldn't just quit and make the leap, you know, without a safety net. That's why I spent a year building my hustle to match my full time income. So of course, that's very much aligned with our

philosophy here at side hustle school. If you're a new listener, know that we are all about building security and options, additional freedom and income for yourself in whatever place you are now. So it's not about waiting so much as it is asking yourself what can you do with the tools and the time available to you now. I'll leave you with that today. Congratulations to Daya and listeners inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. To find today's show notes,

including links to Daya's work, anything else I mentioned in the episode, just come to sidehustleschool.com/1611. 1611 1611. I also encourage you to subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. Very grateful for anybody who leaves us a rating and review as well. That's how our show has spread all over the world to an amazing community of awesome people such as yourself.

Thank you again for joining me today. I hope you'll come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.