This was many banana harvests ago.
My goal was to persuade people to support the World Wide Fund for Nature, and more specifically to pay a monthly fee that would go to a fund to help protect the African elephant from poachers (so they wouldn’t go extinct).
There were some other projects I worked on—all of them being for a good cause from big-name non-profits.
But the elephant project was my main one (ask me anything about African elephants, I know my stuff).
I got paid a decent wage.
My standard wage was about $13 an hour. I had a minimum of 3 “sales” to make every day and every sale I got after that paid me an extra $20 or so (I can’t remember the exact numbers).
There were also some bonuses and regular events going on at all times to motivate us to sell more (sometimes even doubling the amount you get for extra sales).
Point being.
You could get paid a good $300 for a day’s work if you happened to know how to sell.
And remember, this was all while I was still studying at my university. So not bad for a student.
But there was one main problem (aside from me not being a very good salesman).
The amount of time I had to waste.
I had to leave home at around 7 am to arrive at 8. Then we’d have to wait to gather everyone and split up into groups to efficiently cover the area we were selling on that day. Once the groups were made we had to do a bit of practice, go over our pitches, listen to a presentation about some new sales principle or tactic, then do a hype session, get in the car, drive to our destination, and get started knocking on doors.
Before I even knocked on a door I had to waste a total of 4 hours—all of which weren’t even paid because “we weren’t working”.
Then you HAD to take a 30-minute break in the middle.
And by around 5 pm we had to leave (this is when our workday stopped and we weren’t getting paid anymore) but we still had to drive back to the office (often an hour's drive), arrive, bring in a report, wait around a bit because everyone was so slow with everything, then finally do a performance review at the end of the day, and only then could I head home for the day (which often took another 30-60 minutes).
I often wasn’t home until 8 or 9 pm.
Remember I still had lessons to prepare, studying to do, and lessons to attend (this didn’t always go smoothly).
Now I’m not sharing this to complain or anything.
It was my own choice to do this. As it was my own choice to quit because of this a while later.
But I’m sharing this to prove a point.
Time is valuable.
It doesn’t matter how much you’re getting paid if you don’t have any time left over to do anything with the money you’ve earned. Working 24/7 only to pay the bills and keep on living (if you could even call this living) is no way to run your life.
And I’m definitely not the only one who lived in such a state.
I know of many a high-performing corporate types who earned top money but were so overworked (while not enjoying it) they weren’t able to be there for their friends, family, partners, and even their kids.
Let alone have time to relax, practice hobbies, spend time doing something you love, or even do something as simple as sit down and watch a movie.
And that’s the exact benefit being a one-person business owner/solopreneur/creator/whatever you want to call it gives you.
Freedom of time.
And while it’s not always difficult to make the transition, it’s certainly a lot easier than living your entire life living the way I described above.
I also happened to have helped a good dozen people make the transition from their 9–5 to working on their own one-person business to the point where they were able to quit their job and focus entirely on their new business (while having 10 times the amount of free time on their hands).
So if you’d like some help making the same transition, then I recommend you to hop on a clarity call with me where I’ll help you build an entire roadmap to get you out of your time-draining 9–5 and into your prosperous freedom-focused business.
Here’s the link: https://calendly.com/alexvandromme/clarity-call
PS: I’ll be doubling the price of a clarity call ($500 instead of $249) this Friday, February 9th at 10 pm CET.
Why am I increasing my prices?
Simply said. I’m way underpriced. So many people have told me I’m undervaluing myself and ultimately I agree.
Some (including both current & previous clients) told me even the $500 is underpriced.
But hey, good news for you, right?