Watch this interview with Glen Gallarde for another inspiring #JasSuccess episode.

After Glen quits his corporate job as a Data Analyst, he enrolled in the Virtual Assistant Bootcamp Accelerated to get back into freelancing.

From there, he learned best practices for his profile and cover letters, applying AIDA (the method we teach in the Bootcamp) all throughout.

In this interview we talked a lot including:

✅ How he was able to start at a rate of $15/hr for WordPress web design.
✅ How he fell in love with Thrive Themes, and
✅ How he was able to increase his hourly rate from $15 to $25/hr.

and much more.

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Notable Quotes:

• I had regrets working in a corporate setting. There was this one time, I worked in the office and the whole day I was just daydreaming what my life was when I was a freelancer.
• In freelancing, the time you wake up, you’re already there, your work station is right there, so there's no morning commute.
• It’s not like 9, 8hours a day job, in freelancing; I get to work for like, 4hours a day and then I get to choose if I work today or not, that’s the huge difference.
• I don't really earn much in freelancing, but what the good thing about it is I also get have, have the freedom to choose when and where to work.
• I am traveling but I'm also working as well. It’s not just only traveling but it’s also working anywhere, its "work-ation" as they say, as long as you have internet.
• It was my last month in the corporate job, and I have already prepared - I have  enrolled in the VA Bootcamp.
• I'm also thankful to Jason because he was the one who really made an impact in my life, and , the one who encouraged  me to go back in freelancing.
• In the first part of the video[VA Bootcamp], you were asking us questions like, "what is your motivation? ", "why are you here?", So that's how I build a foundation in my freelancing journey .So I am really sure about the reason why I’m doing this, and what are the things that  needs to prepare that are really helpful in everything. Before, my career in freelancing , has no direction, I was just so happy that I have a freelance job and that’s it.
• Find your best spot, I mean there’s a lot of things you can do online. There’s a lot of job out there that you can do. You can try  everything  and search what kind of work that really gives you drive into passion  or  find something that you really love doing. Never be afraid to try, and learn new things and explore, after that you will be aware of yourself  about, what kind of work you'll be suited in, because you cannot do everything.
• If you have to spend, why not invest it into a good foundation like paid courses for you to learn and upgrade your skills, I mean, the things I’ve learned was not all gained for free.  You also have to pay and enroll in short courses out there.
• Make sure that whatever you do, you give your clients the best result  and make them feel happy with your work.
• Put yourself in the position of your client,  if they will render your service, what will you do to satisfy them . What  are the efforts you''ll convey  to show you were the right person  they've hired, and make sure that you'll provide excellent  work . Whether the rate is high or low for that project. Just make sure you give them the best thing and the quality service that you have.

Glen Gallarde’s journey to Freelancing:

• A graduate of Computer Engineering. He had his first gig as a Freelancer for 2 years as a Web developer.
• He decided to try a corporate job for a year as a Data Analyst but made a transition back to freelancing when he found out a huge difference of working from home and working in a corporate setting.
• He decided to quit his corporate job because he can’t take the hours wasted on traffic. He commuted each day to his office only to find himself stuck on the road for hours and that only makes him doubly tired at the end of the day.
• He built his foundation of freelancing through watching YouTube tutorials, downloaded free eBooks, enrolled in online School, reading and a lot of research, and learned more when he started doing his own projects.
• Now, he’s happy and accomplished with his freelancing journey. He finds time to travel and work at the same time.

Q & A Highlights: 

Which eBook did you download?

If I can remember correctly, the title would be Head First HTML and CSS by O’Reilly.

Do you still code for animating your website?

I still do codes, but it’s really minimal, because in the Thrive Themes, they have a lot of features that you can just drag and drop, and that’s the good thing about it, because you can see your clients that they can do it on their own.

How long did it take you before you considered specializing in Thrive Themes?

After I’ve known Thrive Themes, I jumped right into it.

All of my sites are driven by Thrive, how fast will it take you to gain experience with Upwork? What made you gravitate to Thrive Themes at the chosen expertise?

First, how fast in Upwork? It was only like one month and after that it went crazy, I mean I got a lot of invites. The training – No, I just follow their blogs, there were a lot of how to, use their product and I was really, you could say faithful in reading in all of those blogs, and I learned a lot. Their tutorials are really good, and I think they’re coming up with courses soon as well.

Before you went into Thrive Themes, what was your hourly?

I didn’t really mind about the hourly, I was just happy with like having earning $5 an hour. After I specialized, I tried to kinda play around with it, so I tried $15, then there were other clients inviting me, and then $25, there still clients inviting in, after that I got a lot of fixed priced projects.

Have you checked out Thrive University?

I know there’s Thrive University, but I seldom visit the place, I just follow the blog, but if there’s a specific thing that I want to learn, like just to improve on something, I can always go to Thrive University, there’s a lot of good stuff there.

Do you use your own Thrive Themes for your client or do they have their own?

Mostly, they have their own license, because if you offer your license to your client, you would have to pay for what they call Agency License from Thrive Themes, just to be legit.

What plugins are you using?

Aside from the basic Thrive plugins, like Thrive Architect, there’s Thrive Lead, Ovation, a lot of plugins already inside Thrive Themes that you can use for conversion focus websites, but the usual plugins like Contact Form 7, the regular Yoast SEO and stuff, the basic I think it’s called Advanced Custom Forms.

What are your plans in moving forward?

Another thing I learned from Jason is to Scale up – Use what you have right now to build a business. Scale up – I want to also have my own team, team working for me, at the same time I want to teach them at the same time, they will help me with some of the clients that need their website done. My goal also is really to find passive way of getting an income, or you know passive income stuff like making your brand as a business.

Do you have any resources links for Web designers in general not only in Thrive Themes, I also plan on specializing with Divi?

I can give you good sources to learn website, work, web development, I’ll put that in my to-do-list and I’ll send it to Jason.

You said you have invitations from clients, how do you attract clients?

A lot of things I learned from Jason is to really make your profile look good. First is to get a good headshot of the profile picture and then in the position in Upwork, you really have to specialized in something or you have to be very specific in the position that you want to work on and make sure that you take exams, just the basic exams because in my profile in Upwork, it was, its only the basic stuff, and also make your profile overview good. Jason taught me how to write in AIDA style, AIDA – you will learn that if you enroll in a course, it’s really effective, even Thrive Themes they taught about AIDA, but the first time I heard it was from Jason.

You also have to upload your portfolio, even if the project didn’t come from a client you can make your own portfolio as a project and then you can put it up in Upwork.

How about Security Plugins?

Those plugins, the security for anything plus anything that you will use in WordPress, you have to research on it first because the technology is really rapidly changing, so if I say right now Thrive Themes  is really good, we don’t really know if next month if it’s still number one, so if you use plugin you have to do research on it if it’s already, if it’s still working, still updating, so for me, I don’t really have a list of plugins that you must choose, because every week, they, we have new plugins that they introduce so it’s up to you to study on it and make sure that if you use it, it will really benefit your website, or your clients website.

Did you stick to upwork or do you have direct clients?,

After Upwork, There are some of the clients, they decided to transition to work with me directly, so why not.  I still do Upwork, but currently, most of my clients are direct. Half came from Upwork, other half they knew me because of referrals, Word-of-mouth- that’s really important guys, even if you’re doing a client a very small job, you make sure that you do it in an excellent manner because you’ll never know they have friends who needs a developer, or someone they would really mind to refer you if you do them a good job.

How did you find Thrive Architect, have you really explore it?

I am currently using it right now, it’s really more advanced than Thrive Content Builder. One thing I love the new Architect right now is that they have this setting where you can set it on iPad, on mobile, so that more or less, you can really check if the design would work well in any screen-sized device, I would advice everyone using Thrive to use Architect even though before it was launched, they already gave us access for the plugin. It has a lot of bugs, I even sent a report and then they thanked me that I found that kind of bug, but right now it’s really fixed. It’s doing well for Thrive Architect, and I’m loving using it.

Do you also have local clients? If so, is your rate the same for your local clients?

I cannot say it’s a client because one thing that I do is I find a local or non-government, NGO, I offer them free websites, I had one – it’s called JCI WoMandaue. I offer them free services just to give back in the community, they’re local, they’re from here but they’re not paying for anything, it’s for free, and it’s good, because it’s also good to help them, you know, they would also refer you, but my motive was really to give back.

One of my first local client was Jason, he trusted me to work with his websites, so I was also honored to do that. Our church also needed a website, we first work on it but right now they’re doing the maintenance and stuff.

Work from Home Roadmap (WFHR) website was really amazing, it was really a miracle for me, it kinda open up a lot of freelancing for me, kinda open up doors of opportunities from other clients, so it’s kind of a blessing as well.

You’re looking to grow, looking to scale up, where you’re going to have these people under you, have you started working on that yet?

I have friends who work for me as a Content Writer for my clients, I just refer them and yep it kind of works that way. I have them in on my list, if there’s a client that wants me to do content stuff, I don’t say No to it, I just refer it to a friend of mine.

Up to how many ang Thrive Agency to create web pages for clients, free domain na po ba yung sa clients?

It is not a free domain, when you get the Thrive Agency license, you will have the full Thrive Themes suite, and it’s only the Theme and plugins but not the domain.

Are you usually working with US clients? What can you say about the cultural differences between American and Australian clients?

US clients and some are from Australia. They’re both the same, when you say something you need to be specific when you say you will finish this, you don’t just say you’ll finish this, but you will have to say a date or you give a date, you know, once you give a date, you have to commit on that and one thing I noticed is that they really love it when you really have an open communication to them. If there is a problem, or you have a question, you have to ask them you have to tell them everything you need to update them, if you’re going out to see your friend, and you’re not able to work with it, you can just tell them bluntly and they’ll understand, as long as you have that level of relationship where in when you say you’ll do this, you can always deliver.

Have an open communication; just be honest, if there’s a thing you cannot do or can do just be honest, that’s it. It will go a long way with your relationship with your client.

Have you ever declined a client?

A couple of times, some clients I declined, but some they offer me this kind of rate, but I accept it but I change the terms, I kind of level up their budget so they would ask me “why are you asking for a higher rate compared to a lot of this freelancers who applied for this job?” I just tell them that I am what you see in my profile and as you can read the clients, they love the kind of work that I do and most importantly, I give value to their business and one thing I’ve learned from Jason is that you’re not paying them for your time but they’re paying you for the kind of service that you give them. You give value.

For Lead Generation, what software are you using?

Thrive Themes – they have that Thrive Leads, they call it Thrive Leads, its powerful, it works well with WordPress.

Do you have any last words of advice to those who are watching, maybe those newbies or people who are interested in Web design or people who are interested in the 100K Program, that’s a lot of audience

Make sure that whatever you do, make it to a point that you give some, give your clients something that they would be happy.

Put yourself in the position of the client, if you give them, if you provide a service for them, ask yourself if you were the client, would you be happy to receive this kind of service from the freelancer? And make sure that you provide excellent quality job even if how, how pay, or high pay you have that project, just make sure you give them the best that you have. Give the best service.