The $20k/mo Lifestyle Model

*updated links

This is my model.

There are many like it.

But this one is mine.

I started my business career by borrowing money to attend Underground Online Seminar in 2010.

I had my first $104,000 year in 2014.

By 2016, I was making an average of $20k/mo. I only had to work ~20 hours a week to maintain it.

By 2020, I’d gotten my weekly workload down below 10 hours, still averaging $20k/mo. I’d prioritized lifestyle, not growth or scale or hustle.

I lived in one of the richest parts of Los Angeles (Marina Del Rey). I drove a convertible mustang. I ate at nice restaurants. I was highly respected in my industry. By all accounts, I had “made it” and I was barely 30.

This is the model that got me there.

This is the model that sustained me through a complete restructure of my life in 2023.

In this article, I’m not going to gate-keep the information. I’m going to explain everything about the model and how to do it.

For those of you who want the Fast Track to implementing the model in the next 60-90 days, you can check out my Black Friday offer here

The Black Friday offer contains every single tool, tactic, and strategy I used to implement this model. Just swipe it and deploy it for yourself.

The $20k/mo Lifestyle Model

You will want to have these 3 things:

• A Medium Priced Retainer

• High Priced Projects

• Low Priced Products

Sure, you could get to $20k/mo with just 1 or 2. But with all 3, they compound off each other and decrease the time, effort, and energy you need to keep it going.

It doesn’t matter which one you start with.

You probably already have one of these going. If that’s the case, pick one of the other two to get started with.

The Retainer

There will always be business owners or clients who want ongoing work, and you only need ONE.

Over my career, I stair-stepped 1-2 retainer clients up from $2000/mo all the way up to $7500/mo + royalties.

I have a special method to doubling my retainer fees that I teach in the Black Friday bundle - it’s only $100 but the page comes down at 10pm PST

This is a specific kind of retainer. It needs to have the following:

• Longevity - The work needs to continue for a long time, ideally forever.

  • Things like daily/weekly email broadcasts, social media posts, blogs, ghostwriting, website maintenance, agency work, media buying, etc.

• Stability - The company has stable revenue and needs the work done more than they need the money it costs.

  • Established companies who have employees are better candidates than solo-preneurs, coaches, consultants, etc.

• Mobility - You should be able to double your retainer fees over the course of the retainer.

  • Companies pay based on value, so doubling your retainer is about providing more value

• Specificity - You should know exactly what you’re doing every month.

  • Retainers that are based on a number of hours per month are bad. So are retainers where you’re not sure what you’re going to be working on.

• Simplicity - You shouldn’t have to brain very hard.

  • The ideal retainer is a skilled job that you can do in your sleep. The business can’t do it, it’s hard to find someone else to do it, and you do it so easily that you can spend energy on other things.

“But Lukas, how do I find and get these retainers?” - I’m not answering that in this article. Buy the bundle if you want to know my 2 best ways to get clients.

Projects:

Business owners and clients need projects & one-off work all the time. The trick is to only do higher priced work.

The right Project provides enough money to last for several months if you had to live on it alone. So for me, that meant $20k-$25,000 per project. For that price, I wrote webinar funnels, sales funnels, paid ad funnels, and launches.

You can sell any service at a higher ticket price. You just need the right positioning and the right clients.

The Right Positioning

Business owners spend more money when they see a few things:

• Trust + Authority. If you look, sound, and act trustworthy and authoritatively, business owners spend more money with you.

• Speed. Business owners prefer things done faster, as long as the quality doesn’t dip.

• Visuals. Most business owners didn’t like school. They prefer things visually obvious, so if they can’t understand why your service is valuable in 2-3 seconds, they’re less likely to value it at higher prices.

The Right Clients

Some business owners are cheap. Others love to negotiate and break you down. Ignoring those and only working with the right clients is key to your $20k/mo Lifestyle (and your sanity)

Here are few things to look for:

• Responds to you quickly.

• The first thing out of their mouth is NOT about price.

• Generally successful and chill. Proactive, not desperate. Moves quickly, but isn’t rushed or urgent.

“But Lukas, do clients still pay those kind of fees for big projects?”

Someone I know closed a $50,000 consulting project around AI this week. Yes. Business owners always pay well for projects that are valuable to their business.

Products:

Historically this was the hardest for my students to do, but it’s actually the easiest because it requires exactly the same amount of work as a retainer or project…you just don’t have a client waiting for your deadline.

Products can be anywhere from $10 to $10,000, but I found the sweet spot for my niche to be around $297-997. That was the best blend of profit and volume.

“What kind of product should I make?”

Different industries have different sweet spots, and I’ve worked in over 200 industries, so I know a lot about what the market responds to. Buy the bundle if you want to know the easiest, fastest niches to make products for.

“How do I sell a product if I don’t have an audience or traffic?”

Products can be sold with paid ads, organic marketing, or both. You don’t need something special. I grew my email list organic through social media to over 3,000 people, and I managed to make 6 figures /year from that size list for 8 years straight.

You do not have to make the product before selling it. Just run a “beta” to presell the product and then make it if enough people buy the beta. Yes, this requires an audience, but I’ve seen people presell a few dozen product sales with an audience of less than 100.

The best way to look at products:

The goal is to have a product suite that you can sell in an evergreen way. I had an evergreen program, then sold live workshops and a cohort-based mentorship program.

Final notes

The model is deceptively simple. You might think it’s a lot of work, but it’s really the same work done for 3 different reasons. If you’re super clever, you can do the work once (get paid by a client) and turn that work into a Retainer and a Product at the same time. I was not super clever, I kept making new stuff all the time.

Retainers, Projects, and Products

Put together, and that’s how I made $20k/mo with only 10-20 hours of work a week.

When I started this, it took me 3 years to get these going.

With my Black Friday bundle, you could get all 3 rolling in less than 60 days

And for today until 10pm PST, it’s just $100

If saving 3 years of your time is worth $100 to you, then buy the bundle.

Here’s the full details of the Black Friday Offer: Black Friday Offer Is Closed

For today only, I’m combining 6 trainings into one bundle:

The Rapid Copy Method Workshop:

• Write an entire sales letter in 2 hours…WITHOUT AI (it’s even faster with AI)...

• Use this method to write any kind of copy lightning fast…

• Immediately add value to your business with new, better copy

• Immediately add value to your client’s business with updated copy

The 'Get Clients With $5 Ads' Workshop:

• Have a constant stream of qualified leads for the price of a coffee

• Never do cold outreach again (unless you want to)

• Never worry about where your next client is coming from

• Easily start a waitlist of people eager to work with you

The 'Double Your Retainer' Mini-Class:

• Immediately double your current client’s value

• Or, if you don’t currently have clients, learn how to 2x…5x…even 10x the money you make per project

The 90 Day Playbook:

• Have a step-by-step blueprint telling you exactly what to do for the next 90 days in order to grow to $3k/mo as a copywriter/solo-preneur…

• Or, if you’re already full-time, the exact blueprint to getting to consistent and reliable $10k+ months.

• Create “easy-yes” $2,500-$8,000 packages that require practically no selling

• *This mini-course will be updated for 2025 in the coming months, but the content is 100% useful and working today

Getting Clients With Outreach (2 classes):

• Send cold emails to ideal clients that get a 15-30% open rate...

• Send warm emails to ideal clients that immediately generate trust, goodwill, and opportunities...

SNAFU BONUSES:

Since the sales pages aren’t working and I’m doing everything manually, it’s going to take longer for you to get access. As a ‘thanks for your patience’, I’m going to be adding a few bonuses to this offer for every single buyer. Anyone who buys before 10pm PST will get these bonuses.