Meet Shavavian

I am so excited today to talk with Shavavian! Shavavian, tell us a little bit about yourself. Give us a picture of life where you live and your family. We want to get to know you!

I’m in Alabama, in the United States. I’ve been married for 11 years and we have two kids. My daughter is four years old; she’s in daycare full time. My son is 10 months. I’ve been a VA for four years and in those four years, I did hold a job briefly. When my daughter turned two, my pastor called me and asked me to come and be his Executive Assistant. I said yes, but I kept my business. I had two clients for a while, and then one of them, her business took a turn. She wasn’t able to afford my services anymore. So, I just had one client while I was working a full-time job. 

A year and a half into the job, I got pregnant. After some internal back and forth, I determined I really wanted to be back at home with my son. I didn’t necessarily want to leave the job because I know how chaotic it was when I came on, and how I decreased that chaos. I thought, I don’t want to drop him (my pastor) back into chaos, but I need to be home with my son, that’s all there is to it. So, I resigned from that position in March 2024, gave birth to my son, took the month of April off for maternity leave and came back in May with two clients. And then I picked up another client that month. In August, I hit four, which is my capacity!

 

 

Shavavian’s First Steps as a Virtual Assistant

That’s a really great thing about being a Virtual Assistant, is that you get to choose what that capacity looks like! When I started, I had 5, maybe 10 hours available, and that was a stretch. I had two littles at home, and I was primarily working during nap time and then at bedtime. That’s where I started, but that’s not where I ended. And you get to make those choices, you get to decide what your capacity looks like. I’m curious, what type of experience did you have prior to becoming a Virtual Assistant? Did you have a corporate career? What did that look like?

No, I didn’t have a corporate career before I became a VA. I was working as an adjunct professor at my alma mater, and as an Assistant Office Manager at my church. So, I was in two different part-time roles. I resigned from the church in July 2019, got pregnant, and then resigned from the school shortly after that. 

 

I’m always curious to know what kind of backgrounds people are coming from, because that’s often an objection that people have to starting a virtual assistant business is, well, I don’t have the experience to do that, or I’m not sure I could do that. People from all walks and experiences can do this! Tell us how you discovered virtual assistance.

Yeah! I was at home with my daughter. She was about six months old, and I was just bored out of my mind. The very early days with a young child, you’re just like, okay, what else are we going to do? I started looking around for something where I could work remotely and stay at home with her. I don’t remember if I googled it or if I stumbled across it on YouTube, but I stumbled across virtual assistance and I was just like, I’m pretty sure I could do this. I was consuming all of Abbey’s content. I purchased The SavvySystem Virtual Assistant Course because I was just like, if someone could tell me exactly what to do, I know I could just crank this out and be full steam ahead. And that’s essentially what happened!

 

So many can relate to not knowing where to begin! Many VAs come to this line of work from different areas, different career paths, or different experiences, and don’t know exactly where to start. That’s why here at The Virtual Savvy, we try to give you free content to help you begin. We have our Checklist and Starter Kit that is a gold mine of information, and even our free training, ‘Becoming a Booked Out Virtual Assistant’. Those are both free on our website. We even have a super inexpensive training called Resignation Roadmap where we walk you through what it looks like to be able to quit your 9-5. What we try to do with our free content, and with the products that you can purchase from us here at The Virtual Savvy, is to give you the steps that you need to be able to take the action that you want to. 

 

Starting Out as a Virtual Assistant

Okay, so Shavavian, you started your business, you jumped into The SavvySystem Virtual Assistant Course. What were some of the frustrations that you experienced?

I think that looking back on it, there was a lot of decision fatigue. What colors should I pick? Does it need to resonate with people? Can it just be my favorite color? What should my logo look like? In the beginning, you’re kind of jumping into stuff that you may not have any experience with. If I can give you guys a tip, it’s to just make a decision. You can always change your mind later on, but at the end of the day, the most important thing is getting clients. And a lot of times if you’re doing the work well, if you present well, clients do not care about all that extra stuff. 

 

YES! Just make the decision because it’s likely going to change over time. I see it so many times happen inside of The SavvySystem, where our students will get caught up on colors or logos or whatever it is, and that can cause your momentum to stop. At the end of the day, so often the client doesn’t care whether the hex code ends in seven or ends in six. It’s okay. It’s you, and the gifts, talents, abilities and personality you are bringing to the table that’s most important, not those little details. Decision fatigue can absolutely be a frustration, but as Shavavian says, just make the decision and let’s move forward. 

How long was it before you got your first client?

I purchased The SavvySystem Virtual Assistant Course on July 24th, and I got one small project from a friend, just a one-off project, on July 30th. So six days? Then I landed my first client with a contract on August 11th. So from purchase to signed contract it was 19 days!

 

Love that! I think it’s important to note that it’s not always going to be two days, 19 days, even 30 days before you get your first client. Everybody’s journey looks different, and there are so many different factors and variables that play into what your journey looks like, so I love that you brought that up. What services did you offer at the very beginning?

I started with general admin packages. I think my rate might have been $30 or $35 an hour, and I think for the first one-off client, I might have given her a discount because it was just a very small project. At the beginning I was like, let me just take something and see if I can actually make this work, and get a quick testimonial. I was just trying to make something happen. It doesn’t have to look big. I know there are a lot of like, big success stories, but also there are those of us who start small and still succeed.

 

Oh, that! There is no one success story or one success path. If you go to our website, it is full of stories of virtual assistants that have found success for themselves. Sometimes it’s just 10 hours a week and that’s all that they have. Sometimes it’s just $500 a month or $2,000 a month. Sometimes it’s $20,000 a month. Everybody’s story is different, but that doesn’t mean that not every story is successful. You, as the business owner, get to decide what success looks like for you. How much are you going to charge? What are you going to offer? How how many clients are you going to take on? You get to make those choices. And for you, Shavavian, you recently hit a milestone goal, correct? Which was what?

$2,000 a month!

 

$2,000/ month, you said that’s booked out in your business. Yes, that’s great! Congratulations! Have your services changed at all since you started?

Kind of! I started out offering general admin packages, and of course, I kind of changed things over the years. Document creation, internet research, data entry. What I did is I put my least favorite items in the higher tier packages. I don’t really like data entry, so it’s only in one of my higher packages because, you know, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to be paid well for it. I started out with general admin, shifted things around over time, and for a little while I was offering Dubsado set up.

I got the certification. I studied, I took the test. I would do the whole setup for the client, and I made homework videos for the client. When I got a client under Dubsado setup, I realized that the inconsistency was not for me because sales is not my strong suit. With the setups, you’re always having to sell, you’re always needing to find your next client. And I was just like, that’s not where I want to spend my energy. So, I came back to general admin and just raised my prices. Essentially. 

 

 

Pivoting as a Virtual Assistant

We’ve said this many times around here, but being successful as a virtual assistant, and really in any business, is about being able to master the pivot! You are going to constantly come up to a crossroads, or a decision, a potential pivot. Being able to master that pivot is going to determine your success. 

So, your services kind of shifted a little bit. Has your ‘why’ inside of your business shifted as well? You’ve been in business for four years and when you started your business, life looked a bit different than it does now. Has why you continue to be a virtual assistant shifted at all?

Again, yes and no. I started because I wanted to be home with my daughter, and then I took on a full-time job just because of where we were in life. That’s what I needed to do for that time being. But then when I got pregnant again, I was just like, I was home with my daughter for two years. I’m not interested in pumping bottles of milk and sending my son to daycare and him coming home with all types of who knows what. Plus, you know, the lack of sleep with a baby, and then having to get up and go somewhere. Plenty of women do it, and more power to them, but that was not for me. It was not what I wanted. So, I resigned from that position. On my last day of work, I went into labor that night, actually. I’ve been home with him since he was born in March of 2024! 

 

Ahh, so good! I just love your story. Tell us, how have you grown as an individual? What have you learned about yourself in this process of starting your own virtual assistant business? 

Really, I’ve learned that I can do hard things. I’ve been a person up until probably about four years ago, maybe longer, that when stuff was getting hard in the business, I would just be like, ugh, okay. Should I even be doing this? I’m just going to give up and do something else, but then what am I going to do? I had those moments where I was just like, would it be easier to just get a traditional job? Do I need to be at home? But I felt that strong conviction that I did need to be at home.

So, I can do hard things. I had my business. I was able to get a few clients. I was able to set things up for myself well enough, but not as well as I wanted to. And then I started that job and I was dropped in to where there was like nothing. I had  one day of training and then they just let me loose. It was an Executive Admin Position for my church and there was nothing written down. I really just had to figure things out for myself. And that’s when I discovered, okay, I can do this. And I still had my business on the side.

So many of us need to give ourselves that personal affirmation of, ‘I can do hard things’. Those hard things look different for each of us in different seasons of our lives, but we all have to walk through those hard things, and yes, we all can get to the other side. 

 

Finding Her First Clients

Get this girl a microphone! YES! We can ALL do hard things! So, so good.

Where do you recommend finding clients? 

My first four clients were people that I already knew! I did the thing where you send the letter to all your people. The personal outreach template. Absolutely do that, guys! I know it’s scary. I know it’s nerve wracking. But, you need to make yourself more visible. Your next client doesn’t know you exist yet! If you’re not visible, if you’re not talking about your business, if you’re not getting on your own nerves by talking about it so much, you’re not going to be able to get to your next client because they don’t know that you’re out there waiting for them. 

What I did recently is I visited BNI meetings, because you can go visit a chapter for free. I drug my sister along because I can be very shy and introverted and don’t like crowds, don’t like new people. I made her come with me because she’s an extrovert and she loves that kind of thing. We got out there and I talked to a bunch of different people and I increased my marketing on Instagram. I hate, hate, hate content creation. So when you look at my Instagram, please know, it is the bare minimum to just have a presence. I’m not trying to do anything fancy. I just need people to know that yes, I am still in business.

So, you need to be talking to more people. You can get a virtual business card, and you can have a business card on your phone that you can scan and give to people. You can get some physical business cards for like $20 on Vistaprint and hand them out to people and leave them places that you go. Essentially you just need to talk to your circle of friends. When you’re talking to your circle of friends, and it comes up, make sure you mention, I am a virtual assistant. I am looking for a new client. Because when it comes up with someone else, you are the first person that they’re going to think of. I know some people think the market seems like it’s over oversaturated, but I went to eight BNI meetings and none of them had a virtual assistant seat. It seems like there’s a lot of us, but in the big picture, there really aren’t. There are still people that when I say I’m a virtual assistant, they’re like, what is that? 

 

Oh my, such good thoughts! It’s so true, part of our mission here at The Virtual Savvy is to make Virtual Assistance a known and respected industry!

Did you launch your business before or after creating an LLC for services? 

I do have an LLC, but I did not wait until I had that to get clients. I went ahead and started my business and then kind of did the backend stuff as I went along.

 

Yeah, that’s awesome. Here at The Virtual Savvy, we recommend that you do not have to have an LLC to simply get started. You can start right away. Now, depending on if you’re US based or in a different country, you need to know what you need to get started. Here in the US all you need to do is apply for your EIN number, and that allows you to be a sole proprietor and to be able to offer services. You do want to make sure that you check with your local city and state to make sure that you don’t have any other requirements. If the LLC is inexpensive and you’re able to do that within your budget, then go ahead and do that. It just adds another layer of protection, meaning that if anything were to go wrong, nobody can sue your personal assets, that LLC kind of creates a barrier and a boundary that they could only potentially take action against your business.

When did you start The SavvySystem Virtual Assistant Course?

I purchased it in July of 2020.

 

 

And how many hours a day are you currently working? 

Probably three and a half hours a day. I have one client that almost always takes at least one hour. And then my other three clients, their work is more simple and streamlined. Often, guys, the hardest part is getting the client. You already know how to do the work. You just need somebody to do the work for!

 

How do you find yourself competing with VAs that charge incredibly low rates?

Honestly, I just don’t accept anybody that’s not going to pay my worth. I’m not going to work for $10 an hour. I’m just not!

 

Yes! There ARE clients who will pay your worth, and if they don’t, they’re simply not a good fit for you. We want all virtual assistants to be able to make an income that can impact their family and change their lives. We want you to be able to create that freedom lifestyle no matter what that looks like for your family. 

How do you identify and avoid scams when you’re looking for new clients?

This is a great question. I actually have a list of things in my head to look out for. If the grammar is incorrect, for example, if you see a word and there’s a comma, a space, and then a comma. Is there a picture next to their email address? Is it an unusually long email address? Is it an @gmail.com, or something recognizable? If they’re offering you money immediately, it’s a no. If they ask you to get on Skype with them, it is almost always a scam. There’s a few red flags to look out for. Also, if they put, like, let’s say ‘sincerely, Nick Jones’, and then you go to the company that they work for or that they’re working with and you don’t see a Nick Jones there, or you go to LinkedIn and you try to pull up their profile and there’s no profile picture or there’s not a profile at all. Scam! Another red flag is if they’re asking you for something upfront, the only thing they should really be asking you is what you can offer them. 

 

Oh, that’s so, so true. And, in all of that, do your research. Pay attention. Go look at the company, click around, google the email address. We also have a YouTube video on identifying scam jobs. If you’re a SavvySystem student, there is a lesson inside of The SavvySystem how to avoid scam jobs as well. 

 

 

Advice for New Virtual Assistants

I’m going to give one last huge piece of advice, and then ask you to do the same, Shavavian. 

Here’s my piece of advice: Keep your blinders on! Can you look at other virtual assistants on socials and get some ideas and inspiration? Sure. However, what you don’t want to do is to get trapped in the comparison of, oh my gosh, she’s doing so much better than I am. Or, oh, I love her logo. I wish I would’ve created something like that. Or, oh my goodness, she’s making 2k/ month and I just wanna make $250 a month. Keep your blinders on and focus on YOUR journey. What’s the next step that you need to take? Take that step with boldness. Your journey is going to play out differently than anybody else’s – embrace it!

That’s great. For me, I think I would piggyback on what I said earlier, which is that I can do hard things, and add to it. Doing this, you are going to have to push yourself out of your comfort zone. Yes, we’re at home. Yes, we are remote. But, in order to get the clients that you want, you’re going to have to be visible in some capacity. I’m very much an introvert. My husband gets his energy from people and I’m just like, how? It’s going to take a little bit more of you than you probably want to give in order to get where you want to go. So going to those BNI meetings all summer, once a week, every single week, is that something that I  was excited to do? No, because I do not thrive in groups of people. But what I did to make myself do it, my sister came with me. Like, what can I do to make it a little bit easier for me because I know that this is hard for me or this is a blind spot for me.

So again, with social media, I don’t care about social media, but I know that I need visibility so that people know that I’m still in business. In some aspects it may just take the bare minimum from you. But in other aspects, you’re going to have to push yourself out of your comfort zone in order to get where you want to be. I still get nervous on sales calls, because sales is not my strong suit. I turn on the smile and make myself do it anyway. So for the hard things, how can you set yourself up for success? Yeah. How can you make it easier for you, even though this is a hard thing for you. 

 

Oh, that is SO good! I love, love, love being able to bring guests on and have them share their stories, because there are always so many golden nuggets. Shavavian, thank you for joining us. You are amazing and we can’t wait to see what else you accomplish moving forward!

 

Prefer to hear Shavavian’s story on video? Watch below!

 

 

 

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