Virtual Assistant Business: Nivia Lopez's Journey to Flexible Entrepreneurship

[00:00:55] Sanjay Parekh: Our guest today is passionate about helping female entrepreneurs succeed. When she began freelancing as a virtual assistant supporting these entrepreneurs, she quickly learned she loved all things digital marketing. Though marketing is her main gig, she also has a side hustle doing video editing. So, our guest is a freelancer supporting entrepreneurs, an entrepreneur herself and has a side hustle.

Talk about an ideal guest for this show. Nivia Lopez, welcome to the show.

[00:01:18] Nivia Lopez: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

[00:01:20] Sanjay Parekh: So, I'm excited because you got a lot going on, which is fun because I think we're going to have a lot to talk about. But before we get into all of that, give us a little bit about your background and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:31] Nivia Lopez: Sure. A little bit about my background before freelancing, I just did social work, human services type work. So that was like my in-person job. I worked with victims of abuse, and it was completely different from what I do today. When I had my first daughter was when I started thinking about how I wanted to figure out how to have a more flexible schedule and not leave her all the time.

It was heartbreaking to leave her with somebody else all day. So, I really started Googling what to do. Actually, a little bit before that, before I had kids I always loved to travel and I looked a little bit into that, but not seriously. I was like, oh yeah, some people can write a blog and travel the world, but yeah, maybe not for me.

And I did start a side hustle back then with drop shipping, but I could not keep up with building that and my job. And it was just a lot more to learn than the course creator that I paid, than they really let on. So, I was like, ah, this might be harder than I thought. And I gave up a little bit then, but when I had my daughter, I was like, oh, this is a big motivation.

I need to figure out how people actually do this because I know people do, people can build their own businesses and have a flexible life, and be able to travel and be there for their kids whenever they need them. And I was like, I can do it. So, I did find a mom that created a course on how to start a virtual assistant business.

And that's really where I started. She really taught me how to build a business from the beginning, which is where I was really hung up. I was like, oh, how do I start an LLC? And like all of these things.

Is this official? I don't know, it's those beginning steps where you're just not really sure that what you're doing is real.

[00:03:33] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah

[00:03:33] Nivia Lopez: You're so used to working for somebody else that it's hard to take that initial step and once I did that it was amazing because I was able to build that and see that, hey, yeah, I can do this, and I have all these skills that can translate online.

[00:03:46] Sanjay Parekh: I like how you described your job as your first in person job, whereas none of the jobs now, I assume, are in person, right?

[00:03:54] Nivia Lopez: No, I don't work in person anymore. Yeah, that was my first out of college in person job. I should say I've had other jobs too.

[00:04:04] Sanjay Parekh: But it's funny, the time that we're in now where you have to delineate like this is a in person, show up job versus a remote kind of digital job. And it's neat that we have this ability.

I think you answered one of my questions by talking about the drop shipping This is not your first entrepreneurial venture, the drop shipping maybe was. Was there something before drop shipping that you did?

[00:04:26] Nivia Lopez: Not really, not entrepreneurial. I mean, I've had a bunch of other jobs but not anything like that. That was my first taste of it where I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. And I had a shop, it was doing okay but it was like I had to continue to be consistent with it and that's where I was like, oh. I was like, hmmm, maybe not for me.

[00:04:45] Sanjay Parekh: Right. Yeah. So, what was the struggle? There was being consistent with trying to find products to sell or marketing?

[00:04:52] Nivia Lopez: Yeah, it was actually marketing. I didn't know anything about marketing, really, back then. I did do a little bit of business school in college when I was figuring out what I wanted to do, but not marketing. That wasn't a class I took. So that wasn't until much later that I took online courses on marketing.

[00:05:09] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah If I can ask, what kind of products were you drop shipping? What was it that the store was selling?

[00:05:15] Nivia Lopez: Yeah, so I went with the small bracelets and jewelry and little items because of how cheap they were to ship. So, the thing is they taught me the course how to find something that was made in China and then It would be drop shipped from there and you have to think of shipping costs too. So I was like, oh, those are really light.

[00:05:37] Sanjay Parekh: Shipping costs will eat you alive. I know that I had a gift wrap paper company that we started a couple of years ago and then folded. And shipping costs for oblong shaped objects is very, very painful and have not fully figured that out yet. But maybe one day.

Okay. You're doing the drop shipping, you shut that down. Then you're like, okay, what next? You do the virtual assistant thing. You've now shut that down too, right? Or are you still doing that?

[00:06:11] Nivia Lopez: There was a big time gap between drop shipping and virtual assistant because around the time I was trying to figure out drop shipping, it was really when I had seen like, oh man, all these people get to travel.

And that was when I was about to start my first out of college job where I wasn't going to be able to take long vacations just because I didn't work as a server or bartender anymore. And I could just be like, hey, I'm going to be gone a few weeks. And I was like, oh man, I'm going to have to actually save my vacation days and all of this stuff.

So that was my mentality there. But yeah, I dropped that. There was a long gap where I actually did a regular nine to five in-person job. And then I had a baby during that time. I did my maternity leave. And after that was really hard. After maternity leave was when I was like, oh my gosh, I need to figure out how to work from home, not drop shipping, because I obviously didn't find joy in that, but something else.

I learned how to become a virtual assistant and I was like, okay, but if I'm going to be able to consistently do this then I need to work with people that I really enjoy doing work for, so that was my main goal. I figured out that working with other moms that were in business was bringing me a lot more joy than drop shipping and not really working with anybody, if that makes sense.

I would start working with women that were making an impact in other people's lives with their businesses and I was like, oh I'm doing something good. This feels good and this feels empowering, and it feels amazing and as a virtual assistant you can really learn how to do so many things. And once I learned that basically anything is figureoutable, which I know is not a real word, I was like, wow, I can do anything!

Which is true. You can do anything as long as you actually set your mind to do it.

[00:08:09] Sanjay Parekh: I think that word, by the way, is the definition of being an entrepreneur, right? Everything has to be figureoutable, and that's your job is to figure it out.

[00:08:19] Nivia Lopez: Exactly. I just figured out how to do all the things and I was like, all right, this is really fun.

[00:08:25] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So, from that kind of epiphany, now you do marketing for that same group of folks. So, in starting that out, were the people that you were a virtual assistant for the ones that were your first clients for the marketing stuff, or did you have to find clients some other way?

[00:08:43] Nivia Lopez: I don't think any of my initial ones were. It wasn't until probably about six months in that I was like, okay, I want to start niching down a little bit more into marketing.

And now I have a few clients that were really looking for more marketing support, but could only afford a virtual assistant back then. So yeah, that's how that kind of got started because like some of the people I started with was, there was a few that were admin assistants in the beginning.

It was like data entry. I'm like, okay, that's super easy, plug things into a database. Others were copywriting so I was like, oh, okay, I'm actually good at writing. So, I learned how to do copywriting there and blog writing, which isn't really something I do. I don't write blogs, but as a virtual assistant, I was like, sure I can do that.

So things like that. And that's where some of the, I did a lot of podcast editing back then cause that was an easy thing for people just looking for an editor that were maybe starting their first podcast and couldn't pay a ton for a whole production company. So, I learned how to edit a podcast and I was like, oh, very cool.

And that was really fun because I could listen to podcasts episodes during the day. So yeah, it was like slowly, things like that started building, but once I started, there was one person that I started working with doing email marketing support for. And that's when I started saying, oh, wow, this is really interesting because I like psychology.

And when it comes to marketing, there's a whole lot of psychology that goes into it and I started learning through her how important that was. And I was like, this is really interesting. I actually enjoy this. So, I decided to take a course on marketing and I was like, oh, okay. I really enjoy this stuff.

And then I learned how to build funnels and all that stuff and how email marketing really works and all of that.

[00:10:38] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So, when you're starting all of this, was there anything that made you nervous about doing all this, like taking this leap? And if so, what?

[00:10:47] Nivia Lopez: Oh, definitely. There's a lot of imposter syndrome for sure.

Cause I'm like, I spent all this time in college learning how to be a social worker, and this has nothing to do with that, and I love helping others. Now I get to volunteer and help others and things like that, but I was obviously an in person social work type of job isn't going to give me much flexibility with my family and it's not going to pay much.

So I didn't know that when I was in college. It was a whole thing.

[00:11:16] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:11:18] Nivia Lopez: But yeah, there was a lot of imposter syndrome. And also there was just a lot of highs and lows with the fact that I was a new mom, and I was figuring out how to care for a baby. And then also at the same time trying to build this because now I want to spend more time with my baby. And then, of course if you're building a business while you have a full-time job, that is extremely difficult to do because you have all this time that you want to spend with your family. But now you're like, okay now it's bedtime or nap time and I'm going to try to jam all this work in.

There was like no Netflix back then for me because I was like, I don't have time to sit here and watch TV. So yeah, a lot of things. I had to make a lot of sacrifices in my personal life to be able to build that up. And even though initially I was like, okay, yeah, this is going to be a side hustle.

We'll see if I like it or not. I'm not going to like totally commit in the beginning because I don't know if I'm going to fail. So, I didn't quit my job because I was like, oh, okay, I need backup.

[00:12:25] Sanjay Parekh: So you started as a pure side hustle for this. Until what time, like, when did you realize like, okay, I got this?

[00:12:33] Nivia Lopez: It was actually after I did the marketing course that I was like, oh, I can charge so much more money. And that's when my income started matching my full-time job income. And I did social work. I didn't make that much money back then. So it wasn't that hard to do. And I was like, wow, if I had, if I could put as much time as I put into my full-time job on my side hustle.

[00:12:58] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:12:59] Nivia Lopez: Can you imagine? So I was like, okay, this is real. This is actually working. I'm actually making money. And I don't have to kill myself to do it. I can quit my job.

[00:13:09] Sanjay Parekh: So, when that happened, when you realized you were making as much on the side hustle as the full-time job, how long was it before you quit and went all in?

[00:13:18] Nivia Lopez: It was right around that time. Let's see. I know it was that summer, because it was summer months, and this was when we were in the pandemic too. So, what got a little bit easier is that my full time job had to go virtual. We had to figure out how to just do phone calls with people and on Zoom.

[00:13:37] So that gave me a little bit more time at home to just in between things. And they were also talking about going back in person and all of that stuff. And I was like, You know what? I don't want to go back in person. I think I'm actually doing good at this. I'm going to take the leap. And I quit my job that summer and it's great. It worked out.

[00:14:00] Sanjay Parekh: Yes, it seems like it or it's working out, right? So, you've got the full-time hustle now. How are you balancing this against the demands of having kids and a family and life and all those things? How do you think through? Because if you have clients, they can need things all the time.

So how do you balance that for yourself?

[00:14:25] Nivia Lopez: Definitely. That's been a huge learning experiment, I guess you can say, throughout just all of these years. Because there's definitely seasons where it's just hard, seasons where if there's a launch happening, I do launch strategies. So of course, if there's a launch happening, there is a lot of moving pieces and I have to be available a lot more to my clients during those seasons because they need a lot more help during that time.

And that's when, okay, I'm not going to spend as much time doing the family things. And I'm going to spend a little bit more time working but then the seasons where are a little bit slower, then I can do more fun things with my family. Like go to the zoo in the middle of the week or things like that. And it's really one of those things where I had to teach myself how to have pretty strict boundaries where there were times where I would be working all the time and instead of working a full-time job. It was like, I was working two full-time jobs for some reason, because you can get sucked into that when you're an entrepreneur. You want to put all this time into your business, and you want to do great for your clients. And some nights I would work super late at night and then still work during the day.

And there are some points where I had to tell myself, I can't do this all the time. Like I have to actually have boundaries. So yes, there's some seasons where it makes sense that, hey, I'm going to be working at night this week because we really want to get this project done and, but there's a cutoff date. So we can't just do this all the time. If not, I'll get burnt out.

[00:16:05] Sanjay Parekh: So what are those boundaries for you? Is it like weekends, evenings? Like where's the lines?

[00:16:11] Nivia Lopez: Yeah, so I have my notification settings on only nine to five. So, like for my clients, even though they have my phone number, we usually don't communicate through text message or phone calls, through regular phone.

We use Voxer or Slack because I can easily adjust the settings so that I'm not getting pinged when I'm having dinner with my kids. And it's something that, hey, if they do send me a message on there, I can still see it the next day. And they know that the expectation is I'm probably not going to respond until the next day. But sometimes I can, if I happen to decide, hey, I'm going to work late tonight because I'm going to spend the day at the zoo with my kids, then that's fine. And I let my clients know usually whenever I want to switch out my normal nine to five schedule. And I give myself that flexibility to make that call.

[00:17:08] Sanjay Parekh: What about in terms of your kind of daily routine? Do you have a daily routine, like exercise or sleep, all those kinds of things? Or is it, you know, come as it goes?

[00:17:20] Nivia Lopez: There's a little bit of a routine But I also allow myself quite a bit of flexibility because right now we do have a baby. With the four-year-old it's easier because now she's in school. So, I'm like, yeah, so much more time. But we also have another baby. So, with her it's a little bit like I have to give myself a little bit more grace with my schedule, so I have everything in a shared google calendar with my husband. He sees all of my appointments, when all my stuff is.

We have a part time nanny. So that helps and thankfully, our nanny has a pretty flexible schedule too. If I need to change something, she's usually okay with it, which is really nice and not everybody has that luxury. I will put that out there. And I did not have that luxury with my first daughter, that's another side note. That's something that was much later. It's very hard in the beginning when you don't have additional support with your kids. And then there's some days where my kids get sick and I'm like, okay, today I'm not going to be productive. I'm not going to work very much, and I let my clients know, hey, this is not going to work today, maybe this project needs to get pushed a little bit or things like that.

Yes, I have a routine but it sometimes doesn't go the way that I plan and that's okay for the season.

[00:18:39] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox, committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901. Quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are available at Hiscox.com. Hiscox, business insurance experts.

[00:19:00] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, a different kind of question for you because I know you're a fan of this. You've got or you've planned to have multiple streams of income. Why is that important for you and how have you set it up for yourself to make sure that you have that?

[00:19:16] Nivia Lopez: Yeah, I've realized that's important for me because there have been seasons in my business that have not gone well.

Where maybe I'm doing really well for four months or something. And then all of a sudden in month five, two clients at a time decide to drop. And they're like, oh, you know what? I'm going to take a break. A lot of times people do it during the holidays where they're like, yeah, I'm going to take some family time.

I need a few months, and then maybe I'll come back kind of thing. And I'm like, oh wait, but that's like my income. If you're going to take a break for a few months, so that's great.

[00:19:52] Sanjay Parekh: So that's great and all but how am I getting paid? Like that's not my problem.

[00:19:58] Nivia Lopez: Exactly and I understand it too. Now that I've built to the place where I have, I take breaks during vacation, which is really nice.

[00:20:07] Sanjay Parekh: And on their side, you’re like, wait a minute, but this is, and you're like, no, I'm on vacation.

[00:20:12] Nivia Lopez: Exactly. We can't plan our breaks all at the same time.

Yeah, that's when I've realized, oh yeah, you know what? I probably need a few different streams of income so that if that happens, I'm not just like freaking out trying to find another client really quickly. On the other end of that is learning to continue to build business relationships and things so that it's easy to find another client, but that's another note.

[00:20:39] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, what are the different streams then right now for you?

[00:20:43] Nivia Lopez: So, I also do video editing and that's something that I don't usually market. Usually it's just referral based, but since we're talking about side hustles. Almost all of my video, actually, right now all of my video editing clients I've just found because somebody else recommended me.

That's really fun for me. I enjoy doing it. That's one of those things where, sometimes I'll do that one late at night because everyone's quiet. The house is so silent and it's fun. I'll put my headphones on and just edit it away. Yeah, so that's a really fun side hustle for me. My husband does a bunch of side hustles too, and sometimes I help him out with different things. We try to do different stuff like that.

[00:21:30] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, so you've been side hustling, full hustling, different hustling for a while now. Knowing what you know now if you could go back in time and do something different, what would that be and why?

[00:21:47] Nivia Lopez: Oh, I think in the beginning I would have spent a lot more time just building relationships online, like business relationships, than I did. In the beginning it was just all about finding somebody to work for or work with. And I didn't really understand how important it was to just build relationships. And also, because this is remote work and I'm not working in an office with other people, after a while it can get a little bit lonely if you don't build those relationships because, my friends in my regular life, not business relationship friends, they don't understand what I do.

And even if I try to explain it, they still don't really get it. They still think I'm just a stay-at-home mom most of the time. And I'm like, I am, but I also have a business. So, it's different. It's different to have those business relationships. It's nice to also collaborate with other people and toss ideas around with other people that they're not in it to pitch you. You're not in it to pitch them. And then that's also how I've gotten a lot of referrals that were not intentional because I'm just trying to have friends that also understand me, but it works.

[00:23:04] Sanjay Parekh: How would you, how do you think your business would be different if you'd done it that way earlier? Like focusing on the relationships instead of focusing on finding clients.

[00:23:15] Nivia Lopez: I think it would have definitely grown faster but also it would have given me confidence a lot sooner too, just because when you're the only one telling yourself if you're doing well or not, that can be a little bit challenging when you're trying to figure out all the things and navigate this world.

[00:23:32] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. We talked about being nervous before. So you implied there, you lacked confidence when you were doing this. How did you get over that for yourself? Cause you didn't have those people telling you that you were doing good. So how did you get yourself over that hump?

[00:23:52] Nivia Lopez: Yeah. I had a coach tell me that whenever you get to that point, always remember your why. And I always thought it was cheesy, but it's true. You really should remember your why, which was because I want that flexibility to be there for my kids. And honestly, I think about with my second child, now I look at how amazing it was that I was able to build this and be at home with her this whole time. So, whenever I want I can see my baby instead of somebody else sending me a cute picture of my kid. So, it was like I missed a lot of those first few months with my first baby. I missed the first time she rolled and all those things. And as much as I thought before having her, oh yeah, I'm going to have my career and my baby and she's going to go to daycare and it's going to be great.

Once I actually had her, it was really different emotionally for me. So, remembering that's my goal, that I want to be able to do that. The fact that now I can take vacations whenever I want. And I could do an extended vacation and maybe work part of the vacation so that I could stay longer somewhere else.

I can visit family that live in all sorts of different parts of the country because I can work from their house too. That flexibility, I can't give it up. I can never give that up now. Once you taste that flexibility, you don't want to go back to a regular in-person job.

[00:25:18] Sanjay Parekh: My kids have gotten used to that as well.

When we go on vacation, I usually take my laptop with me. Lately. I've not been, and they're a little shocked by that. And part of the reason why is, phones have gotten so good that I don't need to take the laptop, that I can do almost everything right on the phone. I'm always still working, but that's one of those great side benefits of being an entrepreneur is that you really do control your time and what you have to do and what you get to do.

Okay, last question for you. What would you tell somebody else who's thinking about doing like you did and launching a side hustle or launching multiple side hustles or taking their side hustle and making it a full-time business? What advice would you give them?

[00:26:05] Nivia Lopez: I would tell them that even though it is really hard and not super easy like it may look on social media, it is still very worth it.

I think one of the things that I see a lot now is social media is portraying the easy money thing. And you can make a lot of money online. It's very true and I've seen it happen. But it is a lot of work. I think it's worth it if you have those goals of having that freedom of time and ability to do whatever you want with your time.

[00:26:39] Sanjay Parekh: Did you ever think about the downside for yourself if this didn't work out? What were you going to do if it didn't work out?

[00:26:48] Nivia Lopez: I mean I thought about how I was going to have to find an in-person job and leave my kids again during the day and how that would be hard.

[00:26:58] Sanjay Parekh: Do you feel like that drove you even harder to make sure that didn't happen?

[00:27:03] Nivia Lopez: Oh, yeah. That's the thing. Once you actually can see how flexible your life can be, it's just so hard to go back to an in-person job. I've had quite a bit of offers. Especially, we were living in Indiana for a while and moved back to Chicago, and when I moved back to Chicago, a lot of my parents' friends are like, oh, you're back, we have this job opening.

I'm like, nope. I'm good but thank you. But they'll hear, oh, you're at home with the baby. I'm like, I have a job too. It's just my own business.

[00:27:39] Sanjay Parekh: There you go. Nivia, this has been fantastic. I'm so glad that you came on the show. Where can our listeners find and connect with you?

[00:27:48] Nivia Lopez: I think the easiest place to connect with me is on Instagram. My handle is @NiviaLopezCo. And I love connecting with other people there. I'm also on Facebook, also at NiviaLopezCo. And my website is www.NiviaLopez.com. I do have some free resources on there if you are launching something or if you want to build your email list, that kind of thing.

If you go to www.NiviaLopez.com/Resources, there's some resources on there too.

[00:28:24] Sanjay Parekh: Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on today.

[00:28:26] Nivia Lopez: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

[00:28:29] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the side hustle to small business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/Side-Hustle-to-Small-Business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.