We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shelby Veliz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Shelby, appreciate you joining us today. How do you think about vacations as a business owner? Do you take them and if so, how? If you don’t, why not?

Yes!! I definitely take vacations! Matter of fact i’m going on one this week!! Why is this so important to me? You have to fill your cup before you can fill anyone else’s. Read that again. There is no way you can continue to pour from an empty cup. You will eventually burnout if this is done. So I practice what I preach!

Shelby, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi!! My name is Shelby and I am based out of San Antonio, Texas!!

I was working a 9-5 that I absolutely dreaded, I had terrible a terrible case of the Sunday Scaries every week. I knew I wanted to work for myself but I just didn’t know in what type of industry. I was scrolling on TikTok one day and I came across a video talking about how you can become a virtual assistant. At first I thought it was a scam but I did a lot more research because it seemed super interesting to me. At the time I was working as an office assistant so I thought to myself “I’m already in office assistant, I could totally be a virtual assistant, I have the skills.”

I had always wanted to work for myself and to create my own schedule due to my volunteer work and wanting to travel. I believe in working to live and not living to work. Life must be enjoyed.

Even though I was still working 9 to 5 I started to slowly build my business up. I slowly started getting clients and absolutely loved what I was doing. I started as a virtual assistant but then pivoted into a social media manager because I found creating graphics and growing the socials of other businesses to be found is what I love to do.

I currently offer social media management services, email marketing, CRM (Customer Relations Management) set up and any admin/backend work needed.

The problems I solve for my clients who are all either business coaches, trauma coaches, or Finance Coaches, is that they have clients of their owns, so they don’t have time to be on their socials and stay consistent to keep that warm audience for people to consistently buy from their product suite/services.

I help them prevent burnout because without outsourcing some type of help, these business owners will essentially are forced to wear all the hats and try to do all the things within their business which could lead to serious burnout by not having a team.

With my help they are able to keep a work life balance and be able to enjoy the fruitage of their labor.

I’m so proud of myself in building this business from scratch and being able to serve my clients in any capacity needed!

I would like my potential clients and followers to know that help is out there and all you have to do is ask. I invest in myself because I know what my zone of genius is and what is not. It’s so hard to try and wear all the hats, all the time. This can lead to burn out and wanting to quit every single day. But it is possible to create your dream life. Life is for living.

One of the most enjoyable things that I found by building this business is the community. I have met so many amazing people by doing this work and I wouldn’t trade that in for the world. Entrepreneurship can be lonely at times but thankfully I have an amazing support system and other entrepreneurs I know I can go to when I just need a pep talk.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

In the beginning it was very hard because I didn’t know what I was doing. I took one master class and just jumped right in. So in the beginning I would look at other virtual assistants to see what services they were offering how they were marketing themselves etc. etc. but this would form in to comparing and also fed into my perfectionism. I felt that everything I put out had to be perfect but my biggest advice would be just to put it out even if it’s messy start messy. So many times we hold ourselves back because we feel like things have to be absolutely perfect but they don’t perfect doesn’t exist so just start and put yourself out there and just be yourself because no one else can be you and no one else can sell your services like you do and market yourself like you do.

Sometimes we can start to compare ourselves with our competition and get imposter syndrome so I would recommend to always create before you consume. It’s so easy to start consuming content on TikTok and Instagram but that’s when we can start to get into our heads so create your content and put it out there before you consume any!

Also don’t be so hard on yourself everyone’s entrepreneurial journey is very different and everyone pivots in every type of way so don’t feel discouraged if you start something, you hate it, and you pivot because that is completely normal.

Don’t worry about having a perfectly curated, aesthetic feed, especially when you are starting off.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Something i’ve been having to unlearn is what hustle culture has done to me, I think this generation is definitely having to unlearn that we don’t have to hustle just to be able to put food on the table. It’s all about working smarter and not harder. Working harder doesn’t lead to success. My version of success means that you are happy and content with the life you have built, being able to have time freedom. Success to me isn’t a certain dollar amount, material things, or degrees. It’s about being happy with yourself. It’s about getting a cup of coffee with a loved one on a random Tuesday, cuddling your pup, or going to a nice dinner.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stan.store/Itsshelbyveliz_
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsshelbyveliz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsshelbyveliz1/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelby-veliz-2a503314b/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/coffeewithshelb
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@itsshelbyveliz

Image Credits
Giovana Ramirez @orangegirlfilm