From Laid Off to 6-Figure Agency in 2 Years

Esther Inman recently interviewed Lianamar Dávila 🎙…

Lianamar’s career took an unexpected turn in March 2020 when she was laid off from her job in event marketing due to the pandemic.

With her industry at a standstill, she knew she needed to pivot 😕

On the advice of her sister, Lianamar enrolled in Esther’s 90 Day VA program (reviewed here) to become a virtual assistant. She binged the course modules and completed her homework, eager to start a new career.

Lianamar had 6 months of living expenses saved up, and found her first paying client after ~3 months 🥳

That client had a “motorcycle enthusiast community.” LIanamar met her at a small dinner party and pitched her services. She ended up managing the website, social media and inbox for that business.

LIanamar ultimately niched down into social media management. She offered free services to build her portfolio, then began charging around $300/month.

Taking one step at a time, 2 years after starting as a VA, Lianamar had built her business into a six figure social media agency (Lidavi Social) with 9 clients and 7 team members 💪

Looks like she now charges $1997 per month to manage an Instagram account, with a minimum 3-month commitment 🤑

Lianamar credits her success to persistence and not giving up when things got tough.

She took it slow and steady, focusing on building long-term client relationships. For example, that first client stuck with her for nearly 2 years.

Lianamar’s advice for handling the stress of working for yourself…

I wanted to do things right and I think what led to that is not giving up. Because it does get effing hard. And when life and your business feels like it’s gonna just swallow you whole, maybe that means take a pause, take a beat, take a breather… literally, physically go outside and take a break.

She also comments on the versatility of a VA business…

If you are a little bit of a risk taker and want to bet on yourself, you appreciate freedom… you can really build and scale this to whatever you want. If you just want to have a couple of clients and that is what works for you – cool. If you want to scale to an agency and take the route that I did, cool. 

So there are like so many different paths that you can take.

A couple of takeaways here 👇

First, take whatever projects you can get starting out. You’ll learn a lot and it’ll help you build a portfolio.

Second, even a humble VA business can earn 6 figures a year 💰

Lianamar didn’t sit around waiting for a brilliant business idea to fall into her lap.

No: she started something fairly simple, put in the work consistently, and is now reaping the rewards 😍