Over the past 12 months, I went to over 20+ countries in Europe, Asia, North, Central and South America, and I did when running an online business.
There seems to be a trend of online entrepreneurs who advocate this travelpreneur movement to be able to run your business online while traveling.
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I'll be honest, it's not as easy as it seems. In many cases, it can be a hassle to have to deal with differences in time zones, jet lag, and even loneliness.
But if the experience of freedom, diversity of cultures and learning new languages is above your priorities, then the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages of travelpreneurship.
The big question we all have is: how do we first
How can we get to the point of being able to start and manage our business while being able to have the freedom to travel the world?
I get how flashy and hoo-rah it may seem. But it can be done, and it is more feasible than ever to start an independent business of the place today.
* Note: The following are not the only businesses you can start to work and travel. They are from my experience, the most effective, easy to start, and profitable. *
Come during the five types of location-independent businesses you can start.
1. Coaching & Consulting
This is the most common approach people take, especially when you are first starting.
It is cheap, if not free to start, fast to go, and of course, you can run it wherever you want in the world. However, this requires constant communication with customers you have, it can limit you to certain places with time schedules similar to those of your clients.
You can be doing anything of the consultation marketing, business coaching, writing, even in language teaching, according to your skillsets. All skills that can be acquired with dedication in a few months in the comfort of your home.
Here are five basic steps to get started in the field of consultation:
- Skill-set: Determine your current skills or what you want to become an expert in the marketplace.
- ideal client: View and note who your ideal client is. Where are they, what are they type of business running, and what would it be than to spend an entire day with them golf? Get very clear on this point, the type of customers you attract will determine the success of your business.
- Stand How you brand and position yourself online (and offline) is everything when it comes to attracting better clients. Think about how you are different rather than just better, and why your "ideal client" should care. Any of your headshot, testimonials, prices, and email must be adapted to capture your ideal client.
- talk This includes online and offline. Go to industry events, build authentic relationships, and monitoring. And do the same online. Start your own blog, podcast, or youtube channel to start sharing your opinion on the market and begin offering value to those of your industry. standing out, and customers will follow.
- Be creative: If you want to take a step, get creative with how you reach out to customers. I wrote a piece that shares how to get 30 advisory missions in 30 days using Angel.co, and you can get just as creative in thinking of ways to hack the system.
2. Information products and programs
information products are often transitory step that many consultants or coaches are to expand their activities. That's what I was doing with my current blogging.
This is because you can not serve so many customers with the limited time available, and information products allows us to serve an unlimited number of people online.
Essentially, you are transitioning your services business into a product.
Most of us get stuck here because we do not know exactly what information products are or how they work.
Product information can range from e-books, audio books, online courses, brains, or a membership program. The list is endless, and so are the opportunities. My friend Natalie Sisson goes deep on this.
And the best part of information products is that you're trading time for money.
So how do you build information products? This is more complicated to provide a step by step approach, because there are several information products, you can create, each with different approaches.
However, in general, the boot process works like this:
- Calculate your expertise: This is the same routine we've been through with the board . In the information industry, you are the product, which means you have to carve a niche where you can be recognized as world class. But more importantly, different.
- Build a community: The difference between the construction of a public versus a community, is that the public will rarely buy what you have to offer, but a loyal community will buy everything you have to offer.
Find a way to build your community by getting your voice out there through blogging, podcasting, or video sharing. Take extra hour of your time to make sure it is the best content you can put there. - Build your first offer: Before answering this question, it is important to emphasize that you need to know exactly what your audience is facing. Is it to lose weight? Earn more money? Have more freedom? When you understand this, and only then you should think about what you are offering off. This could mean writing an ebook, create an online membership program, or to register a course online that people can buy.
- or premium Some may disagree with this, but I've always found it best to go either free or premium in everything I do. This is what most of the top performers in the industry does as well, where 99 percent of the content is free through their channel (blog, podcast or video) and charging a premium offer that the dedicated members can to join.
There are a few reasons why it works
a. your positioning as a premium player, by charging a high price.
b. You eliminate individuals constraint budget, which are often difficult to convince of the value of your offer.
c. You do not need a lot of customers. When you start, it's easy to assume that you will need to accumulate thousands of customers before you have a real business. But when you charge $ 1000 or even $ 2000 to join your program, your attention shifts towards achieving results in a smaller number of quality customers willing to take action.
d. You can give more of your best content for free. In deciding not to lock your content further, you have the ability to provide more value for your users and, therefore, attract more quality customers.
5. It is time sale: Last but not least, we need to get our product into the hands of our customers. In the information sector, when you sell a product with a higher price, you need a different approach to customer acquisition.
This topic is a blog in itself, but to generalize: the two popular methods most used are:
- Webinars: This is by far the the most popularized method, and it is because you are able to spend an hour or more to interact with participants, building a connection and sharing the benefits of your offer. It is hard to say no after receiving more than an hour to
- video series : Another way to do it is through a series of free video that your audience can opt-in to. See Brendon Burchard method to do with the Academy of the Expert. To summarize, your participants will receive a three-part video series on your offer released over a period of time, usually one to two weeks. Then the product will be open for sale for a limited time, which can induce a sense of urgency for shoppers.
Keep in mind that both strategies require an immense amount of value that is given to potential customers first before doing any kind of sale.
3. E-Commerce
When you first hear the word E-Commerce, it can be difficult to correlate this with the independence or freedom because of the need to fulfill physical goods. But with the right partner, it is more than possible.
For example, shipping drop is a Matchmaking in heaven travelpreneurs worldwide.
Drop Shipping is when you associate with a supplier, and list their goods for sale online, where they ship the product directly to your customer for you once the sale has been made.
That's all there is to it.
No significant initial investment. No inventory. No risk.
All you need now is an Internet connection as you travel the world to start growing your business!
I would now like to clarify the advantages and weaknesses of drop shipping to ensure that you are aware on both sides of the table.
The advantages of Drop Shipping
There are a number of reasons why you should consider drop shipping
a. You do not need Buckets of Money: Drop shipping makes it incredibly easy to start selling online. As mentioned, not many stocks is necessary at first, but you can always offer thousands of products to your customers.
This is huge because most entrepreneurs never start because of the initial investment necessary to finance their business.
b. Convenience and efficiency : Fulfillment can be a huge pain, and even if your goal is to travel when running your business. With dropshipping you do not have to worry about the implementation, and you can focus your attention on marketing, customer service, and operations, etc.
c. Mobility:. With all the processed physical implementation issues, you're free to run your business where you can get an Internet connection
d. Scaling is not a problem - This is a great problem to have if your company can get to this point later. But for most companies, 2x the range is equal to 2x the effort required to complete them. By leveraging the dropshipping suppliers, most of the work to fill will be borne by suppliers, allowing you to develop more rapidly with minimal work.
As mentioned, drop shipping is not all roses and flowers.
Let disadvantages of drop shipping.
Weaknesses Dropshipping
a. Low Margins: Low margins are the biggest drawback to operate in a highly competitive niche dropshipping. Because it is so easy to get started - and overhead costs are so minimal - many merchants will set up shop and sell items at the lowest prices to increase revenue. They have invested so little to get the business started so they can afford to operate on tiny margins.
b. inventory problems: Wwhere stock up with several warehouses, which are also executing orders for other traders, the inventory changes on a daily basis. Although there are ways you can better synchronize inventory your store with suppliers ", these solutions do not always work as well as you think and suppliers do not always take the necessary technology.
c. provider errors : Even the best dropshipping suppliers make mistakes when executing commands - errors for which you must take responsibility for your customers. If you work with poor suppliers, this will cause an infinite amount of frustration, which can be detrimental to your company's reputation.
Note :. I recommend you check this Guide dropshipping by Shopify if you're interested in digging deeper
4. Affiliate Marketing
affiliate marketing often get a bad reputation in the online industry. Words such as "fraud" or "summary" can be mounted in the same sentence.
Of course, this does not apply to all affiliate marketers. It is often a small Internet marketing group representing this crowd.
But well done affiliate marketing can be a flow of business and high income, while offering you the location of the independence you desire.
Some benefits include:
- You do not have to create your own product
- You don 't need a lot of capital to start
- you can work wherever you want
Few steps to start:
- Choose what type of product you want to sell. I recommend choosing an industry you know or are passionate
- Get your website up and running. You can go with the old WordPress for this or use a platform like Shopify to get up.
Take a look at this quick guide to get your running website in 5 minutes on WordPress. - The next step is to get traffic. This could mean paying for traffic (buying ads), building your own email list via the creation of content, such as blogs or podcasts, or you can buy an email list (although I strongly warning this approach)
5. Software
many tech entrepreneurs from San Francisco to New York, were travelpreneurship adopt this motion.
Joel Gascoigne is an advocate for the construction of a distance worldwide team, and still does with his company Buffer.
This is also a personal vision of the mine, as we begin to grow Rype we matchmake language learners with native speakers to achieve the conversation faster control .
Some people question the effectiveness of this practice, because of the difficulties of building and maintaining the culture of the team within the company.
I personally think that telework is the future, but I understand it's not for everyone or for every company.
That said, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when building a remote team for your technology company.
1. Think output
the biggest change that I found when working remotely is the ability to focus on the only thing that matters :. results
I'm a big fan of focusing on production, as it forces the team to prioritize our efforts on tasks that will have the greatest impact.
systems such as ROWE (only Results work environment) are set up to promote the work function cultures where employees are evaluated on performance, not the presence he has been implemented in companies such as Best Buy and Gap, where they saw.: . Improvement of 20 percent in productivity, 90 percent reduction in turnover, and increased customer satisfaction
2. Get Smart
Now we are focused on results, we need to set the right goals and measures for ourselves.
Creating goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely are the five most important factors to consider.
If you are a coder, you can set a goal to release a certain feature in next week . If you sell, it could be calling 50 people a day, with a goal to close 10 per week.
There is no better feeling than waking up every morning and having a clear purpose for exactly what you are going to accomplish that day, week or month.
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate
The caveat to work remotely is that we lack about 70 percent of non-verbal communication, such as facial expressions, tones of voice, and eye contact.
Working from other parts of the world, to communicate the smallest things are a must. You can adopt tools like HipChat Slack or to stay in regular and consistent contact with your team informally. This allows me to be myself and have more natural conversations fluids.
The beauty of building a business online is that it forced me to articulate all that I communicate. Seven hundred and fifty words long emails should be shortened to 300 emails words, while getting the same message. This helped me to keep my short and concise writing, which transferred over to my oral skills as well.
4. Create a corporate board
Create a "bulletin board" that allows each team member to see what everyone is working. I recommend tools like Basecamp, Asana, or Trello Pivotal Tracker to get started.
Sometimes we get so caught up in our own tasks, we forget what happens with the rest of our team members. In my experience, the most common form of communication problems and arguments occur on not knowing what the other team member is doing.
It also helps me to understand what the high-level priorities for the company, and allows me to assign tasks to any member of the team without having to bug them about it.
5. Regular Feedback
It is difficult to know if your work is the production of the impact that your team members expect when working. You can never have too many comments, because we can always improve our work, become better team members, and have a greater impact.
Creating a formalized structure early on, as biweekly feedback sessions or even monthly, keep the members of the team aware of how they can continually improve their work.
It depends on your skillsets, you are eager to learn, and what you plan your business and lifestyle around.
Are you more interested in the impact and influence? Then the coaching or the creation of training programs for others might be your thing.
Do you have a knack for building an advanced technology, and have an idea for an app? Then you can explore the path of the software application.
Or maybe you have no desire to create your own product or service, and simply want the freedom to make money online. Then, affiliate marketing could be the winner.
Keep in mind that you evolve, you would be able to accumulate these different sources of income, and you are certainly not limited toj ust one.
For example, as a coach or consultant, you might be better to create information products to grow your business.
Or you can sell other people's products to earn a commission affiliate, as you run your business e-commerce.
Whichever option you decide to dive in, I wish you the best of luck and I hope you run one day in a cafe somewhere in the world.
Next Read: The ultimate guide to something faster
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This post first appeared on Rype Journal.