Working Nomad

I recently wrote how I was planning on starting an offline business.  It is taking a little longer to get started than I would have liked, but I think that is typical in developing countries like Indonesia, where bureaucracy seems much more difficult to deal with.  By early next year we should be completely up and running.

The last couple of years I have been running everything from the internet and all communication with the companies and people I was dealing with was by email.  Recently, I have had some meetings where I had to actually travel and meet the person who wanted to work together.

The advantage is that you can create a real working relationship with the person and the companies involved.  The problem is that unless you take minutes of what everything was said in the meeting, people’s memories of what was said in the meeting sometimes changes over time and in my recent experience, for the worse.

It’s frustrating to say the least.  You also have to deal with people who have no knowledge of the internet, especially from a marketing perspective.  Many people will happily pay a large amount of money for advertisements in printed magazines, but don’t value things like getting good rankings in Google for keywords, or placing targeted ads on websites.

I have been having fun though trying to use Web 2.0 properties like YouTube and Facebook to promote the business.  I think having even the most basic knowledge of these sites, puts you in powerful position, especially when the competition has no knowledge about these sites, or how they can be used from a business perspective.

You can read more about my adventures on my Bali Blog.

Reading a couple of posts in the forums recently about people not researching keywords really got me thinking. There are many ways to make money on the internet. Some people create websites about their hobby or whatever they are most passionate about. Other people use keyword research to try and find niches that get a large search volume, but there are few competing websites and then they monetize that search traffic with affiliate programs or info products.

Both methods can work, and one way is not necessarily better than the other. The two methods do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. Say for example you are interesting in making a site about “surfing in bali”. Your keyword research shows lots of people interested in this topic and you find the niche has lots of competition. You go through the long tail search phrases and you find “bali surfing tours” has a significant number of searches, but has very few websites that compete for this phrase.

If you can find a suitable affiliate program that sells surfing tours in Bali, you could have found a great niche to make a website on. Of course there are other ways you could monetize your site.

My point is, just because you are making a site about something you interested in, it doesn’t mean you should ignore doing keyword research.

You can read more about my adventures in Bali on my Bali expat blog.

Why do we work our butts off for 40 yrs straight to enjoy just one retirement? Doesn’t it make more sense to enjoy some of your retirement time when you are younger and generally more healthy? Similar to career breaks, mini-retirements are generally longer and will often be spent doing interesting things such as learning new skills, volunteering or simply living in a new country.

There are many ways of spending your mini-retirement, some of which may even uncover an economic alternative to returning to life as a stressed out rodent.

Mini-retirements may only last a few months but are more likely to span a couple of years. Shorter periods tend to be career breaks.

So how do you fill in your days when you are retired?

One area is to learn new skills. in fact thats pretty much what I did back in 2005. My online marketing skills were pretty raw back in the day but by embarking on a mini retirement meant that I could teach myself the skills to ensure I would not have to go back to working for other people.

A classic is to learn a language. Why not take off to a French speaking part of Africa or Latin America and live like a local and end up talking like a local. Having a second language is huge asset in this globalised world now.

Language learning can be combined with teaching English which again can equip you with new skills that will be useful back home.

Mini retirements can also be cheap. You don’t have to live in a hotel if you plan on spending three months in Buenos Airies learning Spanish. There are plenty of apartments which can be very affordable in cheaper countries and it’s even possible to have a more expensive lifestyle than you would expect at home.

Volunteering is another way to take a mini retirement providing you avoid the many companies offering short term volunteering holidays. Some volunteer posts will even pay for your food and lodging too. A good place to look at volunteering is idealist.

Finance is obviously an issue and mini retirements do need to be financed. I financed mine by working online in affiliate marketing making a modest amount and choosing to live in places with low cost of living.

Mini retirements do not need to eat too much into your savings though. Consider the money you would save by temporarily cutting your ties with your home country. No rent to pay, no council taxes, no car to run…If you own a house then why not rent it out for one year?

Doesn’t it make more sense to enjoy some of your retirement time when you are young and healthy?

The concept of the mini retirement might be new now but I predict the next generation will be taking them regularly.

Check out the book below for more on mini-retirements…

If you are interested then check out San Jose Costa Rica Hotels website.

Am I serious? You bet ya! There are many others out there quitting their jobs, downsizing, starting new businesses, living the dream, so why can’t you? Do you realise that one of the dumbest things is only getting paid for the time you work? So here are five reasons to escape the rat race.

1. Freedom, or loss of it

The office of the 21st century is no different to the factories of the 19th century. We are beckoned in with promises and are then systematically broken by the organisation by a number of methods including dress codes, behaviour training and the dreaded company manual full of ridiculous rules and regulations.

The employee is further stripped of their freedom by being told where to be and when, what to say and when and what to do and when.

After the individual’s spirit has been totally crushed the company can then rule by fear which keeps the workers in line and allows for unfair expectations such as working long hours unpaid, taking on other people’s workloads when downsizing departments and having salaries frozen because the business only made £400 million that year.

2. A social life that’s inbred at best

It would be unfair of me to say that I have not made good friends from work colleagues, but when I line up everyone that I ever worked with and then pick out the ones that were good friend, I am basically looking at a handful. Is that because of me or the places I worked at?

The problem with this is that many peoples’s social life revolves around their work mates and this seemed particularly the case when I worked in London. Would I really choose to spend an evening in the pub with a moron who’s weekend involved building network servers at home (that was our day job!) and who kicked his girlfriend out only so he could spend more time fiddling with his computers!

No I wouldn’t!

Have a got a better social life than the average person who works in an office?

Perhaps because working on your own forces you out there.

3. Commuting

I think it is no conicidence that I rarely suffer from colds these days compared to when I use to be crammed into the creaking public transport of London.

The aroma of some sweaty stressed out executive next to me smelling of stale beer, curry and berrocca is something I do not miss. Neither the lack of seating, personal space or being held hostage by striking tube drivers or above inflation fare rises.

4. Working for someone else is way too risky

So you are working for one company like many people do. That equates to one income stream that you are wholly dependent on. That income stream can be turned off in the time it takes your HR dept to say, ‘you’re sacked’.

By working for yourself you have far more ways of diversifying your income streams which will offer you more security than a regular job.

Committing yourself to one income stream is a taking huge risk, however good you are at your job or however healthy your company is.

5. Time

Your time is the most precious thing on this planet. You might not realise that when you are starting out as a fresh faced graduate on a corporate career path but as you become older and wiser you learn to put a greater value on time.

It has been said that working for someone else in a regular job is pretty dumb as you only get paid for the time you work, worse still, sometimes you don’t get paid for your time! Why do you think so many successful people work few hours and get paid more?

Its because they put systems in place to ensure they receive income when they are not actually working. Running websites, investing, property management, there are lots of ways to move to a more passive income.

So as long as your system continues delivering value to others, you will still be paid whether you’re working or not.

I will blog more about these systems soon.

So there we have it, five reasons to quit your job. I can already hear people saying thats easy for you to say, you don’t have a mortgage, family to support etc etc excuses etc more excuses etc.

Well that might be true but I decided to take that first step away from what society expects and I believe many people could do the same if they really wanted to. I still have bills and taxes to pay, car to run, pension to save for, food to put on the table like everyone else so I am no different.

If I have inspired just one person that there is another way then the time writing this will be time well spent.

Starting and operating a website to make money is a great business model. You can run it from wherever you want and you never have to deal with your customers face to face. It’s the whole principle on what this working nomad website is based.

A web based business is typically less risky than an offline business, but there are still some real risks, which could potentially dry up your income overnight - Google could stop sending you traffic, your Adsense account could be banned or your best earning affiliate could close its doors to affiliate sales.

It is these reasons that I have always wanted to have some kind of non-internet related business that could help support my income. After I moved to Bali, I started thinking about buying a hotel or restaurant. I looked at a number of places, but it seemed like such a huge expense for not a lot of return and then you have the problems of dealing with staff and customers.

While looking for potential hotels or restaurants, I kept meeting more people who had properties they wanted to sell. I saw an opening for a potential business to sell property, so I registered a domain and installed the open source property software, Open Realty. My girlfriend has been taking the pictures and uploading the properties for sale.

Last week we got a customer who was interested in buying one of our properties and this weekend they put a deposit on a place. It’s pretty amazing because I had hardly started promoting our website - Lovina Property.

We worked with an existing agent and split the commission on the sale. We are now thinking it will be worth it to form a company and even rent an office.

The last couple of years I have only been concentrating on making money from Adsense and affiliate programs. I am just starting to see the huge potential if you can combine your SEO and internet marketing skills with a regular business.