Last night, I had the pleasure of speaking at an Esc the City event in London on the topic of ‘How to Build a Life Working from Anywhere’. It’s part of a new series of workshops and classes they’re starting to run to help people put their professional skills and experience to ‘do something different’.
The challenge for me was how to distill 7+ years of running my own business, with 5+ years of those being location independent with a fully online business, into just an hour’s talk.
I know how it goes with these kinds of talks. People get all fired up to do something, then they go home and…do nothing. Life gets in the way and, more often than not, nothing much changes.
So I prepared a a list of 6 key things that those who attended could leave with and start doing the very next day. These are the 6 things you too could start doing straight away, no matter what your current situation is…
In the end though, the Q&A structure of the evening which I’d decided to run with took up so much of the time that, while we touched on these points throughout, I didn’t address them in much depth – as much as you can in an hour, at least – and in response to some feedback about this. I’m going to address that right here.
So here they are, 6 things you can start doing right now to help you build a life working from anywhere…
{and they’re in order of priority, in my opinion}
#1 Build Your Freedom Fund
In a nutshell, I recommend building a fund which would cover your expenses entirely for at least 6 months – bills, expenses, food, entertainment etc. – all in.
Your freedom fund basically buys you time.
If you don’t have a profit-generating project up and running (or at the very least, making enough to cover your expenses) by the time you decide to leave your job, you need to be realistic about how long it will take before your venture makes money. 6 months is pushing it, 12 is safer.
If your project is profit-making by the time you leave your job, then your freedom fund can be used to buy flights, fund some travels or even invested back into the business to take it to the next level.
It’s entirely down to your own personal circumstances as to what and how you might need to use a fund such as this, but having one in the first place can be the difference between making it or not.
#2 Make (Head) Space
In the hectic merry-go-round of big (or small) city life, it is easy to drift from day to day, week to week, month to month and yes, year to year without giving yourself any time and space to…just be or think.
One of the biggest things that stopped me from leaving Accenture and starting up my own business was that I didn’t have any ideas. {To those of you who know me now, that will sound ridiculous, I know.} But I literally never gave myself the head space which is necessary for the creative juices to flow. And so I never had the big (or even little) ideas.
If this means not going out for 1 or 2 nights a week, or taking an entire weekend to yourself every now and then, do it. Do what it takes to give yourself the space you need. It’ll pay off because it also means you’ll be carving out the time to…
#3 Build Your Personal Brand
This is the topic I was actually going to structure my entire talk around when Esc first invited me to speak since it is that important – whether you’re already an entrepreneur/business owner or an employee.
In a nutshell, this means being known as the ‘go to’ resource for something…whatever you decide your area of expertise/passion is. And in location independent terms, it typically means being the ‘go to’ destination online.
Your personal brand is at the foundation of all your marketing efforts – and if you plan to travel and work from anywhere, it naturally begs the question, “Should you build this aspect into your brand?”.
My response to this question is as follows:
- Only do this explicitly if you feel it will give you an edge or some kind of advantage.
- Equally, never try and hide it from customers and clients.
In all the years of running our businesses, we have never had an issue with someone not wanting to work with us because we were location independent.
When it comes to establishing your online presence, it’s pretty simple. You need:
- A website of some sort, and possibly a blog depending upon what your business is.
- Profiles on the social media tools which are most relevant and useful to your business (i.e. the ones where your paying customers are).
- A mailing list, which is the foundation of most online businesses who want to sell effectively and efficiently.
As for resources to help you build the above, these are the starting points, I’d recommend:
- Read all you can about copywriting and writing for the web – Copyblogger.com is a good start.
- Get up to speed on social networking – SocialMediaExaminer.com & Kiss Metrics’ blog is a good start.
- To earn a living from a blog, read all you can about blogging – Problogger.net is a good start.
- For freelancing, start with FreelanceSwitch.com
- For software development, check out Rob Walling from SoftwareByRob.com
- For the practical nuts & bolts of how all the tech tools fit together, that’s exactly what we built the Skills Library for.
#4 Skill Up
Naturally, as captain of your own ship, you’ll be responsible for everything – at least to begin with. I wear multiple hats on a daily basis – press/PR spokesperson, marketer, copywriter, brand strategist, web developer, coach, consultant, writer, blogger and more.
I’ve learned everything I currently know by trial and error and just diving in (and making mistakes, left, right and centre). In the corporate world, there’s always a lot of talk about ‘transferable skills’ – often the softer skills rather than the content- or industry-specific skills.
To be painfully honest, while many of the skills I developed and honed in the workplace have been useful, it took me about 2 years to figure out exactly how they really benefitted me in my own business – and by that stage, they’d kind of become integrated into the new stuff anyway.
The kinds of skills, often honed in the corporate world, that are useful as a business owner, include:
- Client management – the logical processes and well thought-out customer experience processes that are put into many client relationships in the corporate world.
- Decision-making processes – while these may be very different when running your own business, the fact that a decision-making process typically exists (for almost everything) in the corporate world is a lesson many business owners would do well to learn (and apply where necessary).
When it comes to revenue-generating skills, these are obviously many and varied. The biggest revenue generating skills for me are:
- Strategic business consulting and coaching.
- Technology consulting and coaching.
These skills are then shared and sold through a variety of distribution channels and media to 2-3 different audiences, including:
- Ebooks
- Membership-type sites and groups
- Business-to-business and one-to-one consulting/coaching
- Speaking
And for the specific resources available to help you upskill, the following list should keep you busy enough:
- StartupTrainingSchool.com
- KhanAcademy.org
- Udemy.com
- Learnable.com
- Lynda.com
- Skillshare.com
- Envato.com – the Tuts network for learning, the blogs and market places for community & selling
- The Freedom Collective – our new, private community for location independents.
- The Pioneer Collective – my private online business advice & mastermind community
#5 Surround Yourself with Like-minded People
One thing I failed to mention last night that was a big oversight...location independence is a lifestyle. A life style. A way of living.
Think about what that means for a minute…It means you live it. All the time. It is not something you dip your toe in and out of. Not if you want it to work for you on a permanent basis.
When I say “Surround yourself with like-minded people”, it’s like believing in a particular religion passionately, and going to a church where you know you’ll be surrounded by people who follow the same religion, ascribe to the same ideals as you, believe the same as you do, share the same world views as you and make the same big life choices as you.
It’s the same with entrepreneurship and location independence…
It’s as simple as attending events like Esc the City, going to meet-ups with entrepreneurs, working out of co-working spaces in your evenings and weekends…these days, especially in London and most global cities, you are literally spoiled for choice. Spend as much time as you can surrounded by the people who are already doing what you want to do.
Online, you’ve got communities like our new Freedom Collective, other online communities such as Teaching Sells or the Third Tribe. They’re truly not hard to find, once you start looking.
#6 Do Something. Anything.
Paralysis. Overwhelm. Uncertainty. Your mortal enemies which will keep you where you currently are, if you let them.
The best thing you can do to defeat these enemies is to do something. Anything. That may sound extreme, but I’ve found that any move is better than none.
As I’ve frequently written, any kind of move provides you with a fresh, different (not always better) perspective. It usually also means a next step will present itself. It’s your job to take it. Take that step and the next one will appear. I promise – and I don’t make promises lightly.