Ask The LIPs: How Do You Earn Your Income?

I did it the hard way once….two years on the road in Central America with no revenue stream…ran out of money and had to come home and go back to work for a software company. Yuck! This time everything is on the table… I started out by leaving the software company and starting my own consulting firm http://www.bluefootmarketing.com about 18 months ago. My new blog will launch at the end of next month. My new BlueFoot Brand site will launch at the end of the following month with lots of fun stuff to buy online. I’m thinking of enrolling in a TEFL course so I can pick up gigs teaching English as a second language when I need a little extra cash. I also do a lot of website usability work for mid-size companies that can’t afford to hire the big guys to do it for them, and am considering becoming certified as a usability analyst by HFI to help grow that part of my business. I’ve found that I can do that work from anywhere with nothing more than some online survey tools and an internet connection. Oh, and I sold my house in Silicon Valley and bought a rental property for cash in the Pacific North West so I’ve got a bit of positive cash flow going to give me a kick start! Hope to be on the road again by this time next year. Can’t wait! P.S. I just discovered your blog. Love it! Congrats on making it work. Yay for you!

I run a marketing company that caters to very small businesses — those with 5 or fewer employees. I’ve just launched a new package which offers a two-hour marketing consulting package at a price point that would mean I would only have to have one client a day to make the business fully profitable from anywhere I’d go in the world. (Definitely not anywhere in the world - I’m sure it’d be a stretch in Tokyo or Manhattan.)

We used to sell major packages but they required a high level of client contact, which is something that would be both unreliable and undesirable from many remote locations. Changing it to an independent package, where we offer short bursts of consulting, has enabled us to work in little chunks and not be dependent on flawless internet or phone access.

I am not going to have just one “business”, but rather multiple streams of income. I’ve got my blog, which I won’t start making any real money from until I leave to go travel. And I’m going to try to sell my photography and possibly write for travel magazines/blogs. I’m also going to become certified to teach English in other countries. I’ve got about 8 months until I leave and I can’t wait!

As I’ve been an English teacher and translator for the last 15 years I’m working on materials for language learning - podcasts etc. We are also producing an online course of Spanish classical guitar (http://www.montseguitarsessions.com) and have been recording some voice overs which is something we want do more of, as is video.

The food posts on our blog/podcast have been very popular so we have just started a dedicated site at http://spanishsauce.wordpress.com/
I’m also doing some contract work for another company, setting up blogs and creating materials, podcasts and other resources. Plus some translation work.
Having been inspired by this LIP blog we’re also looking into converting our house which is situated in a small Spanish village, into a “casa rural” (a rural vacation rental) over the next few years, so that we can go a-LIPping

However until all this activity begins to bring in enough income, my bread & butter remains teaching.

And having seen that people want to become English teachers to support their LIP lifestyles, maybe I should explain all about how to go about doing about…

sorry, that should read “all about how to go about doing that…”

I run a software company that generates custom web applications. I typically partner with ad agencies looking for either a robust back end, complex programming and/or cutting edge RIA work (usually Flex). I spent the last couple of years building up a reputation (my personal tecnology blog had over a million page views in the first year, I run a couple of small open source projects, am known as the “code generation” guy in the ColdFusion/Flex worlds and am building a niche as a specialist within the code generation community as well.

All of this means that I tend to get a lot of referrals. I have a person in New York and another in Edinburgh, so while I’m location independent, my business appears more permanent.

Currently finishing up 3 months in Sydney. Over the next six months I’ll be living or presenting in New York, London, Bedfordshire, Edinburgh, Minneapolis, Washington DC, Limerick Ireland and Nashville Tenn. Also hoping to get some diving in the Red Sea and/or the Caribbean, but I’ll have to see how that goes!

My friend and business partner told me about LIP today. Very cool site. As for how I make a living, I do marketing consulting for a handful of clients almost exclusively over the phone.

I own a small residential service company that nets a few thousand a month–it’s been a great investment.

And I joint venture with other marketers on their projects.

In the last few months, I have actually decided to be in the foreground of my internet marketing projects instead of the guy creating them for others.

I currently live in Phoenix, Arizona though my wife, daughter and I are planning a several month horse endurance racing trek since my wife loves to race her Arabian.

Having income that doesn’t tie me down allows me to travel frequently and I definitely don’t have to commute, which I completely dread.

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Wow. Thanks, Lea! I’m looking forward to reading the book. Your blog is very helpful as I aspire to my gypsy performer life.

I’m an LIP to be, so my income isn’t really from that, yet. Just now learning about the blogosphere, just starting out with active promotion of my solo show. So I pick up odd jobs as I can and need to. I do anything from substitute teaching to helping with my brother’s tree service. Anything that won’t tie me down and make me too comfortable to chase my dreams.

It’s scary, and really hard, but I just keep thinking of what Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad said to him.

“You can always quit, so why do it now?”

Hi there…

I sealed a contract a few months before I came away to train someone how to start their own magazine.. I completed the training before I left, and she’s paying me in monthly instalments for a year, as the income from her magazine grows…

I also have a website: http://www.freebirdpro.co.uk which I am promoting through my old magazine (which I sold), and wherever possible - like here :-0

I’m also looking to build multiple streams of income:

1. Consultancy, training and support to existing or wannabe small magazine publishers.

2. Copywriting for businesses and graphic designers or ad agencies..

3. Blogging and travel writing

4. I’m also researching the possibility of an on-line subscription based magazine in a specific field (not to be revealed as yet :-))

5. Interest from sale proceeds of previous business..

By the way Lea - about your previous comments on earning an income from your blog (or not)… you know… I prefer to receive posts from blogs in chunks rather than every day… then I take some time to read through all of them… Just a thought to throw out there - but I would probably be prepared to a small monthly subscription - if you were to convert your blog to an on-line monthly mag…

Cheers

There is how I made my money and how I make it now, and those are two VERY different ideas. I used to make my money in publishing, mainly as editor of a series of national technology publications. And more appropriately to this site, as a freelancer who lived independent of location, writing stories for US publications about my next stop. That is a different topic, but potentially interesting to tell here someday.

However, after the tsunami of 2004 in Asia, I dropped (or at least temporarily halted) writing and photography in order to help people in Sri Lanka. Someway, somehow. That was three years ago and the truth is, not only have I not made a dime, I have spent everything I own.

It is the ultimate risk, really. At least for me. There is still a ton and more of work to be done in Sri Lanka, where war has resumed. And it’s taken me all this time to build a foundation, to find the right combo of people, to do some immediate good…I think I am getting closer to helping more than the 30 or so families and others I have so far.

Now I hope to make a small salary strictly via donations and charity-minded products. It’s hard to find people interested in helping a third-world, corrupt nation harming innocent civilians, however. But it would be impossible if nobody tried, right?

Fingers crossed.

Thanks for sharing everyone…I was on the lookout for new streams of income…just kidding (although it never hurts!!)

@Freebirdpro - I’m glad you feel the content here is worth paying for However I have no plans to charge for it on this blog just yet - but am about to start up a premium business blog which goes into more depth with more practical information for small businesses. I’m hoping that some of the LIP readers who find the business posts useful will consider subscribing. But that’s another post!!

@Sean - watch out for my post this coming Thursday….

[...] after reading Sean’s comment last week about the fantastic work he’s doing in Sri Lanka to help out after the 2004 tsunami, it [...]