Top Five Questions Answered About Running a Location Independent Business

In this episode, you’ll discover the answers to the five most common questions asked about running a location independent business. These aren’t the questions I thought would make the list, so I’m glad I had someone on my team collate these. So we have the actual most common questions and not the questions that I anticipated, not the questions I thought would be the ones asked. Welcome to the show, everyone. My name is Eric. I am a full time digital nomad entrepreneur traveling around the world with my wife and our four kids. We’ve been to 15 countries in the last three years and having an amazing experience. And we’re able to do this because I have a location, independent business. I own a digital marketing agency that serves clients and customers in the United States. And I get asked if you listen to the show for a while, you’ve probably heard me say this. If you’re a new listener, welcome. Glad you’re here. I’ll give you a real quick rundown here of how the episode is going to flow. But first I get asked the hands down, I get asked this single question the most. When we meet someone and they find out we’re traveling full time, the most common question I get asked is How do you make a living or some variation of that? Are you just able to work online? Do you get a job in all these places? Everybody wants to know how we’re affording this very affordable lifestyle. In fact, this is a very affordable, reasonable lifestyle. And so it’s you know, it’s not extravagant by any stretch of the imagination, but everybody wants to know, how do we for this what what do we do? And so now that question I’ve answered in the past and this time and this, what I wanted to do today is I wanted to answer the five most common questions. And I had a couple that I had in mind that when they’re, you know, how do you. But the question I get asked, which is how do you make a living? But that was more specific to my circumstances, my, my life, when, when people ask me. So these five questions, though, are just about running a location, independent business in general. So the flow of today’s podcast, the outline, if you will, I’ve got three things we’re going to talk about. Number one is today’s content. I’m going to give you the answer to these five questions. Number two is we’ll transition into the leadership tip of the week. Your leadership capacity is the capacity of your business. Your business cannot grow beyond your skills and abilities as a leader. So I want to make sure that I talk about leadership in every episode because it is the thing that is going to ultimately make the biggest difference in your business. And then for those that are interested, you can stick around to the very end for the travel life update. I put that at the end because not everybody that listens to the podcast is a full time traveler or is interested even in traveling full time or honestly, some people, they don’t care about our personal life. They’re here for the content to make their life better, to make their business better. So I’ll keep the travel update to the end. Now, real quickly, before we get into today’s content, if we haven’t had a chance to connect on LinkedIn, I’d love to connect with you on LinkedIn. Just go to Eric Dingler dot com or the link is in the show notes and that’s going to for you or you right over to my LinkedIn Eric Dingler dot com connect with me on LinkedIn and yeah, I just would really value being connected with you there. All right. So let’s get into this question. Number one. What is a location, independent business and how does it work? I love the fact that this is the first question because a lot of people think that a location, independent business means that it has to be on line in some way. And that’s not true. I actually know someone who runs a carpet cleaning business who is a full time digital nomad. But the so the, the business services get delivered in specific. Geographic areas. He owns three different carpet cleaning businesses and three metropolitan areas, and he’s got a crew that goes out and cleans the carpets and takes care of the equipment. And he manages the business and the big accounts and sales and make sure payroll is happening and marketing is happening. Album legal stuff is happening. Planning for the future, for replacing equipment, hiring the team, training the team, ensuring the team is being developed in that there is a company culture even though he and his wife are not there. So location, independent business really means a business you can run without being physically present, which really opens the world to a lot of businesses. Most people think that, well, for me to be to be a location independent business owner, then, you know, I can’t I can’t own a restaurant or I can’t own a carpet, I can’t own a lawn care business. I can’t own that company. No, you can own all of those things. You just can’t be the technician that delivers those services. There’s a really big difference between owning a job and owning a business. Now you can be a technician who owns your diary, that owns your calendar. You can be the person that goes out and fixes the thing, cleans the thing, does the thing, but then is also responsible for making sure new clients are on the books and equipment is getting involved. And like you can be the technician and the business court administrator, or you can step back and say, I’m going to be the business owner and I’m going to have technicians delivering on the service and product. The way I like to say it is real estate agents don’t build the houses they sell, contractors build houses, real estate agents sell houses. And so a location, independent business. And how does it work simply means that the owner has learned how to lead from afar. And this is tricky. It is there is no doubt it is challenging it. It limits the number of not to number it. It does limit the number, but it limits who you can hire. You see, leadership from afar is very challenging, much more challenging than leadership in the presence of someone. If you’re present with someone and you’re able to interact with them, live immediately as things are happening, well, you can quite frankly, hire people that have a little less motivation. They’re not quite a self-starter. You know, they’re you’re able to hire more subpar people, to be honest. But if you’re going to have a location dependent business, how does it work? Is the second part of this? What’s a location, independent business, a business you can run from anywhere? And how does it work? Well, one of the main things is you have to have you have to hire team at a higher level and that would be the main thing. All right. So question number two, what are the best location, independent business ideas? Well, honestly, again, any business that doesn’t require you to be the technician and allows you to hire high quality people. Now, you could own a restaurant and have a high quality general manager that’s managing the day to day business and managing the team and things like that. And you can be gone for three months, six months, nine months, a year, and then cycle back through to check on the business and maybe work with this chef and set up some new menu items and, you know, just, you know, whatever it might be, but you don’t have to be there. I used to own a restaurant. I can tell you right now, I can run a restaurant and not be there. Okay. So what are the best location, independent business idea, a business that you kind of want to run, a business that you’re passionate about. A business ultimately solves a problem for someone. So you have to step back and go, what’s what’s a what’s the problem I want to solve for someone if you’re just chase chasing money and. Well, I feel sorry for you. I really do. And you’re not going to like many of my episodes because that should be a byproduct of what you’re doing. Money and wealth should be a byproduct of your passion. All right. You should be able to execute on your passion. Solve a problem. Look out in the world. See something that. It’s happening. Is they not on my watch? I want to solve this. I want to make sure that people have a great place to go, get a wonderful meal. I can’t stand it that there’s no place where people can go and get great food at a at a very affordable price with high quality servers and a very clean environment. I’m going to have that kind of restaurant in this community because these people deserve it, and I’m tired of it not being there. That is a great location, independent business idea. You know, maybe it’s going to help businesses have better websites. So I’m going to I’m going to be a Web designer. That’s a great location, independent business. I’m going to be a copywriter. I’m going to run social media people. I’m going to run ads. I’m going to do a I, you know, whatever it is, whatever it is, almost any business you could set up to be independent if you’re especially if you’re willing not to be the technician. Now, if you want to be the technician, then you need to have a business that doesn’t require a lot of tools again. Now we’re getting into a little bit more of the online business. All right. We’re getting a little bit more into the the the web design, the digital marketing, copywriting, ad management call consulting coaching, content creation you know, any of these kinds of things because you want to be in the technician. But I’m going to argue with you that it’s, you know, well, it doesn’t matter. I just think that in a true business, the owner isn’t the technician. You may be the technician at first, but the goal should be for you to replace yourself with that. All right. Number three, how do I start a location? Independent business. Oh, that’s a good one. Don’t take a sip of my coffee. How do I start a location, independent business? Well, what I do is I take people through a very similar process that I went through and that I’ve studied other successful businesses follow. And I actually take people through a 90 day what I call accelerator on this and how you start a location independent is a business is the first thing you’ve got to do is you’ve got to define the problem you want to solve in the world. What’s what’s the problem you’re going to solve? Then you have to come up with the persona of the person you’re going to solve it for. Who’s the person you’re going to solve this problem for? Okay, so you’ve got to identify a person with a problem. That’s number one. Then you’re going to do a little bit of make believe, a little bit of market research and make sure that it’s not literally only one person in the world. But that’s not going to happen. But, you know, you’re going to find out I’ve got this person in the world with a problem that I’m going to solve. And so this is your persona. This is who you know you’re going to solve the problem for. Then you’ve got to identify the product that’s going to solve that problem. And once you have the product, you’ve got to figure out all the things around the product, pricing points, profitability, deliverability, all these things around your product, your widget, and you’re going to test it out and things like that. There’s a little bit of a process there. And then finally you’re going to figure out your pathway, and the pathway is the sales funnel. How does somebody buy it? So I start or I lump all of this together as three o.P, three, one person with problem, one product to solve the problem, one pathway to buy the product Now you do that until you get to your first 1 million in revenue. Okay. When you get to the point where you’re making $1,000,000 a year in annual revenue, then you begin to diversify out from that. But you don’t start diversifying out and starting to do lots of different things if you really nail this first day. All right. That’s how you start a location, independent business. Now, if you already have a business, if you have an inkling to start a business and you’re like, where are you? Where am I? In the stages? How healthy am I? What’s the next thing I need to work on in my business? Then I’m going to invite you to go over to my website, go to D and E. Podcast dot com forward slash scorecard. All right. Right there. That that link it’s in the show notes. That is going to take you to an assessment, takes about four or 5 minutes to take this assessment of your business, and it’s going to assess the location, independent healthiness of your business. And at the end, it’s going to give you the results. That’s going to let you see immediately where you’re already solid and maybe where you need to do a little bit of work. So if you want to know where you’re at in this journey, what to work on next to is to achieve location independence. Then head over to Danny podcast dot com forward slash scorecard. Okay. Question number four What are the challenges of running a location independent business right off the bat? The first challenge you’re going to have is team hiring the right team, especially if you have a location independent business that has boots on the ground technicians. Your greatest challenge is going to be hiring. There’s no way around it. It team, team, team is going to always be your biggest challenge in business. You know, leadership is is messy because people are messy. And so you’re going to have to become a full time ongoing student of leadership, human nature. It helps to understand human nature in the context of making sales and hiring and weeding staff and negotiation. And so these are going to be topics you’re going to have to be comfortable becoming a forever student on. You know, I’m regularly listening to content reading content on on leadership, on human nature, on human behavior. Right now I’m studying Enneagram and trying to learn that because I think it’s such an amazing insight into people and how people tick and how I tick and all of that kind of stuff. So Enneagram is something I study right now. I’ve been through all kinds of trainings. On Patrick Lynchian, the Working Geniuses disk profile. You have to learn how people are human nature and continuously be learning that. So one of the challenges of running the businesses is people, and you’re always going to have to be learning. That’s going to be the biggest challenge of running a location independent business. The second one is going to be all the legal stuff. You know, having really good contracts and agreements. Taxes is going to be challenging. I don’t care what country you’re from, where you’re at challenging, that’s going to be challenge. And then the third one is the work life balance of it all, because, you know, people that live a rooted life in one place, they have work life balance issues. Now add on top of that, every whatever frequency you travel every month, three months, six months, a year, whatever it is, you’re in a new environment. For us, we change environments every 4 to 8 weeks on average. Sometimes we’re longer. We spent a year in Costa Rica, but outside of that one year, we generally move a little bit faster. And so there’s there’s always these new things to see and check out and all these experiences. But I still have to run a business and I still have to give my marriage attention, and I still have to give each of my four children attention. So that’s that’s the other challenge surrounding this. It just takes having some boundaries and maturity and some personal leadership. So those are some of the biggest challenges I see running a location, independent business. All right. Number five, how much money can I make and is it sustainable? Yeah, you can make as much money as you want and it’s totally sustainable. That’s business. I mean, it’s just the way that like, yes, you can make as much money as you like. Are you going to make it all tomorrow? No. Is it going to be a lifelong journey? Yes. But you can make enough money and it is sustainable. So you have to keep making more and more. No, you only reach a point where you’re making, you know, 150, 250, $500,000 a year. You’re like, visit, how many emails? I’m trying to do this for a few more years. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter that the money is the thing that I always thought was going to be the biggest issue. And it’s not. It’s just not. And so I wouldn’t worry about that. But the question was, how much money can I make and is it sustainable? Well. How much money you make it and is a sustainable. I would say the other thing though is this you have to learn how to sell and what you’re selling. If you’re selling your time for money, then you can only make so much money. All right. If you’re the technician and people hire you to do X, Y, Z, well, you can only be hired so many times to do that, because you can only do that so many times in a in a week. In a month. Now, if you are trading other people’s time for money, if you have if you are able to sell a service that you can deliver one too many mean you do one thing for many people all at once. Well, now you’ve got the ability of multiplication and things like that that is a lot more sustainable. I do not think it’s sustainable as a freelancer. I don’t think that is wise. It might be fun for a season, but I don’t think it’s sustainable. I don’t think it’s a sustainable way to live a long, fruitful life. If you want to one day not work. If you want to one day be in the position where you’re able to retire or move into an investor where you’re just investing in other businesses, then you’re not going to get there if you’re just trading your time for money. So you’ve got to learn how to do business and a different way than maybe what you’re thinking or what you’re comfortable with. But it is very sustainable. So how much money you make? Again, it comes down to your business leadership skills. If you think you’re going to be the technician that does the thing and you’re yourself, you’re capping yourself right there. You are limiting yourself. If you think that you just charge people based upon how many hours it takes you to do something well, or how many hours it takes your team to do something well, again, you’re limiting yourself. You can’t trade time for money. All right. And so how much money you make depends upon your leadership skills, your business leadership skills. It depends upon how you set your business up. But that’s why I say you make as much as you want. You just got to be set up to make it. That’s all. And is it sustainable? Absolutely. All right. So those were the five most common questions. So now I want to. Real quickly, transition over to this week’s leadership tip of the week. And this is a real short one, but it is hugely powerful. And this is one that I learned from Dave Ramsey through trade leadership. This is one of the core values of his company, and I think it’s absolutely golden. And what the Ramsey organization says is to be unclear is to be unkind. That is so good. To be unclear as to be unkind. If you’re leading a team and you are giving a very, very clear, ridiculously clear, specific, detailed information, all the information someone needs to complete their job, you’re being unkind to them. Because they’re going to be frustrated. They’re going to feel overwhelmed. They’re going to have questions and doubt. They’re going to be they’re going to worry if they’re doing something right. And so you’re putting all of these you’re putting these people you’re putting your people through all of these emotions and all these feelings. Because you didn’t take an extra 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. To make sure you were being very clear on what you were giving them. So to be unclear is to be unkind. Well, if you’ve made it this far, you’re here for the travel update. Now, in the last episode, I shared that we’re in Belfast. In fact, I’m in the co-working spaces of the last day of the year. For me, I’m in an office here in this co-working space, and my 12 year old came with me. That’s our youngest. And he’s sitting out by my cubicle. He’s crushing it and brawl stars. I posted on link to a picture on LinkedIn a little bit ago saying that he was crushing it in Brawl Stars and I was crushed in that email. So we’ve been hard at work this morning here and then I think we’re going to grab a bite to eat or as they would say here and in Northern Ireland, a wee bite, a wee they use wee in front of everything, even if it’s not small, it’s just. But we’re going to grab a wee bite for lunch on the way. On the way back to the house, walking home and. Yeah. And then we’ve got two weeks left before we leave Belfast. I shared that in the last week. You know, one of the things it’s amazing about traveling for us is we we find a church to to go to when we get into a community. And so far, we’ve always been so lucky and blessed to be led to great churches. The pastor of this church, it’s city church here in Belfast, and his name is Neto. And Neto last night showed up at our house with a Christmas tree. We had just asked him, Hey, where’s a good place to get where we could go by a tree that, you know, we’ll we’ll donate to the church or somebody afterwards unless the church happened. You know, we’re like, by any chance, does the church happen to have an unused tree in storage? You know, sometimes places have stuff. And he’s like, I look. And I said, okay, if not, don’t worry about it. Just let me know what’s what’s the store? I could go buy one. And a few hours later, he showed up at our house and brought us a Christmas tree and a box of decorations and lights. And so we spent the evening setting up a tree with the kids. And they’re they’re very excited and they definitely help make the inside of the house feel a little bit more Christmassy. So in two days, it’ll be Christmas morning and we’ve got a tree. So that’s that’s really, really amazing. So it’s great to find little blocks of community like that. All right. So with that, if you’re interested and more about the family side of of life on the road, the travels, the planning, all of that kind of stuff. Then you want to connect with us on Instagram. My wife and the kids share things over on Instagram. We are family of DI shows over on Instagram also family of dashes dot com, but Instagram is the best way to connect to get the travel life personal and what this lifestyle looks like as a family of six. Well, with that, my friends, I am going to say thank you very much for listening and I look forward to reading your reviews or comments or emails very soon. And I always appreciate seeing those and thank you very much for sending them and doing that. That means a lot. Until next time, make sure you chase the big dream lead with courage and safe travels.