Art of Time, Income & Mobility

I feel guilty for not taking care of this blog. I intend to do some more posting soon.

I have still been consulting for businesses though a lot has changed since I last posted here.

My new blog, LocalMarketingMastery.com is where I have been posting my ideas on how to use the Internet to market local businesses.

Go check out my stuff on Local SEO and Internet Marketing for Local Businesses.

Thanks,
Tim

I just saw a video blog post by Joel Comm (an internet marketing guy) on one of the most frequent questions he is asked, which is “How do I make money online quickly?” He said that people should go to seminars and conferences–being an internet marketing guy and a speaker at internet marketing seminars his main focus was on internet marketing seminars, but he also said to go to conferences in a niche you are interested in.

So, I thought, “that’s pretty good advice, but…”

You don’t quickly make money from going to seminars, conferences, buying educational materials, etc. You make money quickly by acting quickly. Actually doing moneymaking activities as opposed to learning about them is what makes money. I’m not knocking seminars. I go to them myself. I was just at one for the entire weekend (Saturday 9 am to 8pm, Sunday 9 am to 5 pm). I reconnected with some marketing guys, met some new ones and I learned a lot from the speakers.

However, if I don’t act on what I have learned from this seminar then I will never gain any real and lasting benefit from it.

When getting started, all the internet marketers say pick a niche. Some say to do a lot of research and some say to pick one for the long term (got to be careful lest you waste your time).

I say just pick a niche, almost any niche will do. Let us call this niche a Practice Niche. No sense getting all emotionally hung up on a niche. What is important if you aren’t making money online yet is to just get moving in the direction towards your goals. Here is the thing. You may pick a shitty niche. Odds are the niche you select will suck–for you.

However, you will get a great education–one based on experience and not just theory.

Your next step is to find or create something to sell in this niche. I would suggest finding some products, even info-products such as ebooks, seminars and home study courses. Create your own if there is ample money being made from selling someone else’s stuff.

However, you may wish to add an audio interview or two of experts within the niche as bonuses to give away with the products you are promoting. This will give people a reason to buy from you instead of someone else selling the same products.

Next, go to some conferences and seminars. Really. Joel Comm is one bright guy and his advice is definitely worth listening to. When you go to a seminar after doing the above, you will learn tons more and others will want to team up with you because you will have experience and not just a wish.

Please leave questions and comments.

~ T

On April 24, 2003, I fell off a mountain. I stopped about 65 feet later after a couple of bounces, shooting through trees with very long thorns and ending my right foot off to one side of my ankle. Definitely not where it should have been.

I lived and still have plenty of scars to show for it, but it is a tale I get to regale my daughter with and any others who fain interest. It was an adventure.

Some adventures are the kind we dream about–paragliding over South American gorges. Others we pretend won’t happen–getting caught in a gust that collapses the paraglider causing you to plummet 300 feet, but somehow surviving after spending weeks in intensive care.

No matter the outcome, we should be grateful for any adventure we survive. Life can be quite mundane if we let it, especially if we are afraid of failure, pain and even disaster.

Don’t pass up opportunities for adventure.

You too will have stories to tell your children and grandchildren (the only ones who want to hear the stories again and again).

Carpe Diem!

~ Tim

One of my favorite bloggers, Yaro Starak, recently posted an article about his just launched attempt at a portable lifestyle. He lives in Australia and is taking a very long trip from there to Canada by way of Fiji and Hawaii. He has been making a living as a blogger for about a year now, though he has been blogging for almost 3 years.

What I enjoy about his blog is the insights gained from his experiences blogging. I have learned quite a bit from him–well, except how to actually get myself to post more. It may take me awhile, but eventually I think I will become a decent blogger, too.

Recently I was the willing target of several audio interviews. The topic of course, was blogging, however as is customary, most interviews begin with a little background study of the person in question.

Life Portability: Mixing Travel, Business and Pleasure In One Seamless Lifestyle

As a result of telling my recent business history I found myself reminiscing about some of the ventures I was involved in during the previous 8 years or so. Most of them were online enterprises, but there was one experience where I was running a start-up based in the real world, an English tutoring school called “Aussie Tutor”.

If you dig into my earlier archives you will find several posts and podcasts were I mentioned my English school. It was an interesting time in my life, which taught me many lessons about business and in particular what I want from a business and what I don’t want.

Working 9 to 5 by Choice

While in charge of my school I came to fully realize what I had always known – I do not like having to be anywhere nine-to-five, five days a week.

Before I avoided a full time job specifically because of not wanting to be anywhere for such long periods of time to work for someone else. Not surprisingly, despite working for myself, I still did not like that I had to be somewhere during working hours.

Get the rest of the article here:
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/901/life-portability-mixing-travel-business-and-pleasure-in-one-seamless-lifestyle/

~ Tim

Four years ago, I started a small swimming pool service company in the Phoenix, Arizona Metro Area. I had one small marketing consulting gig lined up and thought a pool service would be an excellent investment. You know, hire people and have them clean and repair swimming pools while I did my marketing consulting.

Well, it wasn’t that easy.

I knew absolutely nothing about how to service pools. I spent almost a year learning how to fix and care for pools, then I started growing the business. I even got up to 5 employees before I found out that I stink as a manager. Something about me not being very detail oriented. My business was on track to make a bit under $500,000.

This was a time where I was the most miserable in my entire life. I was doing things I wasn’t very good at, but there wasn’t anyone else to do them. I was the boss.

I downsized the business to just one employee, a part time assistant and me. This worked well until I had to fire that employee a couple of months ago. What has been so aggravating is that I haven’t been able to do long-term travel because if something went wrong in the business I had to be there to fix it.

I was going to title this post, Stay Away From Local Services Businesses, but even if your service business isn’t locked into a certain geographic area (swimming pools in Phoenix require someone in Phoenix to clean and repair them) you are still locked into dealing directly with the customer. You may be an accountant who has clients in different places, but you still have to be available for those clients.

Service businesses can be great lifestyle businesses after they have reached a size large enough to hire professional management. However, it tends to take many years to grow a service business to such a size.

Why did I start a local service business in the first place?

The one really great thing and the only reason to ever start one is you can start making money quickly. If you don’t want to work for anyone else while creating a business you can do from anywhere (a Perpetual Vacation Machine), you can do some basic marketing in a high-end neighborhood and within a couple of weeks you could be making several thousand dollars a month and possibly exceed a $1000 per week.

Remember, it is the only reason to do a local service business. If you need money and you need it within a month, start a local service business and you could be making some decent scratch. Keep building up the clients and hire some staff and in less than 6 months you could have a business that makes you $100,000 per year. If you don’t keep growing till you can afford to hire a manager, you will get stuck in your business and in your geographic area.

So, Stay Away From Service Businesses.

~ t

Just a quick hello from the beach.

Kane

I have been away from blogging for a bit since I lost quite a lot of my time.

I have mentioned on my other blogs, which are now just this one, that I own a small swimming pool service company. I fired a technician because he wasn’t doing the work he was supposed to be doing and I was losing a lot of clients because of his lack of work ethic.

To be able to save a significant size of my pool business, I have been taking care of these pools personally. This has quickly regained the trust from my clients. Soon, I will be able to replace myself with a new technician and not have to worry about clients dropping service due to a lack of trust.

This blog has been highly influenced by Tim Ferriss, of 4 Hour Workweek fame, even though I had been writing about and semi-living some of the ideas popularized by Tim. I do give Tim credit for getting me to write an ebook about my experiences with my hetero-life partner (Jay and Silent Bob reference for you non-fanboys) Kane, who has been a huge influence on my own nomadic life.

Ebook will be out soon, so subscribe by RSS (and soon email) to be notified.

However, TimeIncomeMobility.net will depart from Tim’s book and blog in many areas and ways. Even though we have the same first name doesn’t mean I have the same things to say as he does.

Why a dot net name? Some wanker bought the dot com shortly before I decided to purchase it. I should have bought the URL when I first had the idea.

What will you find in this blog over the next few months?

Obviously, Kane and I will cover problems, solutions and theories related to controlling your time, income and mobility. In our old blogs we have already talked about some business ideas, mobile gadgets, software and just plain fun travel stuff.

You will see the transformation of our lives as we become 100% mobile compatible from our incomes to our activities and our residences. I’m not talking about living in an RV (though my wife and I are planning to spend some time living in a combo horse/RV trailer as she competes in endurance races around North America). Kane currently work part time for the US State Department, which has him in Sri Lanka and I work part time in my pool service. He and I have some mobile-compatible incomes from consulting (done over the phone), websites and writing. Kind of a mixed bag.

I want to make sure I never have to get into the field with my pool service again. So this year I will either have a better operational system in place or I will sell the accounts.

If you have read Ferriss’ book, then you know he doesn’t recommend starting a service business as your “muse” (a business solely there to provide the most income with the least amount of work) due to the frequent contact you have to have to keep clients happy. I agree. And I can say this out of a decade of experience as a marketing consultant and pool service business owner. Don’t focus on a service business. Yes, they are relatively easy and cheap to start, but can be a major hassle if it isn’t big enough to survive bad employees without your direct input.

What else will be on this site?

1. Time: not the Getting Things Done or daily planning time management stuff. Kane and I don’t really do much time management, but we will talk about ways to use your time to gain greater fulfillment. We may have guest bloggers who will talk about productivity and daily planning, but since we just enjoy our time we will stay focused on that aspect.

2. Income: we will be transitioning to 100% mobile income, so you will see us do it, but you will also get access to my years of serial entrepreneur experience and my knowledge gained from helping well over 200 different small businesses grow and redefine themselves. We will teach you how to create and control your income through example.

3. Mobility: not just travel. Kane and I like to travel around the world. So, that will be in here. We will also challenge traditional concepts of residence. Why live in one place for many years when it’s unnecessary? Mobility is determined by where and how your income is derived and influenced by how much time is within your control. Cross-topic posts will occur frequently.

4. Whatever you want to talk about. Kane and I want to know what interests you. Please post comments so we can start a dialogue. No matter how interesting something seems to us, if you don’t find it interesting, then this blog won’t be of much use to you or us.

I’ll try to get a couple more posts up this weekend to kick this blog off and then Kane and I will develop a publishing schedule.

Cheers,

tc