Image by Erik.

** This is a guest post by Neil Matthews. Find out more about Neil at the bottom. **

I want to tell you a story about how I created a location independent business quite by accident and by moonlight.

I have been running my own computer consultancy business for the last four years. It has been successful and the income it generates is great. There is just one problem: I hate it…

The work I do is largely on-site at corporate clients – mostly away from home – and with all the usual office BS. I miss my wife and two young kids like crazy and the fleeting Friday night to Monday morning relationship I have with them is just not enough. I made a decision at the start of this year to build a new business that could be run from home but I also needed to grow and run this business whilst on the road servicing a client in a contract that lasts until the end of March 2009.

And a few months later, quite by accident I have built a location independent business – providing one-on-one coaching to Wordpress bloggers with technical problems.

Below I’ve highlighted the main challenges I’ve faced, how I’ve overcome them and the tools I’ve used to create my location independent business.

The Challenges

Time Restrictions

The biggest problem I’ve faced is one of time restriction. The majority of the day is spent servicing my UK-based client so I get up early and do any technical aspects of my new business (blog posts, site tweaks etc.). During the lunch hour, I market and tweet and during the early evening I do most of the client work for the new business.

The hours are long but since I often work away from home, I have nothing else to do except sit in a hotel bar or watch TV in my room alone. I am happy to invest this time now so I can build my dream business and lifestyle. At the weekend, I give 100% of my focus to my family, so everything needs to be done in a contracted time frame.

<rant>Hotel Wi-Fi Costs></rant>

It has been talked about a number of times on LI about the costs of hotel wi-fi – when will hoteliers learn that free wi-fi will bring people hopping and a skipping through their door? They can then claw back this cost by overpriced drinks at the bar or ridiculous costs for mini bar snacks. Sorry about that folks but I had to get it off my chest :)

Overcoming The Challenges

Streamlining The Business

I have spent a lot of time stripping down my business to it’s core – if an action does not bring any direct benefit, I don’t do it.

From day one I focused on building processes (a strategy I picked up from Lea’s posts) so I could streamline my work to service new and potential clients effectively but with the minimum of effort.

Whilst I have done this for time reasons, I think it has helped me to get my business off on a sound footing which will help once I have more time to spend on business development.

Re-Engineering The Core Service

The original offering (a technical support service) caused me multiple problems – I struggled to fulfill the needs of new clients whilst keeping my big corporate client happy. Work was not being completed on time, a new day began and there would be an eight hour delay before I could start again on new client work. This was not good.

I decided to re-engineer the service I offered into a coaching service and offer 1 hour chunks of my time. This means that a client receives dedicated time from me at a mutually convenient and scheduled time – so I can book the time slot at a period outside of the working day, keeping everyone was happy.

Working on The Go

I have mentioned that I have time restrictions – and I like to use all of the time I have effectively. My commute on Monday and Friday takes four and a half hours – I use this time productively by commuting via train rather than car.

I select train companies which supply free wi-fi and I get a large amount of work done during a time which would normally be dead time. A handy hint for travelling digital nomads.

Working In The Cloud

I am evangelical about working in the cloud. A quick definition of cloud computing is an application and data storage on locations other than your own computer (i.e. usually on the internet). Think of Gmail – it is a cloud computing application. It is an email application where the application itself and your data is hosted by a third party (in this example Google) and not on your own computer.

This means that you can access your data and applications from any computer with an internet – and not be tied to your own laptop all the time.

Recommended Tools

I use the following tools to run, market and manage my location independent business:

• A self-hosted WordPress blog
• Email via Gmail
• Documents, spreadsheets and presentations by (yes you guessed it) Google docs.
• A 3G card from T-Mobile
• Go-To-Meeting to provide coaching sessions.
• A netbook – it is tiny, weighs next to nothing compared to a standard sized laptop and is very easy to transport.
• A Paypal pre-payment card – I’ve been experimenting with this recently. It’s an extension of Paypal – a debit card which you charge up from credit in your Paypal account.

So now I have a location independent business, once I have finished my current contract at the end of this month will we be packing up our bags and becoming true location independent, digital nomads?

Probably not, we are happy where we are but we do have a wanderlust. I think our ability to travel whilst I run the business from anywhere with a net connection will lead us to indulge our passion for travel in the future. For now, I’m happy just having the choice.

About The Author: Neil Matthews is realising his dream of a location independent lifestyle and business. For more details about his WordPress coaching business, go to WP Dude.

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