Has working remotely ever been so easy for digital entrepreneurs? Thanks to your laptop and a (good) wifi connection, it’s possible to make money and a living from wherever you want. But being a remote entrepreneur means you need strong self-discipline and to develop a reliable and helpful network.
Entrepreneurship is about convincing. You need to convince your customers, your investors, your market that they have to adopt your products and services. As a remote entrepreneur, you will have to convince people you’ve never met in real life, and most rational people won’t want to take the risk of dealing with someone who is gallivanting around while working. So, how to handle this dilemma?
1. Involve trustworthy and devoted partners in your business
Unless you already have a strong reputation in your field, it’s really hard to run a remote company as a solo entrepreneur, without business partners. Here’s an overview of the people who you need to help you thrive:
- Mentors: You need to be surrounded by smart entrepreneurs and businessmen who can challenge your business. You can easily get lost when you are not working in an office every week day and even more when you are often travelling. Your mentor(s) will help you take the best decisions and to structure your daily work.
- Sales partner(s): Depending on your field, you might need a sales partner who can help you convince your prospects and convert them.
- Potential investors: Be in touch with potential investors as soon as possible (when you set up your remote business). It doesn’t mean you need to directly ask them for investment. But it might be useful for later, when you confirm the potential of your business. Try to find an investor who knows your field better than you. He’ll be able to give you insights and can potentially connect you to his network.
- Core business partners: Running a remote business means you’ll have to delegate a part of your operational work to reliable and competent business partners. They can be other companies, freelancers or digital nomads – like you. Be sure they share the same values as you and that they properly understand your vision.
2. Your time is priceless: focus on business development
A remote entrepreneur is constantly travelling. He meets many new people from different countries and nationalities. That being said, the logical and scalable approach for the long term is to devote time to business development and management. That doesn’t mean that you can’t work on operational tasks anymore when you run a remote business. But bear in mind that your time is more limited when you work remotely and travel frequently than when you run a “non-nomadic company”.
3. Be visible online as an individual
As mentioned above, you’ll have to convince people you don’t meet in real life. Therefore, you need a compelling online presence on social media or on Google. It could be by creating content on your own blog, publishing guest posts on important online media, posting useful posts on Instagram, etc.
This online visibility will make you more tangible and trustworthy towards the business actors you have to convince.
4. Offer online chats instead of regular meetings
One of the keys to replacing regular meetings is to arrange Skype (or even Whatsapp) sessions. This will help your client to save time by talking with you as close to face to face as possible.
5. Give recurrent news to your network – videos, articles, emails, social media posts
You’ll be amazed how glad people will be to help out and promote your business when you give them recurrent news about your remote venture. A monthly email – roughly describing your business and travel news – is enough. Start creating a database of people who agree to receive this newsletter as soon as possible.
In a nutshell, running a remote company is very different than running a regular company. It means you have to have a stronger network than ever, offer alternatives to traditional meetings, and take care of your personal online branding.
