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99) How Long Does it Actually Take to Build an Online Business? · Digital Nomad Life Podcast

• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Hey there and welcome to the Digital Nomad Life Podcast.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, krista, also known as KristaBellaTravels on social media, and the reason why I always say my handle at the beginning of every single episode is because I just want you to know that I am available to have a conversation with you if you are curious how you personally could create a location-independent business, one that allows you to either be a digital nomad or a work from home mom, or a stay at home dog, dad, or whatever it is that you want.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I really wholeheartedly believe that my mission here on earth is to help people liberate themselves, to help them achieve lives of freedom and authenticity, and I just wholeheartedly believe that having a location independent business that's also built off of your strengths, off of your skill set, off of who you inherently are as a person and a personality, that this is the absolute best way for you to achieve that life of freedom and authenticity that I know we both want for you.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: So if this episode doesn't quite answer all of your questions, if it doesn't quite help you feel safe to move ahead in the direction of your dreams.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: First of all, I'd love to hear why and I want to know your questions and when you ask me your questions, it helps inspire me to make new, more interesting podcast episodes and, honestly, it's a win-win for us to have this conversation.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: So, like I said, feel free, slide in KristaBellaTravels on Instagram and let's get into the content of this episode.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: So this episode that I'm recording today is one that is a super important topic and I am not sure if everybody who's listening is going to really understand how important this topic is until the end, but I'm going to do my best to give you a full picture on the timeline of building an online business.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be speaking to people who are absolutely brand new to this.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Like, let's say, you have no digital experience whatsoever.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: You will have a different timeline than people who are more advanced, people who do have digital skills, people that have been working in the corporate world for a few years to a few decades.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I will tailor this episode to speak to both of these people.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I will refer to these two different types of people as beginner and advanced.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, so if you're a beginner who wants to build an online business, you might be fresh out of high school, or maybe you did go to university, but you didn't like learn any digital friendly skills or, like you don't think that you have any skills.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe you've been working as a car mechanic or a nurse, as a construction worker, a waitress, someone in hospitality, etc.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Etc.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: So if you are in that category, you would be in the beginner group.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, moving forward in this episode Now, if you are someone that is advanced, you probably have been working in corporate for at least a few years and in those few years, hopefully you got some kind of promotion.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Like you were able to prove that you have a really strong work ethic.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: You know how to work, you know how to sit behind a laptop and whatever it is that you were doing behind that laptop, it has some relevancy to an online business.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So you could be working in any field of marketing whatsoever.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: If you did any kind of marketing, I would say you probably fall more into the advanced category, but it doesn't really have to do with marketing or business, right?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: You could also be a lawyer or a finance person, and I'll give you some examples of how people like that that do come from backgrounds that don't sound like they would lend themselves to a digital nomad slash remote business.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I will tell you lots of examples about how they actually do so.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: If you have been working in corporate for some period of time and you've had some degree of success, I'm going to put you in the advanced category.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Now, if you've been listening to my podcast for any length of time, you probably know that I really value transparency and truthfulness.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: It's really important to me that I don't make any kind of exaggerated claims about how long it will take for somebody to achieve any particular level of success, because I know, as a coach who has coached hundreds and hundreds of people into creating location independent businesses and these are people with all different starting points, from beginner to advanced I know that the length of time that it takes for any particular person to build an online business varies so so, so much, based on a huge variety of factors.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So in this episode today, I'm going to uncover what all of those factors are, so that you can get a more accurate idea about how long building an online business might take for you, specifically based on your specific situation.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Now, I don't know how long it's going to take me to record this entire episode, but just in case you don't get to the end, I just want to give you one super hot tip Okay, and that is to never believe any kind of marketing message where someone says you can achieve these results in this amount of time.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: If they make some kind of claim like that, where they're making it sound like it's almost guaranteed for you to have success within a specific timeframe, I need you to understand that this is a marketing message and it does work pretty well, like saying things like that definitely helps people get sales for their coaching businesses, and that's because people want predictability, they want assurance, they want to know that if they invest into something, that it's going to work.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: And to me, course, creators and coaches that make claims like that clearly care more about the income that they are generating from their clients than they do about the actual results that their clients are getting.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: So I'm just here separating myself and saying I actually want people to have success in my program and that's why I am not going to make any kind of false claims in my content.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: You might hear me say that you could build a business in as little as three months, and that is with a little asterisk.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: That that is if you are an advanced person who isn't dealing with any of the common entrepreneur shadows, and those people definitely do exist, but for the average person, it might take a little bit longer than that.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: And again, just because someone tells you that it might take a shorter amount of time, I need you to use your discretion and remember that people that say that they're saying it because they want to make a sale.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm here telling you the truth and or at least helping you figure out what the truth is for you specifically.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: So I think I'd like to start off by talking about what are the different general factors that do contribute to the length of time that it might take for you to successfully build an online business.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: These factors are clarity on what business you want to create.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: The more clear you are on what business it is that you are creating, the faster the process is going to be.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Confusion is going to be one of the things that slows you down the most.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Pivoting is also going to slow you down considerably.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Having too many cooks in the kitchen, if you will, in terms of brainstorming ideas and getting other people's opinions on what you should and shouldn't do, rather than listening to your own intuition not your ego, but your intuition.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: That also is something that can really slow the pace of you building your business, because lots of people are going to have lots and lots of different ideas, and lots of different ideas can cause confusion, which is what I said was the first thing that's going to slow you down the most.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So clarity, clarity, clarity and we'll talk more about how to achieve that clarity a little bit later on.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Another factor that significantly affects how quickly or slowly you will build a business is what your current knowledge and skill set is at the point that you are beginning the whole process.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: So if you are a beginner, as I mentioned earlier, someone who doesn't have a strong professional background, someone who doesn't have a big inventory of skills that they can leverage, people like that are going to need to spend a considerable amount of time filling in their knowledge gaps.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Now, when I say considerable amount of time, I don't mean years.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: When I say a considerable amount of time, I don't mean years, I'm not saying that you need to go get some kind of master's degree or take a certification program.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, you might need to do that, but I'm thinking like well, I guess it depends on the business that you want to build too.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Um, but that's, that's another one, right?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: But how much knowledge you have to begin with will significantly affect how quickly you can move forward, building the business of your dreams.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And, on the note of what I just mentioned as well, the type of business that you are going to create matters significantly.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: There are so many business models out there.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Now, if you're following the business model that I teach, which is the high ticket, small service provider model, that one is the fastest to create, whether you are a beginner or advanced.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: If you're advanced, the process can actually be very fast, like truly within a few months.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And if you're a beginner, I would say that process could be as little as three months but could take you up to a year, and that is if you're really working hard at this.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So that's another factor.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Right, it is about your work ethic.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: It is about how motivated you are, it is about how much you care about the results.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: And, speaking of how much you care about the results, another factor that contributes to how long it will take you to build a business is your why it's the reason you care.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: It's the reason why you are creating your business in the first place, if you have a very strong reason to be creating that business and you stay really connected to that reason throughout the whole process of building your business, that is going to help you truly propel forward.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: So sometimes people are building a business because they just really hate their job and they just want to get out of their job.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Well, to be building a business because you are in a state of hate, like a low vibration state, like that, that is not going to help you move very quickly.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: But if you are building a business out of desire, out of joy, out of pursuing more fulfillment, because you love the business idea or you know that it's going to contribute to the greater good, or because you see how your business will directly contribute to you living out some other kind of dream, like a dream lifestyle, for example, like moving abroad or moving to go be with your long-distance lover or reconnecting with your family, like those reasons will help you move the building of your business so much faster than if you're building a business out of a state of scarcity, lack, hate, etc.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go ahead and say that your discipline is going to be another factor that significantly contributes to how quickly you are able to build a business.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: You might have the biggest dreams in the world.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: You could be a big dreamer.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: You could be so in love with your long distance partner and you could really want to be building that business.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: You could have a super clear idea of what it is that you're building.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: But if you're not actually looking at your calendar every single week and carving out an amount of time that you are putting all of your brain power to your business, it's not going to move very fast.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: In fact, it might not move at all.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Building a business does take work, it does take energy, it does take a concerted effort.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: You're not going to be able to build a business just in passing, just like you're not going to be able to build your dream body in passing.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Sure, you can go on hot girl walks every day.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Sure, you can take the stairs more often.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Sure, you can start to eat a little bit better.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: But all these habits, they might help you move the needle a little bit in moving towards your dream body, but it's never, ever, ever going to replace a regular gym routine and a meal plan.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So if you want to build a business, make sure that you have that routine and plan, make sure it's in your calendar and it becomes a non-negotiable.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: You've got to be disciplined about it.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And the final factor that I want to talk about is if you are willing to get over your own shit and when I say that I mean putting your ego aside, doing things that feel uncomfortable, putting yourself into the face of failure and rejection and criticism, not caring what other people think about you, and stepping into your ultimate potential courageously and bravely Note, I didn't say fearlessly.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Fear is a natural part of entrepreneurship.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Fear is probably going to be stronger and stronger the faster and faster you build your business.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: So if you want to build your business really fast, honestly, you might be dealing with a lot of fear, and that's okay.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I think fear is welcomed here.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: When you do have fears and you face it and you tackle it head on, you build so much resilience, you build so much grit, and those are two qualities that are really important for long term entrepreneurship.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing what a lot of people do is they don't accept their fears.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: They make their fears mean something bad about them.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: They make their fears mean that they can't do it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Just because they're scared of showing up on social media, they decide that if they're scared, that means that they can't, whereas there are lots of people who are scared to show up on social media, but they still do see the difference.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Guess which one of those people are going to build their business faster?
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: The ones that see the fear, feel the fear and do it anyway.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: So now that I've broken down the different factors that will contribute to how long it will take you specifically to build your online business, let's go through one by one and I'll give you more details about each of them and how you can accurately assess where you are on the spectrum.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: So the first thing that I mentioned is going to greatly contribute to how quickly or not quickly you build your business is the clarity you have over the kind of business that you will build.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this about me, but I am a career coach, and my specialty as a career coach is helping people analyze their personality and figure out what is the standout qualities of their current skill set, their personality, their natural talents, their gifts, et cetera.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I help them figure out what all of those things are and how they can easily translate into an online business.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: When people work with me, usually that is the gift that I can give them, which is the clarity, because for so many people when they don't know what kind of business they want to create, if they don't know what skills they have that can translate into online work.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: What ends up happening is they go on Instagram and they hear this person talking about e-commerce, and they hear that person talking about how you should build a coaching business, and they hear another person talking about digital products, etsy, canva, faceless marketing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And the thing is, all of these business types can work, but if you don't make an effort to just freaking decide which one you want to go for, you're going to end up testing a little bit this one to the left, testing a little bit this one to the front, testing this one a little bit to the right, testing this a little bit to the back, back to the left, back to the right, to the front, to the right, testing this a little bit to the back, back to the left, back to the right, to the front, to the back, like it's going to end up being this little dance where you're just kind of like dabbling in all these different business ideas, learning a little bit here and there, here and there, here and there, and do you know what, if that is what you've been doing.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: It's okay, because every single time that you try something new, you do end up picking up a little bit of knowledge and you get closer and closer and closer to identifying what is the right career path for you and what's not the right career path for you.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: But if you're going to stay in that game without asking for any support, there's literally no telling how long you could be stuck in this limbo phase, in this purgatory of never knowing what business you're actually creating.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: So if you're be stuck in this limbo phase, in this purgatory of never knowing what business you're actually creating, so if you're not familiar with this part of the work that I actually do, I offer a paid service called a career assessment call, and you can actually hear so much more about this on episode 33 of this podcast, I break down the whole philosophy, the different outcomes that people have, the kind of things that come up on that call.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Some are pretty surprising because these calls like I'm not your average career coach, right, I'm not just looking at your resume, I'm looking at your major life stories.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at what is your level of empathy and charisma.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Are you left brained or right brained?
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Do you wish to be creative and do you have creative experience, or do you wish to be creative and don't have creative experience, and how can we leverage either one of those scenarios?
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: We really leave no stone unturned in this career assessment process and it's super, super, super effective.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I've probably done about 400 of these calls by now, so I've got clocking 400 hours of analyzing people's personalities and helping them figure out a remote business idea, and this is why people pay me.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Right Like this is literally why people pay to work with me because I can help them get past that first hurdle, which is the clarity.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: If you don't have the clarity on what business you want to create in the first part, it doesn't matter if you have every other thing that it takes, you don't know what direction you're walking in.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Therefore, you're never going to walk in a straight line.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: We know that a straight line is the fastest path to always go from A to B.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: That's the whole concept of parkour.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: We want you to parkour your way to your business, but if you don't know where you're going, what the end point is, you're never going to get there.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so clarity is the first thing that you need, and remember when you are pivoting when you decide something and you go all in on it, but then you pivot.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: When you're changing directions, you're prolonging the destination.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it's wrong to pivot, by the way.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I do think that when a pivot comes up like we think that we're going on this path and then we ultimately decide to go on a different path, there's nothing wrong with that.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Probably you are pivoting because you are moving closer to the most authentic business that you can create.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: But what you need to understand is that if you are someone who's susceptible to constant pivots, like if you can't make up your goddamn mind, or if you have a really hard time choosing something and then committing to it, then that will significantly increase the length of time it will take for you to build a business.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Now back to my comment earlier about how there are lots of other coaches and course creators online that say if you follow this step by step by step process, you could build a business within three months.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: And while that might be true, it's only true if you go on the path and you don't veer off of the path.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: But people tend to veer off the path because they get confused and because they change their mind.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that is what I have to say on clarity, which is the very first thing that you need.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: That will contribute to how long it will take for you to build your business.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the next thing is your existing skill set and the knowledge gaps that you may or may not have.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: So, like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, there are people who are beginner and people who are more advanced when it comes to their digital skillset.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: If you're someone that doesn't have a lot of skills again, maybe you come from like a construction background or hospitality or whatever you don't really have a ton to work with then you're, of course, going to need to learn something so that you can create a business that you can run from anywhere.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Remember, the nature of a business is that it is an exchange of value for money, so you need to get really clear on what value you can provide to another person.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: And again, that's back on the clarity piece.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Now, actually, something that I want to clarify or clear up a little bit here is that just because you maybe have worked in construction or hospitality or nursing or something, that doesn't actually mean that you are a beginner, because sometimes those skills that you have from those different areas could actually translate into value that you can provide to another person.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to make this episode as simple to follow as possible, but, as an example, someone who is a travel nurse might have a huge network of other travel nurses and that person might actually be really social and extroverted.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: They might be the life of the party.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: They might have a really natural way of building community around them.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: That person might actually have all the skills they need in order to create a business that connects travel nurses with one another and fosters deep friendships of travel nurses when they're in a new destination.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know if something like that exists.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: This is just a super random example off the top of my head, but the point is you may actually have leverageable skills for an online business and you just aren't thinking about it in that way.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Because if that person like this travel nurse let's call her Kelly If Kelly is super extroverted, super social, a natural community builder, and she has a huge network of other travel nurses around her, sure she will need to learn about some different softwares that she can use, she'll need to come up with a marketing plan and she will need to learn a bit about business in order to create this specific kind of business, but she doesn't necessarily need to go learn a brand new skill in order to provide value, because the value that she is providing is community building with a specific niche of people.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Now, if we take a different example, let's say there's someone who's fresh out of high school, and this person might be pretty insecure.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: They might not have a ton of life experiences.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: So let's just say that this person actually, like, cannot come up with a way to provide value to anyone with their current skillset, value to anyone with their current skill set.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Well, this particular person.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Now they will need to fill in some knowledge gaps.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: First of all, they will need to decide what kind of business it is that they want to pursue.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: So they will need that clarity.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Let's say that they decide they want to pursue a podcast management business.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Does that person know anything about podcasting?
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Yet?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: No, they don't.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: They're fresh out of high school, they're insecure, they don't have any life experience.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: The only experience they have with podcasts is that they sometimes listen to podcasts.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: So what they're going to need to do is go learn all about the industry of podcasting, as well as how to edit an episode, how to publish that episode and how to market that episode.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: The good news is that all of those things that that person would need to learn can be discovered online, probably for free.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: If you're consuming free content, it might take you a little bit longer to fill in your knowledge gaps, because free content tends to be answering like little, bite-sized pieces and that person, like, is going to need to put together the curriculum in their mind by just googling and youtubing, asking chat, gpt.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: But there are also people that offer online courses that are more comprehensive, that give you the strategy and the plan, and taking an online course is probably what's going to help that person expedite this part of the process, which is filling in their knowledge gaps.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So if we take Kelly, for example, the traveling nurse, kelly didn't realize that she was advanced, but she is.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: She's got some kind of life professional experience and she can leverage that experience to provide value.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, she does still need to fill in some knowledge gaps about business and marketing, but the value that she's offering she already has that down.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Now the other person let's call him Sam.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Sam, fresh out of high school, insecure, doesn't have any life experience.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Sam not only needs to learn about business and marketing, but Sam also needs to learn about that value that he will provide to his future clients.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: So for Sam, it's going to take a lot longer for him to get his business rolling than it will take Kelly.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: For Sam, I would say he probably needs to dedicate a few months to learning about podcast industry and management.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: So if Kelly can move full steam ahead with her business idea, she's like yep, this is what I want to do.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I'm really clear on it.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: It feels super aligned.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I'm going to follow the step-by-step plan to learn how to build a business.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: She probably is learning it inside of Krista's program, the Digital Nomad Life Academy, and yes, I just referred to myself in the third person Her plan.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Her process might take anywhere from like three to six months to get this business off the ground, because Kelly, again, probably doesn't know about business and marketing.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: So she does still need to learn those things and she still needs to do all the things that come with building a business, like figuring out what her offer is, who her niche is, what her marketing plan is going to be.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: She needs to do that market research.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: She needs to do competitor research, like Kelly needs to do shit in order to get her business off the ground.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: But if Kelly is confident and already has value to provide, it's going to take her a lot less time than it will take Sam.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: So now, as we're talking about Sam, I'm going to jump ahead to talking about his why, his work ethic, his motivation, his discipline, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: So those are some of the other qualities that I mentioned earlier in the episode that will significantly contribute to about how long it takes for him to build his business.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, so, remember Kelly, she already knows that she has value to offer, she's really excited about her business, she's feeling super aligned about it.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So she's just going to follow the step-by-step framework to build a business.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: But Sam, sam's going to have a bit of a bigger hurdle to overcome in order for him to build a business Because, remember I said that Sam was a little bit insecure.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Sam doesn't necessarily believe in himself so much because Sam doesn't have a lot of evidence from his life that he is capable of building a business.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: He doesn't have evidence because he hasn't tried yet.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: He's young, this is the first time he's trying something.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: So the first time that you do anything, obviously you're gonna be more insecure and you're gonna have more fears about it.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: That's okay.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Everybody has to start somewhere.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: But we just need to be real with ourselves and real with Sam and acknowledge the current situation that he's in and how it's different than Kelly's situation.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: So what Sam is going to need to do if Sam wants to be successful and Sam wants to build a business quickly what I would tell Sam is I'm going to say, okay, you want to go into podcasting, all right, now is the time to go buy an online course, invest in it, right Like you could piecemeal it together with YouTube videos and asking chat, gpt but you want to get this ship sailing quickly.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: So I recommend taking a shortcut by following an online course where the strategy and the curriculum has already been planned out for you, and then you're going to need to look at your schedule and you're going to need to say, okay, I have this many hours after school, I have this many hours on the weekend and I have these many hours in between my jobs in order for me to do what I need to do, which, in this case, is learning about the industry of podcasting and podcast editing.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: If Sam actually dedicated, let's say, five hours per week to studying all about the podcast industry, podcast management.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Sam would clock 20 hours of learning about podcasting within one month.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: 20 hours is pretty solid, like if you study anything for 20 hours you're going to know a decent amount.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Now let's make that 60 hours.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Let's say he spent 60 hours over the next three months learning all about the podcast industry and podcast editing.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Sam actually is going to be in a pretty good spot to be able to at least edit someone's podcast for a very, very low cost.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Because now Sam needs a little bit of experience, sam needs to gain confidence, sam needs to gain credibility.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: So Sam's going to go out and he's going to offer his service of podcast editing to someone who has a podcast to edit and Sam's not going to charge that person a lot of money because Sam needs the experience.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: So I would say within four months Sam can reasonably expect to know a lot about podcast management editing and he will have a real portfolio of real examples of what he did for another client.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: And if he has all of that within four months now he can pick up from where Kelly started and start learning about business and marketing and launch that business.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: And if he's really clear and if he's feeling really good about what he's just learned and he's excited to actually put it on the market and offer it to people, sam could be up and running with his business within a couple of months after he learns the skill.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: So I would say, for a complete beginner like Sam, who started off with no experience, with no skills, without a lot of confidence still, sam could reasonably expect to have a location independent business within six months.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: If you ask me, that sounds like a pretty amazing deal, considering that the amount of money that Sam needed to dedicate to building this business was probably pretty minimal.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Sure, he needed to buy an online course.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Probably he wants to hire some kind of business mentor, but let's say that Sam invested up to $5,000 to build this business.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Sam invested up to $5,000 to build this business.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: If Sam builds this business in an effective way, which he probably will do if he has mentorship, he will be able to make that money back within just a few months of his business launching.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: So within, let's say, one year of Sam even having the idea to start his business, he could have learned everything that he needs to learn in order to get started.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: He could have gotten his first few clients, use those few clients to get testimonials, to get paying clients and paid all the money back that he would have invested into learning about business and marketing from his coach.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: And now he's just free for the rest of his life to start making money with his podcast editing business.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Now, all of this that I just said about this example of Sam assumes that Sam is following the high ticket small service provider business model.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: It also assumes that he has great work ethic, that he's highly motivated and disciplined to actually sit down and be working on his business on a regular basis.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Again, all of this was considering that he dedicated a minimum of five hours a week to learning and moving forward.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: He probably needs to dedicate a minimum of 10 hours per week to the business, if not more, of course.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: The more clients he has, the more time he's going to need to put towards the business.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: The bigger your business grows, the more time and energy you're going to need to spend on it, at least at the beginning.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: So when you're putting a lot of time and energy into a new business, it actually can put you into a pretty vulnerable situation because all of that time and energy you could be spending comfortably watching Netflix with your loved ones, building your dream body at the gym, or having some kind of consistent paycheck at a grocery store.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, you also have those options and sometimes, when you're building a business, you do need to do things that feel scary.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: You do need to do things that feel scary.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: You do need to do things that put you outside of your comfort zone, such as announcing to everybody that you've ever met in your life on social media that you're building a business.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Now that you do this thing, that means that the bullies from high school are going to see it.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: That means that your judgmental uncle is going to see it, your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, your previous bestie, who you had a falling out with, your old co-workers, your old boss, etc.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Like people are going to see it and you don't know what they're going to think.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Frankly, what they think doesn't actually matter, but to your subconscious you might think that it matters.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: And if you think that it matters and if you're scared of it, guess when it comes time for you to show up on social media, you're probably gonna hesitate to press that post button.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: And if you hesitate to press that post button, guess what that's gonna do to the timeline of your business.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: It's gonna make it longer.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: The more you hesitate, the more that you procrastinate, the longer it's going to take pretty simple right.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Why do we procrastinate the longer it's going to take Pretty simple right.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Why do we procrastinate?
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Usually it's because we're either scared of something an uncomfortable feeling, the possibility of rejection or criticism or we are procrastinating because we are confused.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: We're not sure if this is the right move.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: We're not sure if this is what we want to do.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: We're not sure if what I'm saying actually makes sense.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: So fear or confusion are two reasons, two main reasons why we procrastinate, and both of those things can show up a lot in the early days of entrepreneurship.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: So you might have a step-by-step strategy laid out for you.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: You might have all the skills and everything that you need in order to launch your business.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: But if you procrastinate because you're scared of an uncomfortable feeling or you don't have full clarity on what your next step is, you will procrastinate.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: And that timeline, that so-and-so on Instagram promised you would only take three months, it's going to take longer than that, and that's not the person on Instagram's fault.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: It's your fault and it's okay that it's your fault.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: I'm just.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: It's like it's.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not here to shame anyone or make you wrong for procrastinating.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I'm actually here to normalize it.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I'm here to be really open and transparent about how long it takes to build a business and why it often takes significantly longer for people than they initially expect.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: This is actually exactly the reason why I made the Digital Nomad Life Academy a full year program and I also make it super easy and affordable to continue extending the program month over month after your first year finishes.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: What I used to do as a career and business coach is I would do what all the other ones are doing, which is offer a three month coaching program and that's fine, like it actually is industry standard to say, okay, I'm going to coach you for 90 days.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: For the coach, it makes sense to do a 90 day program.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Because that coach can take on more clients, the quicker they turn people over.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And if that coach is technically delivering what they need to deliver, which is all the strategy and some sessions to help somebody move through their limiting beliefs, whatever, then that coach can say, okay, I did my job and the rest is on you.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: But genuinely, it's just not realistic for someone to go through a huge transformation within three months, unless they are already incredibly self-aware, confident and skilled.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, so just to make it clear, I'm not here to try to scare you away.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I just promised that I would give it to you straight in this episode and I would talk to you about how long it actually literally physically takes to build a business.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it isn't just that it physically takes a certain amount of time.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: It's like you need to move past a lot of inner workings, a lot of self-sabotaging behaviors, a lot of fears and limiting beliefs that do get in the way.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Plus, you need to actually do the work, you need to actually set aside the time, you actually need to be dedicated, you actually need to be motivated, you need to know why you're doing it, etc.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: And you probably want to be following a business model that is simple and quick to build.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm going to now talk about the business model that I teach people about.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Right, the high ticket, small service provider model I kind of touched upon it earlier in this episode, but I'm gonna go deeper into that now.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Provider model I kind of touched upon it earlier in this episode, but I'm going to go deeper into that now and I'm also going to reveal to you what I think is the best time of year to be starting this process and spoiler it's actually right now.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, so just prime your mind, start getting into the idea that if you actually want to change your life, there is literally no better time of year than to start right now.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And I know that might sound contradictory or like weird, because it's we're like moving into the summertime and people tend to be, you know, wanting to have a bit more fun.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: They want to be relaxing a little bit, but that is exactly the reason why now is the right time.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let me go into the step by step process that you need to follow to build the small service provider model.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I'll contrast that with other business models and then we'll talk about the actual, like, month by month breakdown.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: All right, okay.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: So so much more to talk about, okay.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: So first of all down.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: All right, okay.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: So so much more to talk about, okay.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: So first of all, the business model that I recommend, the one that I teach inside of my program, the Digital Nomad Life Academy, is the high ticket small service provider model.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: This means that you are offering a skilled service to someone who sees value in it and is willing to pay for it.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Pretty simple, right?
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Like I said earlier, if you have some kind of value to give, then that is what you will be paid for in your small service provider business.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: To contrast this with other business models, if you have a product-based business, that product-based business could be online or it could be in a brick and mortar store.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: So if you are selling products like, let's say, fruit or electronics, the value that you are offering in exchange for money is the product itself.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: A digital product also could be that you're offering something digital that someone can just buy.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: It doesn't require any of your time.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: It doesn't require any of your effort.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: All the effort and time went into creating or producing or bulk purchasing that product.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: So someone took the time to grow the oranges, someone took time to design the PDF, someone took time to curate all the clothing items in the boutique, someone took the time to manufacture the best pair of headphones, etc.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: So with different business models, there's always going to be time involved in creating a business.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, so when you have a service provider business, the time that you're spending working in the business is your product, it is your value, it is the thing that you are offering, and so why I love the service provider model is you don't need to do any work in advance to offer the service, like you just basically get on the phone with somebody live, and you perform the service for them right there while you're on the phone.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Or, you know, you do the service while you are sitting in the comfort of your own home, like, let's say that you are a virtual assistant.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Part of the value that you will be offering to your client are those calls where you're like helping your client sort through their tasks and then maybe on your own time, you're performing the tasks that they asked you to do.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: But you didn't have to spend any time beforehand building something, growing something, designing something.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: All of the value that you are offering in the small service provider business model is happening live, with your client.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: If you're a copywriter, right, maybe you do a little bit of work putting together like a like, a like a form for your client to fill out, but for the most part, you're going to have a long call with your client, live, and then you're going to go write the copy and then you're going to present it to them.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: You're not doing work in advance.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Right, you're doing the work on the spot, right then, and there offering it as a service.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: If your podcast editing which was the example that I used earlier you are, you don't have to build anything to edit someone's podcast.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: They build the thing, they send it to you and then you offer the service of editing the episode.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: So hopefully this makes sense.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: With the small service provider model.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: It's more of an energy exchange than it is a product exchange.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: So a product exchange business, a product-based business, can work.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: But what you have to understand is there is going to be a long runway before you ever make any money.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: There's going to be a period of time where you are designing something, you are building something, you are growing something, you are manufacturing something, you are curating something, you're pulling a lot of things together and often with a product-based business, there's some kind of financial commitment that you need to make beforehand.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: You need to buy the materials, you need to pay for the software, you need to purchase the ingredients, you need to spend the time building something like there's.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: There's quite a lot that you need to do to sell a product, whereas with the service, all you need to do is show up, live and perform the service.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: So that's why I like it, because as soon as you get the idea, as soon as you have the clarity on what it is that you want to build, then you can put together your offer.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: So so you know, I'm not just talking about a service provider business model.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about a high ticket, small service provider model.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: What does high ticket mean?
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: It means that you are packaging together your offer, your service, in a way that you can charge reasonably over a thousand dollars for it.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Now why would someone pay a thousand dollars for anything, you might be wondering.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Well, it might sound like a lot of money to you if you don't have a business, but if you're someone like me who does have a business, I'm dropping $5,000 on different services every single month.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: It's part of my overall business expenditures.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I need to hire people to help me, otherwise I would never get anything done right.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: I cannot do all the tech myself, even though I technically know how and I could Google it or I could YouTube it or I could ask ChatGPT how to do it.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: The time and energy it would take for me to set up a website it's just not worth my time.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Even though I could do it, I prefer to hire somebody else.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Social media, for example.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Sometimes, when I have too much on my plate, I have too many clients.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Even though I think I'm quite good at social media, sometimes it's not as useful of my time for me to do my own social media and I need to outsource it to someone else who can take it off my plate.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Why would I spend a thousand dollars for someone else to do something for me?
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: You might be thinking that sounds like a lot of money.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Well, if asking someone else to create for me three posts per week, every week, and to post it to my channels, or to engage with the people in my audience, if that I would spend more than $1,000 on that every month, because if it gets me only one client, it's worth it.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: But the idea is that that money helps me get multiple clients.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Me investing in a social media manager helps me get multiple clients and therefore it's worth the $1,000 plus thousand plus dollars, worth the $3,000 that I may be spending.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: By the way, that social media manager, they could say hey, krista, great, you want to work with me.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: I can do three posts per week, every single week and that'll be $1,000.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Or or, if you want, you can sign up to work with me for six months and I will still charge you a thousand,000 per month, but instead of doing three posts per week, I will do four posts per week, and then I'm like, wow, what great value.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, like, here's $6,000.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: And now that social media manager has just made $6,000 off of me and I think that I got a killer deal because actually I did me, and I think that I got a killer deal because actually I did so.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: This is what I mean when I say package up an offer.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: That's over a thousand dollars, and if you can make it a recurring payment or something where the client is paying for multiple packages in bulk like this one person that I just hired, I just paid them $6,000.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: And if they have a goal of making $5,000 a month, they only need to get one more person like me over the next several months in order for them to meet their income goal.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: If they only need to get one client per month, they don't need to have a huge marketing machine in order to do that.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: They can actually probably just get word of mouth referrals and, in fact, if they're going to do a good job for me.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: I'm probably going to refer my entrepreneur friends to them.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: So this is why it's really important I mentioned this earlier on in the episode to get a beta client, to get someone that you do a really good job for at the beginning of your business offerings, and then they probably will refer you to other people and that's how you're going to end up having a sustainable business without needing to know a ton of business and marketing.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Do you need to know some business and marketing?
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, of course, business and marketing is like the foundation of what it is that you're doing.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: But you don't need to be having a huge audience.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: You don't need to have a high converting website.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: You don't need to have search engine optimized YouTube content Like you don't need any of that stuff just to get started with your business and your goal.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: My goal for you, is to get started on your business and your goal, my goal for you, is to get started on your business.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Once you get started, once you get those first few clients, then sure, you will learn about more advanced marketing techniques, but I'm here again to help you kickstart your life so that you can quit your job, be free to live the life that you want.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Anyway, we're talking about the high ticket small service provider model here.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: So hopefully you understand what I mean about that business model and you understand why it is the fastest way for you to replace pretty much any salary, even within a few months.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: So I know you heard me earlier talk about how, like I'm never going to say, oh, it would take only three months to build this business or whatever.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: But the thing is, when you follow this model, you actually literally can.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: It just again depends on all of those factors that I mentioned earlier.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Do you have a lot of clarity on what service you're offering and are you committed to it?
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Do you already have the skills to offer that service or do you need to learn the skills?
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Are you motivated and are you ready to work for this?
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Are you ready to look at your calendar every single week and carve out time to dedicate to this business, and are you going to show up in the face of failure and criticism, move past your imposter syndrome and believe in yourself enough to actually launch this thing?
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: If the answer is yes, here is how long it might take, and here is the month by month breakdown that you can expect if you are to follow this model.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what I'm about to give you is a month by month breakdown and my philosophy on when is the optimal time to start your business.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm taking into account so many things when I suggest to you this timeline, so just remember that everybody's different, and the best time to start a business is always now, like, and it was always yesterday.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Right, and I'll explain why that is.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: But I do happen to think that there is an optimal time of year to get started, and the reason why is because, as the year unfolds, there's different energies that happen in our collective, like, for example, fall, which for people in the northern hemisphere is usually September.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: That tends to be back to school time and, energetically, whether you're a child or an adult, we tend to have in our minds that this is a good time of year to be working hard, like we have several months before the winter holidays and we just had a great time kicking off for the summer.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: So fall is usually a time when we're ready to work hard, right, and summer is usually a time when we want to enjoy ourselves, and winter, like Christmas time, is usually when we want to relax and spend time with family and be a little bit more nurturing.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Winter is a great time to just be buckled down, head down, getting shit done, and then spring is like a great time to be sort of starting new things.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: You have new energy, new ideas.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: So, as I speak about the months sorry for anybody in the Southern hemisphere, just think about like the seasons, but for the most part, I'm using months in terms of the Northern hemisphere Okay so, and also again, remember, like this is beginner versus advanced, and your timeline will look a little bit different based on which one you are.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's say that you are a complete beginner, and I will just speak about this in terms of, like the Digital Nomad Life Academy, because that's how I relate to people starting businesses.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: So let's say that you were a complete beginner and you joined the Digital Nomad Life Academy or you wanted to join in like the most optimal time based off of the collective energy of the world and society.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: I actually believe that the springtime or early summer is the most optimal time of year, because here's why, here's what's going to happen when you first join the program or when you first decide to become an entrepreneur.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Okay so, if you decide to become an entrepreneur, you need to have clarity on your business idea first.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Right, that's the first step.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: But clarity is not necessarily something that we can rush.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Clarity comes from creativity, it comes from thinking a lot, it comes from daydreaming, it comes from going through hypotheses and talking to people experimenting.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: The clarity part is a pretty low stress and low activity part of your business building process.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: So I think that if you are looking for clarity at a time when the collective energy is telling you to work hard, work hard, work hard, you might feel like you don't actually know what to do with your hands because you don't have anything to build yet, because you don't know what it is that you're building.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: But if you start thinking about the fact that you want to be creating a business and you're still massaging the idea of what your business is, if you do this in, let's say, april, may, june, in those kind of like spring, early summer months, you will be in a position where you can actually just really be unapologetic about the fact that the early stages of your business are just this idea creation phase, not a doing phase, but a creation phase.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: So if we think about this in practical terms like in the summertime, let's say, you want to be spending time on the beach or on the lake and you're going to be with your family or with your friends.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: You are working on your business every time you think about your business, especially when you are a new entrepreneur, and the thing that you're focused on is clarity.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Remember this every time you think about your business, especially when you are a new entrepreneur, and the thing that you're focused on is clarity.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Remember this Every time you think about your business.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: When you're an entrepreneur, you're working.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: So if your mental bandwidth is going towards your business, that counts as productive business time.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: And when it is the summertime, we tend to have more time to daydream, or we just tend to daydream more.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Because the sky is blue, because the sea is beautiful, because we're on a boat, because we're with our loved ones, because we're not as stressed out about our jobs, because we're getting enough vitamin D and we're happy.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: So when we're happy, this is a really good time for you to be thinking about your business.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: You're naturally going to be in a much more abundant, energized state of mind and therefore you're probably going to get better ideas and they're going to come faster and they're going to be more creative.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: So, and remember again, you don't have so much to do.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: You don't have many things to build in the early stages of your business while you're still figuring out clarity.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: So that's why I say that, like, if you are someone that doesn't have any business idea and you don't really know what your skills are either, really the optimal time of the year to get started is like spring, late spring, early summer is like spring, late spring, early summer.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Then, as you move into the summer months, as your business idea starts to become more solid, what you're gonna need to do is start learning something.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I think the fall is an okay time to be learning, like collectively.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: That is also an energy that we're very used to, because our school season usually starts in the fall.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: But I also think that saving the fall time for, like building the early stages of your business, you're going to want to be productive in the fall, you're going to want to feel like you're moving towards something, that you're building something.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: So, if you can spend the summer months not having a ton of pressure on yourself to like have output, but you're actually just focused on input, like inputting information into your brain, like you're taking an online course or you're building up your portfolio or you're practicing something.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: You're doing work for your business.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: That's really like planting the seeds, laying the foundation.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: There's not a lot of visible output or outcomes, but you are still doing that work.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: You are still doing a lot by learning something.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: So if you spend, let's say, the month of May or June kind of massaging out your idea which, by the way, if you're brand brand new and you don't have any experience and you're a complete beginner, I hate to break it to you, but it could take a couple of months for you to really get your idea solid and then, once you get your idea solid, now you got to go learn something.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: I say learn it in a low pressure situation, like the summertime, where you can go on a long walk and listen to a podcast that's industry specific, or you can download a book or a course that you can watch when you're on a road trip or something Just kind of like low pressure things and then by the fall, like let's say, come September, you will have just spent June, july and August coming up with your idea, learning some skills, and then by September October time you will be in a position where you can start actually putting pen to paper, writing things down, doing the foundational business building work.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: And again, if you're brand new, like you're probably going to want to spend a few months learning something.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: So you're still going to be in learning phase in the fall, like September, october et cetera, but you will be able to start building.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: And now by this point, once, like November, december comes around, it starts to be the holiday season, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, and that's when you might want to take a break, okay.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: So then you can take a break around December time, knowing that you've just spent the last like four to six months really putting your head down and learning as much as you can about this new industry that you're about to break into.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: So you take a break in December, you recoup and then, when January comes around, boom, it's time to actually start promoting yourself.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: It's time to start marketing yourself, putting yourself out there, getting your beta clients.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Let's say you got a beta client sometime in January, february, march, okay, march, february, march, april.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: This is a great time for you to be doing the work, like getting that experience with your first few clients.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: And once you have your first few clients.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Now you should feel comfortable starting to actually fully turn on the marketing engine to your business.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: You'll be able to hopefully get multiple clients by the spring of the following year.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: So let's say, like you now can have multiple clients by April, may, june.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: My friend, do you know what that means?
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: That means by next summer you could be completely free to quit your job, go travel the world, book your one-way plane ticket to Europe or Sri Lanka or South America actually, and just go wherever the hell you want to go and you don't have to come back until Christmas time.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: This is how you get to have an endless summer.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: So if you want to set yourself up for success where next summer you could have an endless summer, I really believe that, starting basically right around now, by the time like I'm recording this episode in late May, but basically like right now, if you're a beginner, this is truly the optimal time to set yourself up for success for next summer and beyond.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Of course, now, if you're advanced, actually, I still think that this timeline is pretty similar.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: It just sets you up so that by the wintertime you will be able to start actually making a bunch of money.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: So if you're advanced, you might not need a full three months like I said the beginners might need in order to get clarity on your business idea, but you will still need maybe one to two months, so let's just say like six weeks.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of people that join the Digital Nomad Life Academy, for example, and they have a pretty strong idea about what business they wanna build, but they still wanna book a career assessment call with me just to make sure that they don't waste any time starting one thing and then wanting to pivot five months later.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: But that is something that happens, right, because, even though you might have a lot of skills and experience in the professional world, this is probably going to be your first real foray into entrepreneurship, and just you got to know, going into it, that it's not going to be a clear, straightforward path.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: So, even though right now I'm trying to break down for you the month-by-month timeline, you just have to know that it could still take you three or four months to get a lot of clarity on your business idea.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: The thing about you as an advanced person is you probably don't need to take an online course to learn the actual skills of what it is that you're offering in your service.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: So that's cool, because you got to kind of like skip that step, but you will still need to fill in some knowledge gaps, like there are.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Let's say that you are an emotional intelligence coach.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, you are someone who's done an incredible amount of healing work.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: You've read all the personal development books and you know exactly how you would want to help someone achieve a specific internal transformation.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: So if you already know all that amazing, you don't need to take a course on how to help someone improve their life.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: But what you might need to take a course on is how to host a coaching call, which, by the way, is a course that I offer for free inside of the DNLA, because so many of my clients do end up going into coaching.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: But anyway, that's just an example.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: Like, you might have the skill and the ability to help somebody transform, but you probably will have a few knowledge gaps that you want to fill in, such as, again, learning how to host a coaching call.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: You also probably want to learn a little bit more about digital marketing, because if you are an advanced person and you do have a strong skill set, you probably also have pretty high standards for how much money you're going to want to be making right away.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: And whereas a beginner might be really excited to make $1,000 for their first client, you, as an advanced person, you might want to jump straight into a $5,000 client, and that's amazing.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: I totally support you if you're going to do that, but you have to know that if you want to charge someone $5,000 for something, you need to be able to communicate what it is that you're offering and why it's so valuable effectively, and that marketing skill is something that can take time to develop and there's just a lot of best practices that you're probably going to want to learn about marketing.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: So I would say that, even if you are advanced, I would still allot yourself a minimum of four months to go through getting clarity on your business idea and filling in any knowledge gaps, whereas for a beginner, we're thinking more like a six-month process to get the idea and fill in your knowledge gaps or learn what you need to learn.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: So if you're advanced, again it's like anywhere, I would say between two and four months.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: So if you started in the spring, or maybe, let's say like mid-summer, let's say like August, if you did that now, you will be in a position where by the wintertime.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: By December you'll still be able to take some time off.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: I just say, everybody wants to take time off in December.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Nobody wants to be working through the holidays.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: That sucks.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't want that for me, I don't want that for you.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: We're building businesses because we want to be able to enjoy our lives, and December is when most people have big gatherings and you just want to be fully present for that.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: So, with all these timelines, I'm factoring in using December as a big break in between the two main aspects of your business.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: So before December is when, again, you want to be getting clear on the idea, filling in any knowledge gaps.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: Take a break in December and then January, february, march.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: That is when it is really time to actually do the building.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: Building building work, putting pen to paper, coming up with your messaging, starting to publish on social media, hosting workshops, whatever it is that you're going to do for your marketing.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: That should happen in the wintertime, when people actually have the availability to sit down and listen to what it is that you have to say.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: So basically, if you're a beginner, I would say the optimal timeline to really leverage the energy of the collective is May, june and if you're a little bit more advanced still May, june is great, but maybe you might want to think about, like, august, september.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: But you know what, if you're looking to have an endless summer, like I said at the beginning of this whole long spiel, like I said at the beginning of this whole long spiel, the best time to start was actually yesterday.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: So many people think that, oh okay, once I invest in a coaching program or once I decide what it is that I'm going to do, it's just going to boom, happen, just like that, and within a few months, I'm going to be making $10,000 a month.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Don't believe that bullshit.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: It is bullshit.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: There is no one that can predict for you how much money you will make in your business, because the essence of entrepreneurship, the nature of it, is that you are carving something new out of marble.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: It's not a well-worn path.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, the small service provider model is a well-worn path, but your service and the way that you offer it and the way that you message about your business is always going to be completely different and therefore it is unpredictable about how long it might take you.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: So, again, that's why, with like, when I'm talking about beginner or advanced, I'm giving you ranges and it could take you more time.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: It could take you less time.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: Either way, I say the best time to start is always right away, so that you don't have to ever feel like you are in a time crunch to build your business.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: You never want to be in a time crunch to build your business.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: This is a huge piece of advice.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I haven't actually talked about this in other episodes.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: I think, now that I'm saying this out loud, it really needs to be coming through more often.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: But, like when you're in a time crunch, that means that you're in time scarcity, and the reason why you might be in time scarcity is because you need to be making money within a certain period of time, which probably means that you're also in money scarcity.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: And when you are in scarcity in any way, your survival mode gets turned on and your creativity gets turned off.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: So back to what I was saying about the beginning of your business like it's so good and productive for you to be starting a business when the collective energy is creative, when it is abundant, when it is happy, when it is joyful, when it has possibilities, when you're being hit with vitamin D every single day and seeing the sun and the beautiful sky Like this is the energy that you really want to be in when you are starting your business.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: For me, I actually started my business in December.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: However, I knew that that wasn't optimal right, because I knew that I wanted to be spending time with my family.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: So I actually probably against my better judgment I remember I hired my business coach on December 4th and then I was just like, okay, I'm going to do the absolute most that I can within the first few weeks of December.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: I was an advanced person at this time.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: I already knew a ton about marketing.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: I already had a really clear business idea by the time I hired my business coach, so I didn't really have any knowledge gaps to fill in.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: I basically got to like, skip that whole first two or three month timeline.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: I did still need to fill in some knowledge gaps about what it was like to be an entrepreneur, so I just binged her coursework the first few weeks of December and then I had to take off a couple of weeks around the holiday time and then, instead of being in cold, snowy, dark, gray Boston, I booked myself a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka, where it's endless summer over there and I leverage the energy of the summer to build my business.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: I was lucky to be able to do that because I was already working remotely, but if you're not working remotely, I just I can't stress this enough you really want to be in an abundant creative energy when you're first starting your business, and summertime is just a really natural time to be in that energy.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: So that is what I have to say about that.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: Take my advice or leave it.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: But you are still listening to this podcast, and I just think that if you're still here listening to just the itty bitty, gritty details of building a business, it's probably because you actually are pretty serious in one way or another about changing your life, and I just want to remind you, listener, that you have everything that you need.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: There are so many resources available to you for you to change everything, or just change the things that you want to change everything, or just change the things that you want to change.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: But you get to have total freedom over your time, over your income, over your energy, over your schedule, when you have your own business, and you deserve to have that life.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: So I really encourage you to just start now, right, like, get serious about coming up with a business idea right now and remember what I said is like coming up with that business idea.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: Every time you think about it it counts as work.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: So whenever you meditate, whenever you sit by the beach and look at the ocean by yourself and just try to come up with ideas, that is you on the path to building your business.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: So I hope that's the energy that you're in.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: I hope, if you're listening to this on your commute to work, you start using your commute to think about possible business ideas.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: Or if you want my help, you know where to find me.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: You can always slide into my DMs at ChristabellaTravels on Instagram and send me the keyword apply.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: When you send me the keyword apply, I will ask you a series of questions.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: That's basically like oh, I hear that you're curious about the digital nomad life Academy.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: Tell me about yourself and I'm going to ask you about your work history.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you about if you already have a business idea or not.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: When you apply, you're not necessarily committing to joining the DLLA.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: You don't even know if you're going to be accepted yet, but it will.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: When you do answer those application questions, I will get to read them when I'm available and when I'm online, I will come back to read your application questions and then I can respond to you and I can help you make a decision of whether starting your entrepreneur journey with me is the right choice or not.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: If it's not the right choice, if I feel like you're not in the position right now and you have some other groundwork to do, I will tell you and I will say come back to me in a few months, once you have done this, this or that, or if you are just really interested in a career assessment call, we can talk about how that can be a possibility for you too.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: Like I said, it is my specialty to help people come up with a business idea.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: It is my specialty to help people get that clarity that they really need in order to create their first business.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Remember, clarity is the very first step and it will make or break how long it takes you to build your business.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: So, again, slide into my DMs at KristaBellaTravels on Instagram and you can send me the keyword apply, or you can actually just say hey, krista, I came from the podcast and tell me a little bit about yourself and ask me about the career assessment call.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: You deserve to have the life of your dreams.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: You deserve to have the career of your dreams.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: You deserve to have the career of your dreams, the business of your dreams, the income of your dreams, the freedom of your dreams.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: You deserve to have it all, and I really hope that you believe that and that you freaking go for it and that you don't waste any more time, because time is now.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: Time is of the essence.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: Now is the best time of the whole year to get started, and you can do it.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's my pep talk for the day.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to the digital nomad life podcast and I will see you in the next episode.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks, bye.