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It’s great fun running your online empire from a tropical country. Once your business is up and running you can easily set yourself up to be completely location independent. That sounds great when you say it out loud, but when it actually comes to getting things done it’s not as easy as it seems. You don’t have that nice big office you can walk into every morning with your nice mug of warm coffee. There’s not a desk to put your coffee on and you’ll be lucky if you find anything comfortable to sit on. That’s just the start.
When you work from anywhere you have no office to keep your equipment. Everything you own will be in a little backpack, or a suitcase if you’re fancy. But even a suitcase doesn’t leave too much room to take a portable office around with you. It means you need to completely rearrange the equipment you use. Cool gadgets and software are needed to give your business the best chance of surviving while you learn to surf. If you are not prepared it’s going to be a bumpy ride, so with that in mind we can look at everything you might need to get started.
You won’t get far without mail
Email is obviously the preferred choice of communication between you and your customers, but that will all depend on the type of business you’re running. Sometimes you will need to receive mail and if you’re lying on a beach somewhere you won’t exactly be able to nip home and pick it up. You could always get someone you trust to open it for you, but that’s not going to work forever. Sign up to a mailing company that will receive all your mail. They will then pop it onto the computer for you and email it straight over. Never worry about mail again.
Talking to customers and employees
Maybe you don’t have employees. If you did, you would need to speak to them. But you will definitely need to speak to your customers. You want something that makes it easy to speak to anyone no matter where you are. For phone conversations you can use your Smartphone, but when you want to speak to someone face-to-face you can’t hold your phone in front of you. You need something like Skype, which will enable you to talk with anyone while looking at their face. It’s invaluable.
Safety is paramount
Safety is always important, but it’s even more so when you’re running your business from the road. Imagine coming home one night and everything you own is gone. What would you do? After you’ve cried yourself to sleep, you would probably have to book a flight back home. How can you run a business when everything is gone? Luckily you can hire online storage from many different companies. When you notice your laptop is missing you can just buy a cheap one and have everything downloaded onto it. It means you will only be one day away from getting everything underway again. Maybe quicker if you act quickly.
Always stay connected
The trouble with laptops is getting on the Internet. You can obviously get online in most places, you just need to find somewhere with a Wi-Fi connection, but what about when you can’t find one? You need a way to get online without it. You can use a Smartphone and connect through a mobile network, but they’re small and it’s hard to do anything on them. That’s where an iPad with cellular technology comes in. If you buy a SIM card in the countries you visit, you’ll now have a way to get online when Wi-Fi isn’t available. It’s invaluable when you’re working from the road, or the beach.
About the Author: Daniel Acton is the man behind frankingmachine.net, a blog solely focused on comparing franking machine prices. Follow Daniel on Twitter: @dannyacton.
