2 Categories of Remote Work

Now, if you are familiar with remote work, you already know that there are two categories:

1. You work for a company/someone else and get paid hourly, but don’t need to physically report to an office. You can be a digital nomad because they don’t care where you are physically. As long as you’re putting in the hours, they don’t care because your work is based online.
2. You work for yourself. You own your own business (product or service) and it’s based online so you don’t need to have a physical location or presence.

For the sake of telling you what I do for work and going into details on options that are out there for work, I’m only concerned with this second category: you work for yourself. Frankly, being paid by the hour (aka trading your precious time for money) is not sustainable longterm and sets limits to the amount of financial freedom you can create for yourself. Worst of all (obvious enough) is not making the most with your time, the only thing in life that’s finite. I see digital nomads who work hourly (maybe as a Virtual Assistant, part-time/full-time for a company), they work way too much, for not enough pay and are at the whims of someone else’s timeframe, instead of their own. For these reasons, this is anything but freedom to me.

Working For Yourself

Okay, now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the common ways to work for yourself as a digital nomad. If you don’t already have an online business (service/product), there are tons of opportunities to start someone. Typically when digital nomads are asked what they do, these are among the most common answers: Amazon FBA, social media marketing or advertising, freelancing, eCommerce, or IT. I don’t do any of these things.

Also, this Blog is not how I make money  Surprise, this blog was not created as a cash cow to bring in the paper, it’s more of a passion project to help anyone who may come across a little nugget here or there. Anywho, back to the topic – 

I’ve noticed it’s easy to get caught up in the hype of remote work, making tons of money online, or being a digital nomad without anyone actually saying how this is done, like for real.

The truth is, like anything else in life, it’s just not as easy or straight forward as it sounds. I can’t stand advertisements from experts or gurus saying you can make millions online within a few months….blah, blah, blah. Now, I’m not doubting this is true, I simply can’t stand one-sided stories. Here are the other sides that aren’t talked about:

1. These experts are teaching theories. If what they’re teaching makes you a millionaire, then why aren’t they doing what they’re teaching (making themselves goo gangs of money), instead of selling courses or ebooks on how to do it for $29.95? This always makes me question their motives. No hate, just questions. Does what they’re teaching really work? Have they actually done it? Or did they just learn it, then go off and try to teach other people the same and make money off the teaching? Kind of like MLM’s…just get more people on board, but no one is ever really selling the product itself. I’m not saying this is what’s going on, just my own personal theory. 
2. Everything takes work, practice, and perseverance. There is no real get-rich-quick stuff out there. That’s why it’s called “get-rich-quick-scheme,” keyword: scheme. People pumping this nonsense really gross me out because they know they’re full of crap and they’re condescending. Do they really think we were born yesterday? The saddest part is, the marketing is good and it sells. They evoke people’s emotions, make the sale, and those people end up throwing their investment away (money or time).

If you’re looking for an opportunity to work for yourself, there are a ton of avenues you can take. Duh, you know this already and you can do a quick google search to find anything and everything under the sun. You also weren’t born yesterday, so you already know when something is too good to be true it probably is.

So, now that I’ve ranted about all that, I feel comfortable about telling you what I do for work and how much I love it. I work very minimally and spend most of my days living, not working. The income I make for myself is more than enough for financial freedom and for me personally to afford a very free life. I will share all the great and not-so-great things about what I do.

3 things I love about my job

The typical jobs digital nomads have are either pretty technical or social media-based. I consider myself pretty tech-savvy, but what I do for work actually requires very little tech know-how. Basically, all I need to be familiar with is Gmail and having a LinkedIn profile. This brings me into the top 3 reasons I LOVE what I do:

1. I control when I work and how much money I make. & the biggest one – WHERE I work
2. I don’t have to set up a bunch of tech, work according to a platform’s algorithms or be an expert on WordPress, FB ads, email marketing, etc. etc. etc.
3. I don’t have to sell products or services to people.

You’re probably thinking, “okay, lady, so tell us what you do already!”

What I actually do

I work in commercial equipment financing. Sounds super serious and boring, right? I’ll admit, it might sound boring or like I’m crunching numbers all day, but nope, I’m not. It’s actually a lot of fun. I get an opportunity to help equipment sellers sell even more of their equipment by offering their customers financing options and I get to help the small businesses get the equipment they need now, without having to shell out a bunch of cash for it. Win-win-win! I know that’s pretty cheezy. 

It isn’t super serious either. It’s quite simple. I reach out to equipment sellers, tell them that I offer financing options to their customers, and they refer their customers to me for financing. I don’t have to send pricing structures, product options, slide decks, or proposals. It’s pretty straight forward.

There are plenty of reasons why I think my work is awesome. Here’s more:

1. I choose who I work with. I hand-pick equipment sellers in industries that I like and are interesting to me. I work closely with these sellers, as partners, and they send me their customers.
2. It’s a win-win-win situation. The equipment seller has a customer they’re trying to sell equipment to. The customer needs to move forward by either paying cash or having the option to take a loan or a lease program to purchase and make payments later on. The seller provides them with my information as a resource to make payments instead. The customer gets the equipment they need, I pay the vendor for the equipment, and I make money from the payment program. Everyone wins! As cheesy as that sounds. Hahah.
3. This business is on repeat. I have a few equipment seller partners, they continue to refer their customers to me for payment program options. the cycle continues and continues with each customer they send my way.

The Remote Job No One’s Heard Of

The reason why the title of this post includes “this will surprise you” is because there’s a strong likelihood that you’ve never heard of this industry or this job before. It’s not really a surprise, it’s more of a secret. I’m sure you noticed, the finance industry as a whole (whether it’s banking, mortgages, or investments) likes to keep up this huge curtain of mystery when it comes to financing. It’s really no one’s fault that they’ve never heard of this job. I hadn’t either and thought to myself, I just thought businesses got loans from their bank or grants from the SBA. hum.

It’s also not a complicated job or industry and it’s not just reserved for banks.

The truth – it’s simple.

So what do I do in a nutshell? I sell money.

If I can do it, Anyone can

The #1 thing I love most about this work – anyone can do it!

1. No products, inventory, software, etc.
2. No required degrees, certifications, licensing, etc.
3. No money – I sell O.P.M. (Other People’s Money)

When I started, I didn’t have a background in finance, sales, or entrepreneurship. I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was doing. I previously worked in local government for 10 years, obviously nothing to do with financing or the selling of anything. I made quite a lot of mistakes in the beginning. I didn’t have a blueprint, formal training, or anything really. I just got started and figured it out along the way. Don’t get me wrong by me using the word “just”. Every damn day was a struggle, not feeling confident or competent, and not sure if I was on the right path.

I work on my terms

There’s a Second #1 thing I love most – I work on my terms. Hellooo Freedom!

When I first started I was probably working around 4 hours per day (~20 hours per week). I wasn’t working for anyone, no one was telling me when to show up or even how to show up. Which was a complete 180 from my past experience as a government employee. Going from having to an ‘OK’ from 3 different people to make a simple change to only answering to one person, myself; was a huge shift in my life.

Now I was not one of those people who could never hold down a job or couldn’t stand the thought of working for someone else. Nope, not at all. I was so great at it! I took direction, loved constructive criticism and worked well on teams. I loved working for local government too, I felt like I was personally part of creating a better community for people to live in.

But, the big problem that was stewing inside of me, which I wasn’t fully aware of, was that this work just wasn’t for me. This lifestyle of waking up late, rushing to work each morning, speeding in traffic to catch the bus downtown, sitting in meetings all day, supervising people I had no control of hiring/firing, not being in control of how much money I can earn, having to ask permission to do anything/everything. I can go on and on, but doing this over and over again and just living so I can have a weekend off or a few weeks vacation just didn’t feel right to me deep down inside.

Trying to compare my previous job to what I do now is like trying to compare two completely different universes. In all honesty, I’m in disbelief every single day when I wake up and think, “WTF, this is my life?”. I never planned this out, I never thought I’d be here writing this to share this information and opportunity with others. It’s mind-blowing for me and really tough to articulate into words. The only thing I can do right now is 1) share my transformation and the tactical things that might help other digital nomads (or newbies) and 2) give opportunities to others to learn more about how they make a transition in their lives too.

I saved the worst for last. I promised I’d also talk about the “not-so-great” stuff as well. This is challenging for me because I am so overly grateful for this opportunity in my life, but I also don’t want to give a miss-leading, rosy-colored picture of this job. Remember, I think people who do that shit are gross .

4 Things about my job that suck

Things that are not-so-great, challenging, situational:

1. Feast or famine. Okay, this is a little dramatic but the truth with my job and technically most sales jobs or entrepreneurial pursuits are there is no guarantee of income or sales. One month can be $50K and the next $0. The funny thing about this is that even starting out this didn’t bother me much because I was optimistic and persistent. I did the math and estimated how much business I had to be driving to fund, but I never worried about this. Even in commission/sales roles, someone could still be living check-to-check and after only a few months, I certainly wasn’t. So even if I had to go several months without closing deals, I would be just fine. Now, I could go years! Whoa!
2. Be okay with hearing “NO”. If you’re already in sales or a business owner, you’ve worked this muscle so no biggie. When I first started, I had no background in sales so this was a little challenging for me. I was also cold-calling, so for anyone who’s made a cold-call in their life, knows this is the best way to start working that muscle hard! When I first started I would think of worst-case scenarios in my mind, like people were going to tell me off or cuss me out as people do to telemarketers. This never happened to me! I had a few people who were slightly rude (I’m sure they were just having a bad day), but never the worst-case scenario I thought up in my head. I had two options 1) Be afraid of feeling like I’m bothering them, or they’re going to say “no” or be mean to me or 2) Remind myself that I have something of huge value, that helps them sell more and if they decide to respond poorly, that’s their problem and I’ll keep it moving.
3. Salespeople will play games. I had to learn very early on to be a straight shooter (who I naturally am) and not a people pleaser. Making an offer to a salesperson is different than making an offer to just any dude off the street. They know how to play games, and there are a few out there that will. If you’re a people pleaser (just like in everyday life), you’ll find people who will play games with you, waste your time and straight-up try to use you to their advantage. The great thing about this one is as soon as I identify these bad apples, I add them to my “don’t bother” list. No thanks. This is the beauty of choosing who you work with.
4. You don’t get handed leads. This actually isn’t a negative to me, but it could be for some. People in sales roles might be used to the company they work for feeding them leads from marketing, etc. That’s not the case in this business. This is actually a positive for me because I get to choose who I work with. If I don’t care for a specific equipment industry, I don’t hang there. If I don’t jive with someone, I don’t ever have to contact them again. No one is telling me who/when/where or what.

Sound interesting?

If after reading this and you’re interested in learning more about what I do for work and wealth creation, shoot me an email by clicking here.

I’m happy to dish out all the dets about my work-from-anywhere job. Frankly, I’m annoyed how secretive the financing industry is. Whether this is done on purpose or not, there is this big scary curtain that hangs up over the industry making it seem like it’s difficult or that you need special permission to get involved. I’m here to say, nope, if I can do this, anyone can do this.

If you have questions about this or anything else about being a digital nomad, living all over the world or just want to say hi, I’d love to hear from you .

UPDATE: Due to tons of demand on learning more about what I do for work, we created a program for those who are ready to jump in feet first: creatorslearn.com.