Do you wonder how to make money while living the nomadic lifestyle? One great way is to start your own business. There are so many options out there - from starting a blog, to creating a product, to selling your own course, to offering services like copywriting or email marketing.
But choosing which business to even start can be challenging enough.
In this episode of The Wayward Home podcast, Kimberly Crossland gives tips and advice for narrowing in on a business idea and making your dreams turn into reality.
Kimberly's programs:
Links and Resources
If you listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify, a quick rating or review will really help me out. Thanks!
Find out more about Q&A Day, where you'll get 1-1 virtual coaching with me: https://thewaywardhome.lpages.co/qa-day-podcast
Want to live the van life but have no idea where to start? My FREE Van Life Starter kit has specs and measurements on 10 different vans, van buying and build ideas, remote work ideas and websites I use to find free campsites.
Download it here: https://thewaywardhome.lpages.co/van-life-starter-kit-podcast/
Connect with Kristin Hanes and The Wayward Home!
Do you wonder how to make money while living the nomadic lifestyle? One great way is to start your own business. There are so many options out there - from starting a blog, to creating a product, to selling your own course, to offering services like copywriting or email marketing.
But choosing which business to even start can be challenging enough.
In this episode of The Wayward Home podcast, Kimberly Crossland gives tips and advice for narrowing in on a business idea and making your dreams turn into reality.
Kimberly's programs:
Links and Resources
If you listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify, a quick rating or review will really help me out. Thanks!
Find out more about Q&A Day, where you'll get 1-1 virtual coaching with me: https://thewaywardhome.lpages.co/qa-day-podcast
Want to live the van life but have no idea where to start? My FREE Van Life Starter kit has specs and measurements on 10 different vans, van buying and build ideas, remote work ideas and websites I use to find free campsites.
Download it here: https://thewaywardhome.lpages.co/van-life-starter-kit-podcast/
Connect with Kristin Hanes and The Wayward Home!
Do you wanna create your own business and take it on the road? Just how do you choose the right business and get it up and running? This is exactly what we'll talk about in episode 16 of the Wayward Home Podcast with business coach Kimberly Crossland. Let's go.
Welcome to the Wayward Home Podcast, all about Van Life, Boat Life, and Nomadic Living. We'll bring you tips, interviews, and stories from the road and on the. Now, here's your host, Kristin Haynes. Hey there. I'm Kristin Hanes, founder of The Wayward Home.com. I live half the year in my camper van and half on my sailboat, and I wanna help you make your nomadic dreams come true.
In the next few podcast episodes, we're going to be talking about remote work. How do you make money to sustain your drams of full-time travel? This is such a huge issue with nomads and many just don't know how many possibilities are out there. Today we're talking to Kimberly Crossland. Kimberly is founder of both Roadprenuer and cruising and campfires.
She helps RVers and other nomads create a business they can do on the road. Kimberly is a part-time RVer as well, so knows all about the joys and struggles of working on the road. So, Kimberly, I wanted to start out by tell me a little bit about just your RVing experience first off. Yeah, so I actually started RV.
Five years ago. Um, prior to that, I had not rv/d for my whole life. And it actually took a little bit of strong arming by my husband and I'm so glad that he did this. Um, but he said, well, we're gonna get an rv. We're gonna get an rv. And I thought, oh my goodness. Okay. I hope it's not too much work. I hope that I like it.
And that first night out we had a baby. He was four months old at the time, and a newly turned two year old, and we went out, we camped, nobody slept, and I was hooked. I absolutely loved it. So despite the fact that it was a sleepless night, we had so much fun. . We sat around the campfire and we were outside and it just felt like this immediate change of pace.
And granted we were only about a half an hour from our home cause I wanted to stay close just in case everything you know, broke or didn't work out or whatever. We could go home and I could have that. That ability to kind of run away again and go back to life as I knew it. And I never wanted to do that.
And so as soon as we got back home from that one trip, I said, okay, when are we going out again? And we started planning one trip after another, and now it's just our lifestyle. We hit the road as often as we possibly can. I am not ashamed to say, We have taken our kids outta school and, um, you know, I'm okay with it because I feel like the adventures that you get out on the open road and the experiences that you have when you're traveling.
You can't learn those in a classroom. And I'm fortunate my kids go to school where they believe the same thing. So when I say that I'm gonna take 'em out for a week so they can go camping, they say, cool, go have fun. We can't wait to hear about it. So yeah, now we just, we're not, uh, full-timers, but I think that we're more than weekend warriors.
Like we go out as often as we can and for as long as we can at a time. Oh, that's so cool. And what kind of RV do you have? Yeah, so we have a bumper pole. It's our second rv. So the first one that we got was a lot of RV for our family of four. It was a 33 foot rv, uh, also a bumper pole. And it was, um, a bullet by Keystone and we really liked it, but it was just really big for what we needed.
And it was fun because there was kind of that back bunk for the kids. And we ended up sitting out at the campsite one night and looking at all the RVs coming in. You know how you. Look around you when you're camping. We thought, oh, what if we could design our own dream rv? What would we create? And so we started our own like little list and just kind of for fun looking around at different RVs.
Well, of course, one thing led to another. , we found this rv, the one that we have now, and we thought this is the one that we want for our, uh, for our specific type of travel, at least for the next few years, in the next season of our life. And now we are in, um, it's a Forest River, uh, alpha Wolf, and it's a 26 foot, it's a little bit shorter, which is nice when you're driving on the freeway and it.
Something that I love, I love creature comforts. And so this has its own internal fire pit or fireplace. And so it's a, it's just a space heater, but it looks like a fireplace. It has a pantry for all the snacks and the goodies and um, it's a bunk house. And so our kids have, they still have their bunk. Beds in the back, but it's just more condensed and they're totally fine with it.
It's got the little ladder, so they're excited. They get to climb up that and it's uh, it's perfect for what we need it for. Yeah. So I'd love to talk to you about, um, entrepreneurship. Cause I know you've been an entrepreneur for a long time and I get. So many readers wondering like, how can I make money on the road?
Is this even possible? And so you've been, you know, an entrepreneur, you went out on your own a while now. Tell me a little bit about that and how you got started as an entrepreneur. Yeah, so 10 years ago I was working for a company and the founder of the company came into my office one Friday and said, I am not able to pay you today because you have a husband who supports you.
I don't, and we only have a little bit of money in the bank, and so I'm gonna take this paycheck, but I'll pay you next week. And I thought, hold on. That's not what I signed up for. And I ended up going home that week and I thought, you know what? I feel like this is just that push that I need to just go out on my.
And so that mor, that Monday morning it went in and I said, listen, this is not gonna work for me right now. And we worked at a good arrangement. We're still close. It's, it's all good now, but it was kind of that catalyst to getting out on my own and I, instead of looking for another job after that experience, I thought, What if I were to use everything that I've been doing for other companies and turn this into my own business?
And so what I had been doing was marketing, and what I had been doing was copywriting, and this, by the way, was a startup at the time that was not selling anything, so that, so there was no money in the bank. There was literally nothing to market. . And so I thought, I can do this for myself though. And, and so I jumped out on my own.
I created my website. This was about 10 years ago. And so I started blogging cuz blogging was very, very big. It was still big now. Um, but I just started writing about everything that I knew and. Talking to people and letting them know that I was doing this thing. I had started my own business. I got my llc.
So I felt very official. And in doing so, I started to get one client. I said, oh, I could really use your help. How much do you charge? And that question is so heavy and so hard to say in the beginning. And I just put out a number and then I got another client and got another client. And it grew into something a lot bigger than I'd even expected it to.
within that first year just by doing something that I already knew how to do, but doing it on a contract basis where I could go and travel and I could go and take time off without having to check in to make sure everyone was covered. I had my freedom to go and just explore and to live and not have to wait for retirement to go and live this.
This life of adventure that I knew that I wanted so badly. Um, so that kind of just blossomed over the years. And now I still do a lot of client work, but I'm a lot pickier about who I work with, which is a, a really good privilege to have. And then I also teach what I know and I teach how to build a business.
And then of course I also have, um, a secondary company that I started for fun called Cruising and Campfires, and that's a subscription box business. So I kind of span all the different business models that you can. I've done the service work, I've done the freelancing, I've done the teaching, which I still do.
I have a membership and I also have a subscription box or an e-commerce business. So cool. Um, I love the idea of having your own business on the road, which is why I chose to do blogging because it was something where I could be my own boss at my own hours, you know, travel when and where I want. And I know that some people teach like how to find a remote job, but you more focus on how to create your own self-sustaining business, right?
Yeah, that's right. I, there's nothing, I have nothing against remote work, I think. A really good thing for a lot of people. For me though, it still leaves me feeling tethered to somebody or tethered to my computer. If I cannot get back to somebody, I feel guilty. And if I'm, if I'm working in my business or on my business and it's my own entity, and I'm able to set those boundaries a little bit differently than if I do the remote work.
And so if you're deciding between remote work or entrepre, , of course. My tendency is to want to lean towards entrepreneurship cuz that's just where I feel more aligned. Cause I like that freedom. I like being able to set those boundaries, define what my work days look like, define what projects I take on, what I say yes to, what I can say no to.
And you're able to do that a whole lot better with entrepreneurship. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with remote work. Some people are like, just tell me what to do and then let me clock in and out. There are the some downsides in entrepreneurship where you are always on whether you wanna be or not.
Those thoughts will wake you up at 3:00 AM It just happens to me. That's kind of some of the excitement with it though, cuz you can let that creativity spark. Um, recently on our most, just a couple days ago, we got back from being on the road and we had spent four hours, my husband and I just talking about business.
My kids were being so awesome in the backseat and they loved chiming in too with their own ideas. But being able to have those creative conversations whenever the mood strikes, whenever you're on the road as you travel. . There's just something really fun about it. It kind of, it incorporates it its way into your personal life, but in a way that you can also say, and now we're here and we're gonna turn that conversation off and we're gonna table it for later.
And you don't feel like you have to check in all the time, or, you know, respond to those emails. If you wanna put your phone down, you can put your phone down. Yeah. And so there's. So many opportunities out there to create your own business. I think it can be overwhelming from, you know, being a virtual assistant to creating courses or eBooks or YouTube videos, , how do you help someone hone in on what their passion or talent is and what type of business they should even start?
Yeah, that's a really good question because that is the number one question. People like the idea of entrepreneurship, but have no idea where to start, including what type of business to start. So the first place I always begin is, what is your why? And it sounds very cliche, you know, Simon Sin has made this very famous now, and so you'll hear it said a lot, what is your why?
What is your why? But really you have to know why you want to start that business because it shapes every decision going forward, including the answer to that question. You just asked about what type of business to to start. And so if you don't know why you want to get into business, you could very quickly go down a path that makes it feel heavier and harder than it has to.
for example, if you are someone who likes the ability, loves to talk to people, but also loves to have your alone time feels really empowered by a keyboard, but feels a lot less empowered by a camera in your face, that kind of a thing, it's gonna determine. Where you wanna go in your business. So when I say to find your why, what I often do is I take people through what's called empathy mapping.
And empathy mapping is oftentimes thought of for customers. This is when you get into the details of what is somebody thinking? What is someone feeling? What are they saying every day when they wake up to their spouse, to their friends, to their kids, to themselves? What are they doing about it? Are they Googling something?
Are they. Searching on YouTube for something, where are they going to get their information? What are those steps that they're taking? I mean, you can understand that that's really helpful for your business. But even before you get into that, , you need to do the same process for yourself, and that's really gonna help you define those next steps for you.
So when you look at your own self and you analyze, what am I thinking every single day, what am I saying about my job? What am I saying about my lifestyle right now? What am I doing about it? What I wish I was doing about it, and I kind of did this in the beginning, so you heard in my story that I sat down on the table and I.
I thought to myself, I was thinking, how can I turn this into a business? If you have something that you really enjoy, you can start to also think about how you can turn that into a business. One of the ways that I really like to do this is to just start by planting that seed in your mind that I'm going to start a business, not just say, I would like to, I wonder what?
Could start a business, but just really commit to that idea. I am going to start a business and just like when you say, I'm going to buy a new car, I'm gonna buy a new truck, I'm gonna buy, in your case, maybe a new sailboat, , that's a bigger purchase, of course, but, or like when I was sitting at the campsite.
I'm looking at all the RVs coming in, I, we said we are going to buy a new rv. Well then you start to notice what you like and what you don't like. You can start to kind of make your way around town and and realize, oh, that's a business idea right there that I wasn't even looking for you. And just like when you're looking at other things like.
The RVs or the trucks, the cars, they all just start to pop up and you start to see your favorite type of car or rig or whatever it is, everywhere. Well, now you're gonna start to see business ideas everywhere. So right now we're in the market for a new suv and I'm now seeing different SUVs everywhere, and I'm like, oh, that's the one I just saw.
And there it is again. When you're tuning your brain to finding those ideas or finding that next step in your journey, you're now able to see it everywhere and everywhere and every. . The other thing you can do, if you're not starting to see those ideas everywhere, that can feel really frustrating too, of course.
So if you're not seeing those ideas everywhere, something else you can do is pick a letter of the alphabet. So you can pick the letter R, for example, and say, okay, I'm just gonna look for ideas that start with the letter R. And suddenly you're gonna start to see new ideas pop up because it's almost like a categories for your business
And you can start to see different ideas come up that you can help you get those creative juices flowing so that you can start to get those ideas and, and you never know what's gonna pop up. And it's really fun and fascinating to see different things that will come up into your line of sight that will let you answer that, that idea question in your mind and really let you get out.
Yeah. The idea thing is I think probably what stumps people the most. You said a lot of people ask about that, but in the RVs or you know, nomads you interact with, what are some of the most common things that people come up with? Or does it really just run the gamut? Yeah. The most common things are there's actually four different business models that will really start to pop up more.
The most often. So the first are memberships. Memberships are great because you can kind of drip out that content and you can let it evolve and grow as you grow as an entrepreneur. So that's the first one. Um, I, of course have my own membership and I love it for that same reason, because it lets me really get into the trenches with my community and my students.
A lot of nomads like that because they can get to know people better and it makes it easier to show up in ways that are going to actually make an. Um, the other part of that is you can do courses and you can teach what you know. Teaching what you know is a really great way to get the, that knowledge that's in your head that you already have.
You already possess this, but sell it and package it up and sell it in a way that's gonna help somebody else have the same outcome that you know that you wanna have. Um, you can also sell products and so this is something that a lot of nomads actually shy away from, and there are ways that you can turn a product based business into one that works well on the road.
So there are several businesses, for example, if you love to make something, I know of a company that makes she knits hats that are campsite, for example, and she just loves to kni. She's doing it anyway. This is something that she enjoys and she has taken this and scaled it, but she lives on the road. She doesn't have a lot of room for inventory.
To hold products and shipping materials or having to find the post. But when you, like I said earlier, when you set those boundaries with your customers, they now know when you are going to be shipping. They now know that, and you can then know how much inventory you need to have on hand. You can predict that you can plan your roots better because then you can go buy a post office and you know, I have this one day a month that I have to ship something.
Maybe you coordinate with a campsite that you're staying at. Maybe you find that post office on your route. Or maybe if you know you're not going to be anywhere near a post office. You let your customers know we're not shipping this month, and that's okay. You can let them know that products are being made or products are being cur.
Another option with e-commerce business is you can do drop shipping where somebody else fulfills those orders. You're still the creative mind behind it. You're still marketing it, you're still planning it, but somebody else fulfills those orders so you no longer have to even touch the inventory. You can still get it out the door.
So that's a third model that's really, really popular. And then the fourth model is freelancing. So if there's something you would love to. For other people or for a company, you can then take that and go freelance, sell it to other people. And so now you're on your own time schedule. You have your own boundaries.
You can get out ahead and you can batch create things, and then you can just invoice them monthly and that way the money continues to come in. But you're able to just really lean into the elements that you love and not have to worry about the stuff that you don't love about the remote work and checking in and, and all of that.
You're able to really schedule your own, your work day and your work life, and your work weeks and months, however you wanna schedule it. When you're traveling all around, getting that work done, you're still fulfilling those promises. You're still meeting those deadlines, but you're just doing it in, in a different way than is tradit.
Yeah. And so once someone comes up with an idea and they wanna get this into action, I think some people are afraid of how do I set up a website? How do I even find clients or people to buy my membership course or product or what? How do you suggest people do like go about that initial marketing and website creation?
Yeah, that's a good question. Also, so many good questions. Uh, so the first thing to do is really to plant, to plant that stake in the ground. So, like I said, when I started my business, the first thing I did was I started my website and I just started sharing what I knew. I shared how I help people. I helped them without them buying for me yet, I just went out and I.
I promoted my business and I shared about my story. I shared about that why that I talked about, well, in addition to creating my website, which by the way is not as hard as it as it sounds. It doesn't, it doesn't have to be as daunting as it feels in the beginning. There's a lot of really good software out there that makes it very simple to just get something online.
You don't have to have the perfect website when you start. Don't ever let perfectionism. Stop you from starting because it will stop you from starting. That's really, really difficult. So to get over that perfectionist hum. Just put a home page up, just one page up on the website and you can do that with a lot of different, a lot of different tech tools that are out there today.
I could list off a a bunch, but we don't need to do that right now. There's a lot of website platforms out there that you can. And then in addition to starting your own website, I also suggest that people stake their claim by claiming their, their social media handles. Even if it's on a platform where you're not going to be promoting your business or sharing content, it's still a really good idea to claim those because now you have your brand.
Now you have an idea of what it is you're going to sell, and you can claim that space, even if you're not gonna fill it quite yet. You don't have to know exactly how to fill it yet. But just claim that space as your own and then start dripping out content. Start putting out just little bits here and there about who you are and tell your story and see what resonates with other people.
I think so often. entrepreneurs stop themselves before they get started because they're like, I don't know what to say. I don't know how to tell my message. I don't know how to sell my thing. What if nobody buys? And then we get into this huge cycle of imposter syndrome, or we get caught in this trap of feeling like, I don't actually know what I'm doing.
Who am I to do this? But really it doesn't, we, we make it harder than it needs to be, and it's not until we take those first steps that we realize. Oh yeah. This doesn't have to be as difficult. Oh, yeah. This doesn't have to feel as, as heavy or as diff as, as hard as I thought it might in the beginning. We can just take those first steps and get out there.
But the very first step I always say is to at least create your website because then you can. Build up that reputation online with Google and you can get out in front of people and then just stake your claim on social media and just start talking to people and saying, I'm doing this thing. And so often new ideas, new opportunities are gonna come your way.
you might not have even had thought that they were going to be there, but they're going to start to come your way just by you saying, I'm doing this and raising your hand. Committing to doing it at least for a few months. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Great advice. And I'm also curious if someone decides they wanna do a service business, for example, copywriting like you did, or marketing or writing, and they're, they don't quite know if their skills are, are honed or if they wanna further educate themselves.
Um, do you have resources to recommend or do you suggest people go take a course or what's your advice about that? Yeah, so I teach a course on how to start a business, and part of that course is really designed around getting people to collaborate with others. And when you're able to collaborate and lean on others in a kind of a mastermind setting, you learn so much more about that skill that you wanna go into.
So, for example, As a copywriter, I started to hang out with a lot of copywriters, but I also just started to hang out with a lot of business people. So it wasn't specific to my industry as much as specific to the people that I wanted to help. And in doing so, I was able to hear from them what they needed help with.
I knew immediately what I could help with, and I was, I thought, oh my goodness, I didn't even know that was a need. I'm so excited you said that because I know that I know how to do that. But then they also said things that I didn't know how to do, like design work is just not my, for. . And so I thought, okay, maybe I can, I can either go and take a course on how to be a designer, or I can collaborate with other designers and we can work together.
I can outsource to them and they can do the really quality work in half the time. Then I can do it and we can work together as a team and still deliver the same result to the client. So in that sense, it went a lot faster because I was able to split the profits with them and I was able to really make it so.
They, they got what they needed, but I didn't have to take it all on my shoulders. So I would absolutely recommend, first off, going out and collaborating with other people, but also having that foundational course and that container where you can meet others, get to know them, others who are skilled in something, so you have that referral network available to you while you're also honing in your own entrepreneur skillset.
That's such a good idea. And if someone's living in an RV or a van or they're a nomad, what are some ways that people can connect with other maybe nomads or RVs online or in person? Um, do you have a suggestion about how they could do that? Yeah. Uh, if you go online, there's a lot of different Facebook groups and preneur has our own Facebook group of course, but there's lots of other Facebook groups where you can just go and hang out to people, hang out with.
You can listen into what they're saying. You can join in on the conversation in a really helpful and authentic way. I think authentic is an overused word and yet, So relevant and so important. We need to make sure that we can show up as ourselves and not show up always with this intent to sell. Just show up with the intent to connect with others.
So when you're joining Facebook groups, you're on Reddit and reaching out to other people that way. Um, if you go on Twitter, there's a lot of Twitter threads. Although, I know Twitter's kind of in an upheaval right now, but there's still a lot of conversation going on over there. Same with Instagram. If you just reach out in dms and connect with people and just say, Hey, I just wanna introduce myself, um, I love what you're doing, and, and make it very personal.
Don't just do this copy and paste type of dm, but just make it really personal and reach out that way. You will start to get to build that network. Find out where your people are hanging out online and just start getting to know. and it's amazing what happens when we just show up and, and let ourselves fill our world with a little bit of noise.
You can always leave the Facebook groups. You can always unsubscribe from newsletters, but if you don't dive in, then you don't know which ones are the goldmines, where you can spark some really good conversations and make some really good connections. Yeah, for sure. And Ourves, just because they're so mobile and dealing with internet, like what are some of the, the challenges that you've seen our viewers face, and how do they tend to resolve the challenges?
Yeah, so everything that I suggest in terms of setting up a business has automations built in. So, like I said, Having the internet is such a gift. It can also feel really difficult, especially as an RVR or a nomad, because you do hit those, those spots where it's just not great service or you don't get great cell phone service to be able to connect with a, you know, with your hotspot or anything like that.
Having the automations in place lets, it makes it so that you can. may set up your business and systematize your business in a way that's gonna feel really good so that you know that your audience is always going to get a response. Now, when I say that, a lot of people cringe. That's why I was a little bit hesitant as I was saying it, because they don't want this to be.
Anything that feels kind of inauthentic or unpersonal or cold, they, a lot of entrepreneurs, especially what I found in the RV world and the nomadic world, where we're always on the road and we're always seeking new adventure and we're out there connecting with new people, is we want our business to feel the same.
We want it to feel like we're sitting around that campfire together, and it's that one-on-one conversational approach. But the thing is, you can actually set up your automations to feel that way, and you can be very transparent with your lifestyle. In fact, I encourage you to be very transparent with your lifestyle because living this nomadic life.
Is very different, very unique, and people want a little bit of a, of a part of that. They wanna have that little glimpse of it. They want to be able to connect with you in that way. And so when you say, Hey, this is an automated message because I might not have cell phone service right now, let me tell you a little bit about my story and I can't wait to connect with you when I'm back online.
And then you can fill them in on that story and. I love, I'm a mountain person over a beach person, for example. And so chances are right now I'm in the mountains, maybe hiking, maybe listening to elk bugling as I wake up in the morning. Tell me something unique about you. and then they'll respond to your email.
And when you're back online you can say, Hey, I really was oh, in the middle of nowhere and I'm so glad that you hit respond. And I was able to to connect with you in this way. So yes, I hesitated a little bit on the automations, and that's because I think automations are set up in a way. So often they're set up in a way that can feel.
just dry and boring. And that's not how most people like to run their business. It's also not how most people like to interact with other businesses. And so being able to have, you know, for example, Kristin, your newsletter is so great cuz sometimes you're like, I just got done sailing in Mexico. And I'm like, man, that's so cool.
You're able to go down and, and I get to be a part of that story. You can do the same thing as a Noma. Such a fun way to incorporate your story into it that people want more of, that they're less likely to unsubscribe, they're more likely to open your emails, they're more likely to buy from you, cuz now you're fascinating.
Now you've got something a little bit different. And even if you offer the same exact thing as somebody else for your business offer, your story is a little bit different. , and that's what makes it more magnetic. We live in a world where we expect that instant gratification, but customers aren't naive to how things are set up on the back end.
They know that it's automated. They want it to be automated. They don't want you to manually do everything. So when you automate it in a way that feels really good and it tells that story, It gets 'em excited and now they're hooked on your brand and they're more likely to open up your emails for sure.
Um, and are there some jobs you can start, businesses you can start that are more passive income based, where you don't have to, you know, always be in touch, it kind of runs without you. What types of jobs might those be? Yeah, I like memberships for this reason because what you can do is you don't have to have a community element to a membership.
What you can do is just. Offer that ongoing content, but for you, you can just set it up and automate it. So, for example, I'm actually working on this right now. I'm setting up a year's worth of of content ideas where every single week I'm gonna email you with a content idea and you can go and take that.
And I'm gonna tell you how to promote it. I don't have to do anything once it's signed up. Once it's all set up and. And yet you're still getting the full value out of it because every single day I'm sending you that email, having a membership. You know, meal planning is another really good one where if you can automate okay, every single week, you're going to be.
Uh, sending out these types of, of meals, you're gonna send out three meal meals a week that they can make. It's gonna be three lunches and three dinners or whatever it is that you decide, but you can automate that sending, so you can batch schedule a ton of emails and have them just go out every single week to the, your audience.
They know what to expect, so they're getting what they paid for. , you're not on the hook to show up live all the time and have to create content all the time. You can do that when you feel most, most creative. You can do that when you're offline. If you wanna hand write in your journal a blog post and then type it up, or having a virtual assistant type it up, that's something else you can do on the side.
That's more the marketing, but the deliverability. And that membership can be automated and still really, really impactful. It can make a difference in somebody's life. I also like products because you can have that, like I said, do drop shipping where you can set up your website, tell your story, and get in front of your audience on a timeframe that works for you.
You can schedule out your social media. You can schedule out your content. I teach how to do that and systematize it, but you can also have your product. Scheduled out. So if you wanna do like use a fulfillment center for a subscription box, for example, that can all be scheduled out and now you're not on the hook to have to package all the boxes or do the delivery of it, someone else can do that.
So it's more passive on your end. You just have to bring people to buy and that you can do on your own schedule. And then of course, teaching anything that you can teach or templates that you can create where people can buy them whenever they need them and then use them, and now you're making money without having to always be on.
That's another really good way to get in front of the right people, because then from there, of course you get. There's a whole funnel that you can send them down where they can, they buy one template and now you're, they're gonna get another template because you can, you anticipate their needs, you know what they're going to need.
I talked in the beginning about empathy, and this is where it comes in because you understand, I know they're right now, they're thinking they need this. They're probably going, they're gonna buy this, it's gonna solve this need. But I also know, because I've been a few steps ahead of them on this particular journey, that they're also gonna need this and they're also gonna need this.
You can automate that sales cycle. , you're still delivering a lot of value. You're still making it feel really personal because you know the journey. They're about to go. But you don't have to be the one to auto or to manually send those messages. You can automate so much of this. Yeah, that's so interesting when you talk about the membership program.
I know that there's one woman that does email marketing and it's just $9 and you get an email every week to send your audience and she has thousands of subscribers. So that goes to show you don't need an expensive membership or products like just get going. I mean, I'm sure you've seen cases like that too.
Yeah, exactly. You can just get going and you can just. Ju, it doesn't have to be overboard. It can just be something very simple. And a lot of people like the simplicity, actually. Simple is better, confused buyers don't buy. So the simpler you can make it, the easier it is for people to wanna buy from you, and then you can just get going and get going, and then more ideas can come later on.
But just start with one, see what sticks and. And roll forward from there. Yeah. And so you have a membership that we've just touched on a little bit, but tell people a little bit about, um, what your membership is and what they could get if they wanna join. Yeah, so I have a couple of things. So I have the membership.
The membership is basically I send you a marketing playbook every single month, and that's a ongoing content where you. Don't have to guess how to show up in the world, . I make it as easy as possible. So I tell you this is, this is a strategy for this month that I would suggest, and here are some templates that go along with it.
There's templates for product based businesses, service based businesses, and like e-course and digital product or digital memberships and, and, and courses. And then that way you can take those templates, you can schedule them. It's kind of a fill in the blank Madlib style approach, and then you have that marketing playbook.
So it's very easy to know how to show up and you don't have to say, okay, what do I post today? How do I interact today online, and what do I do? It's all laid out for you. . And then in my road school, that's my course that I teach, that's where we get a little bit more foundational about how to set up those systems, how to tell your story, how to write that copy, how to write the content so you can have that very clear story.
And then of course, how to strategize your business so you're not burning yourself out. So you can RV and you can travel and you don't feel like you're hustling and grinding all the time. You can actually set up those boundaries from the start and not make it. You know, you're grinding yourself into the ground.
You can go and take a couple weeks off. You can take your whole summer off. That's what I do. I take my summers off so I can go and explore. I can be with my kids and we can just have more adventure outside and not have to worry about work, work, work, work, or having to get back and check in or clock in or whatever it is.
Oh, that's great. And it sounds like you have so much experience with so many different types of businesses and veers that you're, you're just a great coach for this, so hopefully people can go on and you also have a quiz people can take. Right? Tell us about that. Yeah, so if you're curious about you, you have heard all these ideas and you're like, I still don't know which one to do.
If you go to road newer.com/quiz, that's where the quiz is. You can just answer a few questions. It's free and. and on there it'll tell you, okay, membership is a great thing for you to start or product based, and it'll be all aligned with what you enjoy in life. And so it's not me telling you ideas, it's you putting in your own personal thoughts and opinions and preferences and everything like that.
And then you get a personalized approach to how to kickstart your business. . Great. And I have one more question, which is, why did you start preneur school and your membership and like, what does this, um, bring to you? Yeah, it brings me so much joy. First of all, it's really my favorite thing I've ever started.
I've done a lot of coaching, I've done a lot of copywriting. I've done a lot of, you know, a lot of, a lot of things as you've heard. Um, but Road Premier is my favorite because I'm really able to see people making a difference in their lives and. . I have a family friend who, um, she had this dream before retirement that she was gonna start a bookstore up in Canada and this big dream that she had, she didn't make it to retirement cancer, one that battle.
And, um, I just, I knew when I saw that experience or when I saw everything that she went through and, and we had that loss in our family. She was a family friend. Um, that I wanted that to be different for a lot of people. You know, not just, of course for her, if I could turn back time, but we are living in such an age where we can start a business, we can get out there, we can explore, and why would we not do that?
And so I wanna help as many people as possible do that and explore and hit the road, see more things, and not wait until retirement. Do it now. When you can really live your life and have the best of both worlds, where you have that purpose of showing up with purpose and making an impact, but then also having that time with your family.
Having those experiences, seeing new things, meeting new people, and being out on the road. To me it's just, it's so important and I love the RV lifestyle. I love the nomadic lifestyle. Cause you never know who's gonna roll up next to you at the campground. You never know who you're gonna meet. You get to see new wildlife, see new places.
There's just never a shortage of things to do and I want that for everybody. I think it's just such a gift and I, I. If there's one thing I can do with my life, it's I want to encourage more people to hit the road and experience all of that. Such amazing tips, Kimberly. We'll be adding links to both your Road Renewal School and Road Premier Membership program down below in the show notes, there will also be a link to Kimberly's quiz.
You can figure out what the best business idea is for you. Thanks so much for joining us. Today, Kimberly. Oh, thank you very much for having me. This was fun. Well, that concludes episode 16 of the Wayward Home Podcast. We'll be continuing our series about how to make money while living life as a nomad.
Stay tuned and thanks for listening to the Wayward Home Podcast.