The Wayward Home Podcast
The Wayward Home Podcast
56: Nomad Newbie Series - How to Make Money on the Road
Introducing the Nomad Newbie series, where we've compiled some of the top tips from our guests on the hottest topics for aspiring nomads. Our topic this week is how to earn an income to support your nomadic lifestyle.
This episode guides you through all of the options available to full-time travelers - from finding remote work, to becoming an entrepreneur on the road, to workamping. First, we hear from full-time RVer and remote work coach, Camille Attelle, who shares her insights on how to find jobs that align with your lifestyle and your skills. Camille talks about her Remote Work School program, a fantastic resource for those wanting to delve into digital skill acquisition.
Next, we chat with Sharee Collier, a seasoned work camper and founder of LiveCampWork.com. She walks through some of the most popular workamping opportunities for nomads, like the Amazon Camper Force, the sugar beet harvest, and seasonal jobs like managing a Christmas tree lot. Sharee advocates for starting small, seeking out opportunities at national parks, and embracing the built-in nomad community of work camping.
Lastly, we talk to Kim Crossland, founder of Roadpreneur and Cruisin + Campfires, who walks us through the process of how to start your own business to support your freedom on the road. Kim starts with knowing your why, shares advice on how to find creative inspiration for businesses, and encourages listeners to harness the power of online networks and the nomad entrepreneur community.
So, if you're ready to turn your dreams into a reality, tune in to this episode and start your journey to fund your nomadic lifestyle.
Resources:
10 profitable blogging niches (with examples!)
40 remote work job ideas
Follow Camille Attell:
Remote Work School
Follow Sharee Collier:
LiveCampWork.com
Follow Kimberly Crossland:
Roadpreneur
Connect with Kristin Hanes and The Wayward Home!
Do you find yourself scrolling Instagram or watching YouTube videos, wondering just when it will be your turn to live the nomadic lifestyle? Or maybe you're already doing it and want to find a few new techniques to refine your journey? I'm super excited to tell you about our Nomad Newbie series, which kicks off this week. I hope to provide you useful, actionable information to help turn your dreams into a reality. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Wayward Home Podcast. All about van life, boat life and nomadic living.
Speaker 3:We'll bring you tips, interviews and stories from the road and on the water. Now here's your host, kristen.
Speaker 1:Haynes. Hey there, I'm Kristen Haynes with the Wayward Home dot com, and I spend half the year in a sprinter van and half on a sailboat in Mexico, and I hope to inspire you to pursue your nomadic living dreams. So this week we're kicking off the Nomad Newbie series, where we've compiled some of the top tips from our guests on the hottest topics for aspiring nomads, like how to make money on the road, how to downsize and how to stay connected from wherever you are. If you've been wanting to ditch the conventional lifestyle to hit the road or get on the waves, but you're feeling overwhelmed by all the information that's out there, the Nomad Newbie series is here to boil it all down for you. Our topic this week is a big one how to earn an income to support your nomadic lifestyle. But before we start this episode, I just wanted to tell you about a free resource I created if you're interested in pursuing blogging as a way to make money. I compiled a list of 10 profitable blogging niches with tons of examples, so you can see which types of sites are making money. Maybe this will give you the inspiration to start your own site. To download that list, head to thewaywardhomecom forward slash blogging. That's thewaywardhomecom forward, slash blogging or find the link in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Now let's get into the episode. So I'm really excited to have full-time RVer and remote work coach, camille Attelle, on with us today. Camille spent over 20 years as a corporate trainer and has a master's degree in counseling. She's worked over 12 remote jobs and now has an awesome program called Remote Work School, where she helps nomads and non-nomads figure out a path to freedom. Camille and her husband, bryce, have been full-time on the road since 2016. They visited 41 states and traveled over 40,000 miles. Hey, camille, thanks so much for joining us. I get a lot of emails from people wondering like what are the types of remote work you can even get? Do you have any examples of some of the things that maybe your students are doing or what you've seen in the market?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean here's the easiest answer. Almost everything can be done remotely in some way, shape or form. I mean it ranges right. Everybody has probably heard of virtual assistant by now, which is something like an administrative assistant that was in an office. You can do that remotely, but even that ranges. There's virtual assistants from everything from calendar management to email management, all the way to managing online courses, to social media management, all of that right. Let's just take our truck driver example, or actually our mechanic example.
Speaker 4:How do you make that remote? Well, maybe you can't do the work remotely, but you could certainly consult remotely. You could create a course that people take remotely. You could coach people through a repair that they would do on their own remotely. So sometimes it's a matter of thinking about a job just differently, and the nice thing about that is then you take a job that someone used to do and earn one income stream from, and now you can maybe generate multiple income streams from the same type of work. It's just really exciting. But it does take a little bit of creative thinking. So when people ask you know, what kinds of jobs can you do remotely, I put the question back to them Do you know your skill set? Do you understand your strengths and do you understand how to make all of those things viable in a remote workplace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's such a great concept because some people also are fearful about skills, and you talked about going back to school, where people are saying, oh my gosh, do I need a four year degree to do something remotely, where you're you know, kind of proving that no, you don't have to do that. There's a lot of things you can learn online, and what would your advice be around gaining skills, possibly to find a remote job?
Speaker 4:So I think there's a it's, it's. There's always shades of gray. I'm a big shades of gray person. I would never say don't go back to school. But you don't have to do that to be marketable, because, to your point, you can pick up skills in so many different ways that are very affordable. Trainings out there you can do. There are different resources, even like on LinkedIn. You can find lots of skills trainings there. You to me, has skills trainings. Youtube has free skills training, google has skills training. I mean you can find this stuff almost free or very low cost. It's going to save you heaps of money and time if you just need to brush up on a few skills.
Speaker 1:So what's your advice in starting that process of trying to find a job?
Speaker 4:So I'm so glad you brought that up. First Figure out what do you really want, like, what do you want in your lifestyle? How do you want to live? Do you want to be nomadic, like we are? Do you want to work from home? Do you want to work a particular schedule, like, get that right. First figure out what you want. Then you want to really think, go into some like skills inventories to really understand what you're good at, what your strengths are. Then you get a plan together so that when you do go online and you start looking, it's not so overwhelming, because it'll be very overwhelming if you just start jumping on and looking for jobs. You just won't have a good game plan in place. So that's my best guidance is you really want to know your game plan?
Speaker 1:Great. And so I'm also wondering do you ever encounter people who just say like I really don't want to work on a computer, it's not for me. Are there jobs out there that maybe someone who's nomadic can do?
Speaker 4:Sure there are tons and again it boils down to what you picture for yourself. That's why I always tell people make that your top priority. Like what do you want your lifestyle to be? And then find the income or the job to fit into that. So if you want to just make some money doing hands-on work maybe you don't want to be online or not online all day or whatever tons of opportunities. There's work camping, which is very popular in the nomadic community. You know where you can work on an RV park or a farm or a ranch, whatever.
Speaker 1:That's great, so people don't have to be confined to a computer. There are a lot of opportunities. I think that's great for people to know and kind of know what to look for out there. It's some random things. Well, thank you so much and yeah, it was a pleasure talking to you. Today. We're talking to full-time RVer Cherie Collier, who's been work camping with her husband since 2013. Cherie also runs the website livecampworkcom, where she talks all about making money while traveling in an RV or camper. Van Cherie has worked as a park ranger, activities director and general manager while work camping. She's also worked at Amazon Camper Force. Cherie, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks so much for having me. I am super excited to be here If you're not familiar with Camper Force.
Speaker 1:it's an Amazon program that recruits our veers and van lifers for jobs at fulfillment centers. We'll pick, pack and ship orders while staying in a nearby campground, so you could be a new RVer.
Speaker 2:Jump in your RV. Of course you're going to want to mentally and physically prepare first. I do recommend that. But you're going to get to Amazon and you could literally build a whole community around yourself of RVers, like-minded RVers, who are there to do the same thing. They understand you, they know what you're there for, they know why you're there, they're going to recommend new places for you to go. I mean, you will develop your whole community right there at that one job.
Speaker 2:And I just think that's huge, because when you're RVing you want that sense of community. You want to detach from the normal community that you just left, but you want to build one inside the RV community, as those people understand what you're doing, where you're going and how you're getting. So that's the first thing. And then, second, they pay for every hour. They do give you a certain stipend, like $500, $600, something like that, and I think it's per person for your RV site. So that's good in work camping, to be paid for your RV site and to be paid hourly. And then Amazon also has mandatory and voluntary overtime and it doesn't sound like a positive thing. But if your goal is to just go to Amazon, really focus, build your community, go to work every day that you're scheduled, work some overtime and really stack that cash. You don't have to work for the rest of the year. You could go take the winter off. Maybe you take off the next six months and you travel, and then maybe you'll go to Yellowstone and work there for the summer.
Speaker 1:Sugar beet harvest is another one of those big gathering places for RVers. It's tough work, with long shifts harvesting beets, and takes place in northern states like North Dakota, minnesota and Montana.
Speaker 2:Their motto is it's an unbeatable experience, and they say that because they give you the opportunity to make a minimum, I think, of like $2,500 in two weeks. So for RVers that's great that they can go somewhere for like two, possibly three weeks, make $2,500 and then continue on their travels. Yeah, it's not really enjoyable. While you're there You'll meet some really cool people, so that's a plus. But then you stack your cash and you go on about your business.
Speaker 2:There are also other seasonal type jobs out there Christmas tree lots, pumpkin patches, fireworks stands so those are all three lot manager jobs. What you're doing right there is you are the manager of the lot and you can recruit and you know, have people come help you or hire people to help you, and you're selling whatever it is the fireworks, the pumpkins or the Christmas trees and you're going to make a portion of the proceeds so that one's really lucrative as well. So they set those up in pretty much all 50 states. As far as I'm concerned, you can find a lot manager job in all 50 states. You just really have to look for them and really put in those keywords you know Christmas tree lot jobs, things like that and you can find those opportunities.
Speaker 1:Theme parks are also a great place to get a job as an RVer Places like Dollywood Adventureland, darien Lake, six Flags and then the Island at Pigeon Forge.
Speaker 2:Those are all great theme parks that hire RVers and they actually have work camping programs that are set up, but typically for RVers. They know you're an RVer, they know you need a place to stay, they're going to have resources and some of them are even going to have on-site camping or private campgrounds that their RV workers stay in. So those are tried and true programs where you can actually just go on their website and apply for those jobs.
Speaker 1:Another interesting work camping job is working for the companies that create campground maps. Your job is to stay at a campground for a couple of weeks and canvas the community to see if businesses want to advertise on the back of those camping maps.
Speaker 2:This is a good deal for the campground and it's also a good deal for the local businesses. The campground is going to most likely get their map for free, because it's going to be paid for by all the local ads that you just found, and then you get a commission off of the ad sales. Plus, you also got your campsite for free for two weeks.
Speaker 1:So how do people go about finding work, camping jobs?
Speaker 2:I think you should start with the RVer job exchange, which is by EscapiesArtscom Escapies RV Club. That is 100% free for candidates to not only go on there and look for jobs but actually create their profile, build a resume. It's really cool because it's that resume templates so you can change your resume up depending on which job you're applying for and send it over to an employer. You can download it. You can set up your whole profile, put all your skills in there. You can reach out to jobs and employers and apply for them directly through the RVer job exchange. So that's my top number one suggestion. Number two would probably be workampingjobscom Again another free resource, where you'll be able to find really great job posts and you can apply for them. Sometimes they'll send you to their website, sometimes an online application, sometimes they just include the HR manager's email address and you just need to shoot them an email, attach your resume and you're off and running. And then I guess my last one would be workforarvierscom, and this is another great website. They also have free jobs that are listed.
Speaker 1:And how much money can people expect to make while we're camping?
Speaker 2:I think you will make anywhere from $0 to maybe average. You're going to make about well to $15 per hour If you are out there specifically looking for jobs that pay. A lot of people want to go work camping and they don't want to go out that page. They want to do specific camp hosting. Some people just want to work at a state park and have a camp hosting experience, which is usually 100% unpaid, and then you're getting to stay there for free.
Speaker 1:Rih has one more piece of advice. She'd like you to walk away with Start small and go now.
Speaker 2:Don't wait for everything to be perfect. True, get a plan in place. Pick out your first year of work camping jobs, and sometimes I recommend for people to maybe your first work camping job could be a national park that's close to you. I like to recommend Delaware North working for Delaware North at Yellowstone because I think that's just an incredible opportunity. Who doesn't work at Yellowstone? So I like to recommend people pick out a national park. I like to recommend Yellowstone.
Speaker 2:Then maybe try either the Sugar Beet Harvest or Camper Forest and see what you think after that. Because right there you've had your whole year, that's a whole year of work camping in those three positions right there, and it just makes it a little bit easier for people to just see it kind of planned out, plotted out. You don't have to have the biggest RV, you don't have to have the next three years planned out. Just try it out. Because, like I told my husband and he told me back, if this doesn't work which then it's what we were doing before it's not that big of a deal, like, let's try something and not be afraid to fail.
Speaker 1:Great advisory. Thanks so much for joining us today and telling us everything you know about work camping. Do you want to create your own business and take it on the road? Just how do you choose the right business and get it up and running?
Speaker 1:Today we're talking to Kimberly Crossland. Kimberly is founder of both Roadpreneur and Cruisin 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. I'd love to talk to you about entrepreneurship, because 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? 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, set my own hours, travel when and where I want, and I know that some people teach how to find a remote job, but you more focus on how to create your own self-sustaining business, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right. I have nothing against remote work. I think that that's 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 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 entrepreneurship, of course my tendency is to want to lean towards entrepreneurship, because that's just where I feel more aligned, because 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.
Speaker 3: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 some downsides in entrepreneurship, where you are always on, whether you want to be or not. Those thoughts will wake you up at 3am. It just happens to me. That's kind of some of the excitement with it, though, because you can let that creativity spark kind of incorporates its way into your personal life, but in a way that you can also say and now we're here and we're going to turn that conversation off and we're going to table it for later. You don't feel like you have to check in all the time or, you know, respond to those emails. If you want to put your phone down, you can put your phone down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so there's so many opportunities out there to create your own business. How do you help someone hone in on what their passion or talent is and what type of business they should even start?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a really good question, because that is the number one question. People like the idea of entrepreneurship, but I 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 that sounds very cliche, 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 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 be.
Speaker 3: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 when 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 going to 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?
Speaker 3:And I kind of did this in the beginning. So you heard in my story that I sat down on the table and 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 if I could start a business? But just really commit to that idea. I am going to start a business.
Speaker 3:And just like when you say I'm going to buy a new car, I'm going to buy a new truck, I'm going to buy, in your case, maybe a new sailboat. Or like when I was sitting at the campsite I'm looking at all the RVs coming in, I always 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 realize, oh, that's a business idea right there that I wasn't even looking for. 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 going to 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. There it is again.
Speaker 3: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 everywhere. The other thing you can do if you're not starting to see those ideas everywhere, that can feel really frustrating too. Of course, 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 going to look for ideas that start with the letter R and suddenly you're going to start to see new ideas pop up, because it's almost like a scatagories for your business and you can start to see different ideas come up that can help you get those creative juices flowing, so that you can start to get those ideas and you never know what's going to 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 idea question in your mind and really let you get out ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the idea thing is, I think, probably what stumbles people the most. You said a lot of people ask about that, but in the RVers or 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?
Speaker 3: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. 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.
Speaker 3: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 impact. 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 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 going to help somebody else have the same outcome that you know that you want to have. 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-nits hats at her campsite, for example, and she just loves to knit. She's doing it anyway. This is something that she enjoys and she's taken this and scaled it. But she lives on the road. She doesn't have a lot of room for inventory or to hold products and shipping materials or having to find the post office.
Speaker 3:But when you, like I said earlier, when you set those boundaries with your customers, they now know when you're 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 routes better because then you can go by 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 curated.
Speaker 3: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.
Speaker 3:And then the fourth model is freelancing. So if there's something you would love to do 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 you love and not have to worry about the stuff that you don't love, about the remote work and checking in 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 want to 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 a different way than is traditional.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so once someone comes up with an idea and they want to 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? How do you suggest people go about that initial marketing and website?
Speaker 3:creation? Yeah, that's a good question, also so many good questions. So the first thing to do is really 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 helped people. I helped them without them buying for me. Yet I just went out and I promoted my business and I shared about my story. I shared about that. Why that I talked about.
Speaker 3: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 hump, just put a homepage 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 bunch, but we don't need to do that right now. There's a lot of website platforms out there that you can use, 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 going to 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.
Speaker 3: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 make it harder than it needs to be.
Speaker 3:And it's not until we take those first steps that we realize that, oh yeah, this doesn't have to be as difficult, oh yeah, this doesn't have to feel as heavy or 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 going to come your way. You might not even have 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.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, great advice. And I'm also curious if someone decides they want to do a service business, for example, copywriting, like you did, or marketing or writing, and they don't quite know if their skills are honed or if they want to further educate themselves, do you have resources to recommend or do you suggest people go take a course, or what's your advice about that? We'll be back after a quick break. Figuring out how to make money on the road is one of the hardest parts of the transition to Nomad Life. I struggled with this for years until I finally created a profitable blog, the Wayward Home, that now makes six figures per year. If you're interested about blogging but have no idea where to start, I have a free download for you. It's called 10 Profitable Blogging Nits Ideas with examples to get your juices flowing. You'll see money making blogs covering everything from travel to even knitting. Go download that right now at wwwTheWaywardHomecom forward slash blogging. That's wwwTheWaywardHomecom forward slash blogging.
Speaker 3: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 that kind of a mastermind setting, you learn so much more about that skill that you want to 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.
Speaker 3:But then they also said things that I didn't know how to do. Like design work is just not my forte, 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 than 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 that 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 skill set.
Speaker 1: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 RVers online or in person? Do you have a suggestion about how they could do that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you go online, there's a lot of different Facebook groups and Roadpreneur has our own Facebook group, of course, but there's lots of other Facebook groups where you can just go and hang out with others. 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 it's 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.
Speaker 3:If you go on Twitter, there's a lot of Twitter threads although I know Twitter is kind of in and up people right now, but there's still a lot of conversation going on over there. Same with Instagram. If you just reach out and DMs and connect with people and just say, hey, I just want to introduce myself, I love what you're doing, 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 them. It's amazing what happens when we just show up 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 gold mines where you can spark some really good conversations and make some really good connections.
Speaker 1:Great. It sounds like you have so much experience with so many different types of businesses and RVers that you're just a great coach for this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it brings me so much joy. 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, but roadpreneurs my favorite, because I'm really able to see people making a difference in their lives.
Speaker 3:And I have a family friend who she had this dream before retirement that she was going to start a bookstore up in Canada and this big dream that she had she didn't make it to retirement. Cancer won that battle and I just I knew, when I saw that experience or when I saw everything that she went through and we had that loss in our family, that I wanted that to be different for a lot of people, not just, you know, not just, of course, for her if I could turn back time. But we're 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 want to 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 and making an impact and then also having that time with your family, having those experiences, seeing new things, meeting new people and being out on the road.
Speaker 3:To me it's just, it's so important and I love the RV lifestyle, I love the nomadic lifestyle, because you never know who's going to roll up next to you at the campground, you never know who you're going to 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 would just. 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.
Speaker 1:Such amazing tips, kimberly Well, thanks so much for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Nomad Newbie series. If you want a list of jobs you can do on the road, I put together a long list of 40 remote work type jobs. To download that list, head to the wayward home dot com forward slash jobs. I hope you find it useful. I'll see you next time on the wayward home podcast.