My Side Project

I mentioned in my last post that I was working on a side project. It is now live so I thought I would tell you what it and my plans are.

I have been working as a freelancer for quite a while and most of my work has come through Upwork. However, Upwork recently changed their fee structure. They now charge 20% on your first $500 with a client, 10% between $500.01 and $10,000 and 5% on anything over $10,000. This means that long term clients become better value but any short term clients are way less worthwhile.

Upwork's new fees were one of the reasons I wanted to try something new. Another reason is that I want to be more motivated and earn more consistent income; see my last post for more detail. Finally, I feel that I have established myself as a freelancer; I know what I offer and what I can charge. It's time to spread my wings!

All of this lead to me thinking of a way to find my own clients. The result? aut0m8.com.

What is aut0m8? The result of my plans to become an Infusionsoft Certified Partner; aut0m8 will offer Infusionsoft marketing automation for small businesses:

USING AUTOMATION WE STOP LEADS FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS, GENERATE MORE REFERRALS AND ELIMINATE REDUNDANT PROCESSES

I want to work with small businesses to understand their marketing needs and develop a strategy together. I will then build automated systems that deliver that strategy . The aim is to make my clients more money with a minimum of hands on effort from them. As it says on the website:

SAVE TIME, MAKE MORE MONEY, GROW YOUR BUSINESS

I have already started advertising on Google to find new clients. My goal is to transition away from using anyone else's platforms to find clients and develop a sustainable business of my own.

I will keep you up to date with the progress of this and we will learn together where this takes me. Get in touch if you would like to know more.

Home Again, Home Again

As I have mentioned, we left Thailand recently. We have been visiting friends and family in the UK. Working freelance is great because we can be flexible with our hours and make time to see people.

We have been staying with my parents in the South West of England. They live in a wonderful little country town surrounded by fields and farms. As we have been out of the UK for about 2 years Agi and I have been experiencing the English countryside with fresh eyes. Everything is so green and fresh.

Unlike Thailand, it's possible to go for a walk here without sweating profusely. We have been taking advantage of this fact by going for walks in the afternoons. It's been a while since I went walking in the English countryside and I'd forgotten that cows like to chase you. I went walking one afternoon, happily listening to a podcast. I couldn't hear anything, but something made me turn around to see bout 20 cows running across the field towards me. I picked up the pace and jumped over the stile. I took a photo of the crowd that gathered. I think a zombie infestation wouldn't be dissimilar.

We mentioned our walks to our parents' 80 year old neighbour and he invited us on one of his walks. Just a short, 6 mile one; not like his "real walks". He does 10 miles every Sunday!

Being freelancers we could take the morning off so we went out with my dad and our neighbour. It was a fantastic walk. The area is truly beautiful. One place in particular struck me as something out of an Enid Blyton book. There was a small valley carpeted with buttercups. A small river snaked across the meadow with a beautiful wooden footbridge across it. I didn't take a photo because I'm an idiot. Agi made a friend though:

One of the reasons we have come back to Europe is because both of us want to be closer to our parents. Yesterday they wanted to go for a walk at the coast with me. Again, freelancing to the rescue! I could easily put my work on hold and go for a walk with the folks. We went to a nearby beach and had a walk with the dog followed by coffee and cake at a cafe on the cliffs. You can see a photo at the top of this article. Lovely!

All of this flexibility is enabled by freelancing. Get in touch if you'd like to know how to make your transition to freelancing.

We've Worked in... Pai

Part 3 of our grand farewell tour of Thailand. We went south to Phuket for a month, then our SCUBA trip, and after that we took ourselves up north. Neither Agi nor I had ever been to Pai in Northern Thailand but we constantly heard nice things about it. Was it as nice as people say?

We've Worked in... Pai

After our diving trip we flew up to Chiang Mai and stayed there for a couple of days. If you are ever there you should go to Blue Diamond The Breakfast Club. We went there for breakfast twice and dinner once. Their breakfast food is amazing and they have a range of baked goods, pastries and cakes with vegan and gluten free options. (There are also meat based options for carnivores like me).

From Chiang Mai we took the bus up to Pai. The road twists up and down through the hills and 762 sharp turns. I rarely get motion sickness but this journey almost got me. The views are great if you can concentrate on them!

Don't let this deter you though because Pai is a lovely town. When we arrived we went to the guesthouse we booked online. Agi really wanted a swimming pool and we had chosen our guesthouse for that reason. It turned out though that the swimming pool was actually 2.5km away on the other side of town and guests had access for free. Always read the small print!

The guesthouse owner was very understanding and helped us find replacement accommodation. We moved over to The Countryside Resort on the edge of town. It was absolutely beautiful; small houses spread out and surrounded by fields. They gave us a 20% discount because we wanted to stay for 3 weeks which was a great result. The cute little houses had sunroofs on top and most importantly, there was a swimming pool!

I don't know why Pai started to become popular but it is a major destination for backpackers. As a result two things have happened, one good and one bad depending on your point of view:

1. Most aspects of traditional Thai life have disappeared.
2. The town is small but has a ridiculous number of options for food and drink.

I have read some blogs that criticise the place but we loved our time in Pai. We were staying a little distance outside of the town which meant that it was very quiet. I get the impression that the bars in town get very busy and noisy in the evening. We rented a scooter so we could nip into town when we were hungry and then head back out to our quiet country residence! Lasagne, curry, noodles, whatever you want, it's there.

On a few days we went riding around the countryside on our scooter. The views were wonderful. Our accommodation had an open seating area where we worked most of the time. It was really nice to be surrounded by nature. On a few calls clients commented that it sounded like I was in a forest they could hear so many birds.

A few times we went to Fluid Swimming Pool (the pool we could have had access to with our original guest house!). We went there at 9am when it opened and we had the whole thing to ourselves. We would do some lengths and then work in their cafe for the rest of the day. They do really great coffee and sandwiches. Working there was a hell of a lot better than working in a factory or warehouse like I used to!

Pai was a lovely place to spend a few weeks. Another great trip enabled by freelancing. Get in touch if you'd like to know more.

Our First Proper Holiday

Part 2 of our grand farewell tour of Thailand. I've talked a lot about how we travel and work. I wrote a post about what it's really like. Agi and I feel that we don't miss out on anything by working while we travel. However, we both felt that we needed to take a real break. We decided to do a 4 day liveaboard diving trip in the Similan Islands. We booked our diving trip with Khao Lak Scuba Adventures. The company was recommended by one of Agi's friends and they were amazing. At the end of our month in Phuket they picked us up and took us to their centre in Khao Lak. After picking up our diving equipment we got on board Manta Queen 1.

We were given a briefing and met our shipmates. We would be spending our trip with people from England, Sweden, France, Germany, Ukraine and America. A nice multicultural mix. The boat left dock and while we slept the captain took us out to the Similan Islands. We woke up in the morning to see small islands out of our cabin window.

We had told our clients that we would not be available for the duration of our trip so we felt free to relax and enjoy. The next 4 days were amazing. Our routine was:

• Wake up and have coffee
• Dive
• Eat breakfast
• Relax for 2 hours
• Dive
• Eat lunch
• Relax for 2 hours
• Dive
• Eat a snack
• Relax for 2 hours
• Dive
• Eat dinner
• Relax until bed time

Nice!

The diving was excellent and we saw tons of things: barracuda, mantis shrimp, grouper, reef sharks, moray eels. There were 3 highlights:

• On a night dive I saw another diver shining a light on something. I went over to see what was happening. All of a sudden, a lobster came running over the coral towards me. I have seen lobster in tanks in shops and hiding in crevices while diving but I had never seen one free swimming before. It was amazing, it looked like an insectoid horse galloping across the coral!

• We spent most of our time on the boat but on one day they dropped us off at one of the islands so we could climb up to the view point for a look around. Tourist boats come every day from the mainland but they don't arrive until mid morning so we had the island to ourselves. The view from the top of the hill was spectacular, the photo is at the top of this post. The beach was one of the most amazing I have ever seen:

• Perhaps the main highlight was the first dive on which we saw Manta Rays. We had been told to look out for them so everyone was constantly scanning the area. We heard a diver banging on their tank which usually signifies something worth seeing. I looked to my left and saw a dark shape emerging out of the blue. The Manta was about 4m across and swam slowly towards me before angling upwards and swimming directly over my head. I saw its silhouette against the sun shining down through the water. After that, 2 more Mantas appeared and the 3 of them swam around us for the duration of the dive. Spectacular!

This was our first proper holiday since freelancing. We did no work whatsoever and loved it. How do you spend your holidays while freelancing? Get in touch and give me some tips!

Freelance Running Shoes

So, Ben shares his passion about freelance and UFC / wrestling. I have also decided to share my story. So maybe some of you would like to make a big step and escape the office and start doing freelance and fully enjoy your passion.

My life is running :-D  I am a big fun of any outdoor activities. Wherever we travel I always take my running shoes. At school I was part of sports club, I represented my school in running races. I was a really dedicated runner until I went to university. You know when you’re at uni it is “party time” not “running time” lol.

I came back to running in 2009, and since then I am unstoppable. I just love to go out and run. It helps me to relax after a hard day at work.

Running includes lots of time for training. Now I am living in Asia timing can be a bit difficult. You can only run here in the morning or in the evening due to the heat.

I am grateful that I am doing freelance, because I can run whenever I want to and I can join as many races as I want to. Some races happen on Saturday so I must go on Friday, to be able to pick up my bib number.

In the last year I have joined many races in Thailand. I finished my first 100km race – The NorthFace Thailand. I took Friday and Monday off, so I could join the race and recover after. Well, one 100km wasn’t enough for me so I signed up for another 100km but in Hong Kong this time. Boom, freelance is awesome, because I packed my trail running shoes and laptop and off I went :-D . I finished 14^th female overall. Not a bad result.

Before I sign up for any races, I know I need to do lots of running to be prepared and avoid injury. My running schedule is very busy. I run 6 days per week. In Thailand I joined Bangkok Runners group, where I met amazing runners. This is another good tip for you, if you are a travelling freelancer then there is a good website called http://www.meetup.com/ Check it out, maybe you will find there new friends which share the same hobbies as you  :-D 

Occasionally, I run on Wednesday mornings in Pattaya (trail run) so I start my work late in the afternoon. Mainly I run in the morning so I set up all my meetings in the afternoon. I just work when I am not running ha ha.

This is why I am so happy I am doing freelance now, so I can run and swim whenever I want to  :-D 

Happy running!

Get in touch if you'd like to know more about how freelancing can support your hobbies.