Living the Laptop Lifestyle. But…

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What Is the Laptop Lifestyle?

It's something that many people who get into owning and running an online business are looking for.

They might search for "work from home" but they are really looking for "work from anywhere".

The freedom to take their laptop and travel within their own country and overseas but continue to enjoy an income with nothing more than their laptop computer and a reliable internet connection.

My Friend Lives It - Or Does He?

I have a friend who lives the laptop lifestyle. He's a Brit currently holidaying in Australia with his partner and they are about to move to Bali as a continuation of exploring the world.

He runs his business from his laptop.

But...

He's an online personal trainer.

He has around 30 clients, mainly in the UK and Europe.

They complete exercises that he's given them and record their progress online.

The Weekly Zoom Call

He has a zoom call with each one of them every week, where he discusses their progress, critiques their form and shows them how it should be done.

This Is the Problem

Look, it's a great business model, but it's got a couple of problems.

The main one is that he has to show up for 30 hours a week and the time is dependent on other people's time zones. He has to remain fit and healthy in order to portray the required image essential to his line of work.

Sounds just like a JOB, doesn't it?

And the other thing is that it's not scalable. With 30 clients, he's at pretty much capacity if he and his partner are to have the time they want to enjoy themselves.

Here's the Lesson

Whether it involves travel or just making money from home, living the laptop lifestyle is highly desirable.

But you want to do it in a way that doesn't involve swapping your time for money, day in and day out.

Do the work once and have the money continue to flow. There are a number of ways to do this:

  • Self publish books on Amazon with the KDP platform. This is a no-risk, low-cost strategy. If you can get buyers for your books, the royalties keep coming in with no further work on your part. I've covered this strategy in How to Publish Your Book on Amazon Part 1 and How to Publish Your Book on Amazon Part 2.
  • Affiliate Marketing from your own website. This is the strategy so brilliantly taught by Wealthy Affiliate. Once you have landing pages for a good number of affiliate products, blog posts and/or ppc advertising linking to those landing pages, it becomes an ongoing source of revenue.
  • E-Commerce. Setting up your own store using WooCommerce or something else is harder than affiliate marketing but can also be very rewarding and with high profit margins.
  • Your Own Product. If you can develop your own product (either original or by modifying PLR) you keep 100% of the price, though of course if you recruit affiliates, you will pay them a percentage. Promotion is the same as for affiliate marketing or e-commerce.

But in the end, that's the aim. For the income to continue to flow.

You still have to do the work, of course.

But it's a disconnect. You are working on things like extending and improving your websites, increasing the traffic flow and so on. These things increase your cash flow indirectly.

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Recent Comments

70

Love the guide, Phil. It is filled with good advice to make the things we do work for us and in the process free up time.

A former unit commander once said to our unit during the morning briefing that you don't get free time off, you generate free time off by the work you do.

Wishing you a great day!
Roy

Excellent thoughts, Roy. Thank you.

Perfect post! I’ve starred it. As you develop over time anything is possible if you have the drive and put the time
In. People always say once you find something you’re passionate about it wont feel like work. This doesn’t feel like work. It just feels like an extension of who you are as a person, 😊

Thanks, Caroline. Yes, I enjoy "working" every day.

Thank you for sharing; I am a laptoper. I love my laptop and would never change to a desktop again.

I travel at least twice a year to Sydney, Australia, from Adelaide and always take my laptop.

I would be lost without my laptop. I use it for work with WA, checking my emails, watching movies to relax, and so much more.

I used to have a desktop which I don't miss at all.

You pointed out many reasons why people use laptops, and I agree.

Thank you again

Elke



Actually, Elke, I much prefer my desktop when I'm home. Something to do with the 24"monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse, I suspect.

But I have a laptop for travelling.

Phil, I couldn't agree more. Personal training and coaching in any form is *not* passive income, which is what you're talking about. It can't be. Yes it's trading time for money unless you repurpose it into a home course, or bundle it as a bonus for a course you're selling or as a bonus for an affiliate promotion (in return for their email. It *is* lucrative, but needs to be combined with passive income strings, and other than group coaching(and yes, that's not passive either. ;) ), it burns you out, sooner or later. That's why coaches will always recommend group coaching over 1:1 coaching, every time. And most coaches make an average of around 25 or 30 K a year. It's only 1-5% that make 6 and seven figures with coaching, and that's because they have passive income streams in the mix.

A great in-depth response, Katherine. Thank you for sharing.

You're very welcome, Phil. Hoping it helps others in the WA community too.v. :)

I'm sure it will.

I agree, Phil.

The ideal situation is to create a largely passive income that requires work around a flexible schedule that’s convenient for you.

It’s not a truly passive income, like a pension payout, but if set up correctly it could be the next best thing.

Frank

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Thanks, Phil

Thanks for drawing that distinction between exchanging number of hours worked for dollars and earning passive income.
I would choose affiliate marketing any day with its high scalability.

Absolutely, Dada. Affiliate Marketing is scalable in both breadth (sell more products) and depth (see more of each product).

That’s the ultimate goal, but it sounds like your friend is still working remotely and not untethered from a “job.” Thanks for pointing out the difference, Phil. :-)

Susan

That's correct, Susan. It's funding his lifestyle but there's too direct a correlation between time and money.

I 1,000% agree with your assessment, Phil!

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff. It's the direct correlation between effort and income that's the issue for me.

Yes, because you still have to put in more work than you would like to!

And the lack of scalability, of course.

Yes, I agree with you on that too, Phil!

Jeff

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