Have you ever wondered how to take a permanent workation and create consistent income from remote coaching?
This week I speak with Erica Duran who is a business coach, digital marketing expert, and minimalist.
Erica works with entrepreneurs who are ready to make money while they work from anywhere!
She believes that creating systems and structures will allow you to have the freedom to work 3-day work weeks and still continue to have consistent income.
Erica has been able to create her own freedom by selling most of her belongings and taking a long-term “workation” where she can travel and work from anywhere.
Listen on to find out how to take a permanent “workation” and create consistent income from remote coaching.
Listen Below:
Show Notes:
Debbie: Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. I’m here with Erica Duran. Hey Erica, how are you?
Erica: I’m great. Thanks for having me.
Debbie: Thank you for coming back. Erica and I actually recorded this episode before. I did something wrong, so she was kind enough to come back to speak with me.
Erica: It’s always better the second time I was even on So Money Podcast and the same thing happened.
Debbie: That’s the world of podcasting, you never know what’s going to happen. Right. Erica, can you tell us a little bit more about you and why you live an offbeat life?
Erica: Well, I think I have a pretty offbeat life in the fact that I’m a minimalist and everything I own fits in my jeep and I travel around as a digital nomad with my two dogs and we stay at Airbnbs and resorts that sponsors my podcast.
Debbie: How did you start becoming a digital nomad? What gave you that idea?
Erica: Deal with coworkers and all the politics just to work at a computer that I had at home. It was crazy to me, so I knew that it was possible back then. And then I finally took the leap. I had a professional organizing business, and then I weaned them off being in person and started doing organizing by Skype, so doing virtual organizing sessions. And then from there it just evolved into business remote coaching and consulting.
Debbie: So you were doing what Marie Kondo is telling everybody to do right now, way before it was even a thing?
Erica: Yeah, I guess so. She’s pretty popular right now. I don’t agree with everything that she does, but yeah, if she’s getting people to get rid of their junk, I’m all for it.
Debbie: What were the first steps that you took in order to follow this dream that you had to leave your corporate life? To be location independent?
Erica: To leave corporate, it wasn’t much of a long-term plan or anything. I basically got back from vacation, with my husband at the time. We went to Seattle and then I came back to work and the place was just in chaos. It was a lot of finger-pointing and politics and backstabbing. And I called my husband at the time and told him what was going on and he’s like, well, just leave. And so I packed up the few things I had there and left at lunch really quietly and didn’t go back after lunch. And it was a pretty big job.
I was in control of the western region of the United States and Hawaii for a big hotel chain doing their marketing. And so it wasn’t like I was a front desk clerk or something. It was a pretty big job and I just walked out. I didn’t really say anything and started from there. But when I was in that job, I was always kind of doing something on the side, like getting my securities license or getting my life insurance license or real estate or investing programs and things like that. So I always had my foot out the door anyway.
Debbie: Well that is a really courageous thing to do. When you have all of that responsibility and you’re married and you have bills to pay and all of those things. How did you get the courage to do that? I know all of us to get frustrated with our job right? At some point or another. How did you do that? How did you leave? How did you take the leap?
Erica: It was purely listening to my gut and not going to live like that anymore kind of attitude, which is how I run my business. A lot from my gut and intuition and feeling my way through things. So I wish I could tell you a better strategy or what the 10 steps are, but it is mostly from my gut instincts.
Debbie: Let’s go back to what you’re currently doing now. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I know you’re doing a lot of consultation and also organizing. How did you actually get into that?
Erica: Well, I was a professional organizer in Orange County, California- an in-person organizer that went to your house and helped you declutter and organize things. We would go to networking meetings with all the other organizers in town and I just really embraced technology. Before it was kind of a thing before Facebook was around, I’m going to make myself sound really old, but you know, we didn’t have social media or anything, so I always loved technology, and when technology did come around.
I just swarmed over to it and started marketing on it right away, building my email list and that kind of stuff. And then at these networking meetings for professional organizers, everyone’s asking me how to do this and how to do that and how to build a landing page and how to do all these things.
Erica: So I merged into business remote coaching just by helping people that were asking me for help and listening to what they needed and then figuring it out and giving it to them. So it wasn’t a clear transition. It was pretty messy. I was doing both things and then I kept adding on from there. Eventually, I got out of the professional organizing realm because people were referring outside of that little clan. So I got out of that. Now I can remote coach and consult pretty much anybody.
Debbie: So you’ve had a few businesses. What has been the most effective way for you to market your business and your services?
Erica: For me, it’s just the one-to-one conversation. I’m an introvert and I have a lot of videos and podcasts and everything like that, but really the one-to-one conversation and the art of that and I don’t think it’s salesy or sleazy or anything. There’s really an art to it and I think that’s close the most business for me, if that’s what you were asking. Also, my business used to come about 80% from Facebook, but now we’ve built an SEO platform that I could maybe talk about later that is bringing in a lot more leads and clients for us are now.
Debbie: That’s a really big thing for everybody right now. Growing their remote coaching business through online marketing, digital marketing, and through SEO. How were you able to think about that and start actually start a program? Can you tell us a little bit more about it?
