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Ask any location independent professional (nomadic or not) whether business is steady as a rock at all times and you will likely be met with a resounding “NO!”.

Most small businesses are subject to fluctuations, boom times and downturns – sometimes even more so when the business owner running them is nomadic. We both grossly under-estimated the impact that moving around would have on our business, it didn’t cross our minds that:

• It would be so time-consuming and exhausting trying to decide where to go next.
• Researching each new destination, figuring out flights & making a shortlist of accommodation to view before we arrived would also take up quite so much time.
• Packing up & settling in each time would take up at least 2-3 days of both physical & mental energy.

If you’re running your own business, time very often equals money and most of you will already know that there are never quite enough hours in the day to do what you planned to do – even if you’re turned off Twitter, shut down Facebook, ignored your emails and tried to focus on the tasks at hand.

You’ll hear a lot of people talk about ways to minimise the challenges your business will face on the road – automation, outsourcing, process management – but first things first, you need to ensure your business is built on solid foundations before you even think of hitting the road…

[This is quite a long post with a lot to do but if you work through it step-by-step, you'll put yourself in a stronger position than most small businesses].

But what does this really mean? What can you do to ensure your business is set up in a way which enables you to create a platform for growth, ensure you can ride the troughs (and peaks) and still have enough time left to enjoy the fruits of your labour?

After 5+ years working on the road as a digital nomad in the corporate world & 3+ years running my own business as a location independent entrepreneur, here are my top tips to lay the foundations for a business which is set up for long term success:

Sort Out The Basics First & Foremost

Should you incorporate? Set up a limited company? Do you need a business bank account? Should you hire an accountant? Do you need a lawyer/solicitor? How about insurance? Professional indemnity cover?

They’re all the mundane but totally necessary basic questions you must answer when you set up your own business.

It’s easy to let things go however. Maybe sorting out an accountant to submit your taxes doesn’t need to be done just yet, after all if you hire someone now you’ll have to start paying them. And maybe you’re planning to set up a corporation overseas to take advantage of your nomadic status so you don’t really need to think about that yet either.

Right? Wrong. These things must take priority. Now. They may seem mundane and boring and the kind of thing you can get away with not doing but if you don’t make the time and effort to prioritise them now, do you really think you’ll feel inclined to sort them out when you’ve got the beach calling to you or the lure of exploring your new, exotic ‘home’?

Take it from me, you won’t! Here’s a To Do list for you:

• Research, decide upon & implement the most suitable structure for your small business.
• Sort out your banking accounts before you leave the country and if you are going nomadic, make sure the online banking facility does everything you need it to do.
• Research & organise any insurance, indemnity or other cover you may need for your business. Don’t forget that if you do become nomadic, then this may invalidate your policy.
• Assemble your professional support team before you leave; it’s much easier to meet with and pick an accountant you like when you’re in the same country as they are!

Do these first if you’re just starting out. If you’re not and you haven’t done the above, do it now. Go…NOW :)

Don’t forget that if you’re from the US and looking to organise your tax & financial affairs, we have a guide and a range of services to help.

Resource Your Business

Have you ever tried to open a can with one of those horrid little tools which requires you to kind of saw at it awkwardly only to leave you with a jagged edge that could quite easily give you a very nasty gash?

That’s what it’s like when you try and run a business without having the right tools and resources in place to do the job you need. Even if you’re bootstrapping and have no cash whatsoever to put into your business, there are plenty of free tools and resources which make your life easier and which will ensure you get it right from the start.

There are 3 areas you need to focus on:

1. Your people resources
2. Your technology resources
3. Your personal/skill resources

People Resources

In the beginning, there will probably just be you. You’ll be the CEO, the CFO, the CMO, the copywriter, the blogger, the sales rep, the customer service agent and the admin assistant…but that doesn’t mean it will always be that way.

You will save yourself an awful lot of extra effort and time further down the road if you start off by thinking about the key roles required to make your business tick. Not knowing what roles exist and what responsibilities each role fulfills in their business is one of the primary obstacles stopping business owners from hiring people to help them – it’s one of the main reasons people struggle to outsource stuff too.

Technology Resources

And when it comes to technology, switching services, platforms and tools once you’ve started out with something can be the biggest hassle ever…if you’ve ever tried switching from hotmail to gmail or from one mailing list service to another, you’ll know what I’m talking about. These are some of the most important platforms to select from the start:

• Your webhost (Bluehost/aff)
• Your email provider (Gmail / Google Apps)
• Your blogging plaform (Wordpress.org)
• Your mailing list provider (iContact/aff or Aweber/aff: used bothm currently using iContact but would probably go with aweber if starting again from scratch)
• Your CRM tool (Highrise HQ or Google Sites which we now use to manage our clients & prospects)
• Your financial management/invoicing tool (Freshbooks/aff or Xero for multi-currency)
• Online back up (Backblaze or Dropbox/aff)

Changing any of the above after you’ve been using them for a few months (or years) is a major hassle so taking the time to select the best provider for you from the start is crucial. The services in brackets above are the ones we’ve settled with having tried many of the big players in each field – there are some affiliate links amongst them, as indicated.

Skill Resources

You are likely to be the biggest asset in your business for a while. It will be your skillset, experience & knowledge which will make or break your business and so it is up to you to ensure that you are skilled up to do what you need to do.

Once again, don’t underestimate the time you’ll have if you hit the road to sort these things out; saying to yourself “Oh I’ll have more time to learn about that or figure it out when I’m on the beach in Thailand” is one of the biggest misconceptions you’ll face! Skill up before you leave or you’ll cause further problems for you & your business when you can least afford them.

For a directory of the resources we recommend, check out the LIP Thumbs Up directory.

Become The All-Seeing Captain

If you currently check your blogging subscriber numbers, traffic levels, Twitter follower numbers and Facebook page fans religiously every day, you might kid yourself you’re focusing on the important numbers for your business and these are the only stats you need to measure your effectiveness and success. Unfortunately, you’re wrong.

Think of yourself as the captain of your ship – you need a dashboard, maybe even several, in front of you so you can see exactly what’s going on in all parts of your ship and know when & where to adjust course if required.

Your business needs the following dashboards:

• A financial dashboard which tracks at least the basics: income, expenses, accounts receivable/payable, cash flow and profitability. Not knowing the financial health of your business at any particular point in time is not having your finger on the pulse.
• A marketing/sales dashboard which tracks your marketing activities and your sales pipeline so you know at all times what activities are filling your funnel and where each prospect/customer is in the sales pipeline.
• A project dashboard which tracks the status & priorities of your live projects (whatever these may be for your business). Most of us will have multiple balls in the air and projects on the go – tracking where you are & what’s needed next with each one is the key to making ongoing progress.

There are a few more dashboards your business may need, depending upon what type of business you run but the above should give most businesses a pretty good overview of the health of the business at any one time.

This was quite a long post and there’s a lot to do in it, especially if you’re starting from the beginning or you’ve realised that there are a few vital things missing from your business. Don’t let that freak you out…work through the items step-by-step and remember this:

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” ~ Mark Twain

This is the third post in a series designed to help you start and build a location independent business. The 1st post was here & the 2nd was here. These posts are, as always, free for you to read and implement. If however, you need more help you might want to check out The LIP Business Guide which has the in-depth detail you’ll need in each of these areas.