So you want to become a digital nomad dont you? I know, look at that stock image that shows up on the top of this post. It looks really really cool does it not? If you are here, its because you are done with having bosses tell you what to do, or going to your job for long hours working for the sake of someone else.  Trust me, I know, I've already been there. I know what pops up.

However, life as a digital nomad is not always like the stock image . It can get very complicated and landing new clients or new job petitions can become a frustration.

Here are some tips for you not to fall on that frustration. These are all based on my experience

A world full of young entepreneurs competing against each other for a remote job position. They never answered you back and you complain on their job opening post. This job post had over 50 comments of people saying they had PMd the HR person. And you think you deserve to be above all others just because you sent him or her an email? Maybe try to think on how you are advertising yourself. Bear in mind that whomever is recruiting will have a dozen of other applications. Do not fall into despair, do not try to troll the recruiters and don't think things will fall for you "just because they have to". If they are not getting jobs as much as you want, maybe you need to change a little bit your presentation and sales funnel.

He gets to be the first person to answer the petition and presents himself with a nice webpage that describes their services. You are in the internet and to the recruiter a complete stranger. There will be 50 more comments following so take your chances and your time to stand out from everyone else. Get a webpage. 

It's more than prooving that you know how to create a webpage. It's more with the fact that you care about presentation and tiny details. If you don't care for small details in your own sales funnel and presentation, the chances are that you won't care for details when working for any company. 

Get a webpage, in nowadays modern connected world there is no excuse not to know how to install a wordpress site (or similar) and have a place to capture the attention of recruiters and clients.

And if you don't know how to, there's a dozen of other people in the internet willing to create one for you. I'm currently doing professional business webpages for around 650€ , and I know i'm not the cheapest so I'm pretty sure you can find someone even cheaper out there to help you.

I can't stress this enough, but sales funnel are the right way to grow as a professional freelancer or digital nomad. They are the perfect way to engage with potential clients and recruiters and they will help you get a job and make money.

If you don't know what a sales funnel is, google it. Figure it out and create one that suits your needs. A funnel can be anything from having a webpage and running facebook or google ads, to chatting with potential customers over facebook groups, or using remote working platforms like freelancer or upwork. (or my own webpage here). You can use facebook groups and chat with potential clients, but make sure you get some automation out of it so the number of potential clients is increased.

In my experience, I my first funnel consisted on running google ads from 12 pm to 3pm linked straight to my website. During that time, I would stop working on other things and only focus on attending my funnel emails, giving immediate response to leads that tried to engage with me via the built in chat module in my website. Immediate response is key.

1. There are many things that you can use to build your funnel. Make sure it's easy and engaging for customers.
2. Use technologies like landbot or typeform to engage properly with clients and potential customers.
3. Use platforms like hubspot or active campaign to monitor your results and to get leads.
4. Ideally at some point you will want your funnel to run 24/7, so as you grow, make sure you hire or work with people that will help you keep the funnel running and ready.

I've heard this being a recursive problem many many many times. Client will only pay X dollars per hour, or maybe he will want to pack as much work done as possible into every budget.

You are the expert, you are the consultant, and you are the only one who has to value your work properly, if you feel underpaid, speak out. Make sure that the tasks to do are properly organized. If you are working for an internship (role position inside of a company) make sure that you are getting paid for the right amount of time.

The internet is filled with people from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and many other developing countries where the cost of living is much cheaper than here in Spain. If price what the only thing that mattered, then I wouldn't have a market nor a target audience, cos I could never compete with people in these developing countries.

The price they will pay you will always be attained by the aditional value that you put into that company. So if you know that you are worth it, ask for it. If you feel like you are a bit uncertain, or maybe laking some skills for the job and you'll have to learn along the way, then accept that you have to learn and keep it low until you know what you are doing.

Don't worry if you feel like someone else can kick in and do it cheaper. It takes a lot of time to find someone good over the internet, so if you keep your recruiter / client happy, there is always space for improvement. If you are worth the price , you are worth the price.

Whenever i've used freelancer.com , I've had a lot of issues on posting jobs (which is one of the reasons why I moved on to other platforms). For instance, this petition was created with a detailed instruction set on what the problem was and started out with "ONLY FOR SPANISH SPEAKERS"

Seconds later i got work offers from people who had not read the description. People from China and India and Australia that wanted to work in the project with me and that were all EXPERTS in everything i had written.

Seriously? It only took you 2 minutes to read over a 15 long page book to give me a price estimation?

READ, READ READ READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. In this interviewing process I was talking with Indian people that spoke with me in Spanish using google translate and hoped that I wouldn't find out. It's just ridiculous

You waste the recruiter's time, but you waste your own time too. And your own time is what is most valuable in this business.

It can get tough at sometimes. If you feel like you are not doing things properly, change the way you are doing things until you find your market , your edge, your client flow... I get that being a remote digital nomad can sound as cool as the stock image picture that I posted here, but trust me, there is so much more. If things don't work out for a while, keep looking for it. This is the internet, there is plenty of work. Be open minded and don't be reluctant to change. If you are doing things properly, work will start coming in. If work doesn't come in, then you are not doing things properly.​