Are you an expert in international marketing strategies? Become a Solopreneur. The rise of the Internet and the new era of digital platforms allow us to earn our living online and become global benchmarks in our areas of expertise. Free to travel full time, everywhere, carrying our lives in a backpack.
You have chosen to live a somewhat special life. You change countries very often, but in addition, the organization of your company is adapted to almost permanent mobility.
“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.”
Fred DeVito
Gradually, Solopreneurs give up activities that require them to be physically present, or too involved in tasks that do not interest them. They sell, give away or throw away 95% of their material goods, limit their commitments and dematerialize all of their business.
By simplifying and dematerializing their organization, they can travel. This is their goal in starting this process. They embark on a “perpetual journey”. It’s a way of life made possible by the web.
They develop strategies to make their business, blog, podcast or website profitable, carrying out their projects and gain their independence. Their business vision stems directly from this : they practices a marketing that consists of offering free content before selling, and creating relationships with their customers on an equal basis.
All the administrative, paper documents are digitized and accessible online. A service provider scans mails, which are available on the web. Of course, they keep a paper archive in their homeland, with a relative. Whose full copy is available from their computer, anytime, anywhere, whether they may be in Jakarta or Dublin.
A certain vision of entrepreneurship
Even if Fortune 1000 companies are very successful internationally, small entrepreneurs are struggling to start exporting despite a strong potential. The way Solopreneurs look at the world is very interesting to help other entrepreneurs progress. What prevents us from going beyond our borders and being competitive on the export market?
The first problem is the language. To export, you need to at least speak english at operational and business level. When you travel a little, you realize that the level of English may appear low. Very low. People expect others to make the effort to speak their language, on the pretext that it is used in couple of countries. They still believe that English is limited to being “the language of the Americans”. It’s wrong.
On the other hand, without naming a few countries we have been through, english level is very good. When they have a bachelor level, they are bilingual. Even children watch Cartoon Network in original version, subtitled or not. Teenagers search on Google in English. Often, they even communicate with each other by messages written in English. The reason is simple: the languages of these countries are not widespread. To communicate, English is essential. It has becomed the second language of many people all over the world.
The second reason is the consequence of the first. When people only speak one language, they lock themselves into their culture. Cultural imports stop at the low end: reality TV shows, American blockbusters, and pop stars. So they assimilate English speaking culture to a “trash culture”. Because they only see the badest. It is exhaustive when you open a local daily news to realize that people are informed about the rest of the world only when their interests are at stake. The ignorance of the countries around them is flagrant. Shocking.
So, inevitably, it is difficult to know how to sell a product when you don’t know who you are talking to. Those who open up internationally are often travellers who have crossed these barriers. But for someone fresh out of school, and for whom the city’s suburbs is already a faraway world, it’s obviously more difficult.
Your personal growth… Abroad
Making the choice to direct all activities online is made by passion for the internet and also by choice of life. Solopreneur’s businesses are completely dematerialized: their life and their office fit in less than 20 kg (44 Lb).
Solopreneurs changed their perception of the world and of human relations? What are the prejudices that we may have due to our own culture, especially with countries which scares many entrepreneurs?
Many things have changed in their perception of the world. Inevitably, they take a step back. The press always analyzes events that take place abroad through “national glasses”. The reader identifies with the foreign citizen. While the realities are very different. If you want to understand, then you have to take off your glasses.
Efficiency and self-marketing
We now live in a world where speed is everything, especially when it comes to information technology. How do these developments impact individuals, entrepreneurs, small companies ? What advice could we give to someone who could have a goldmine in their hands for export without knowing ?
It is essential to understand that the Internet is not just a tool. It is also, and above all, a new way of maintaining relationships. Many entrepreneurs are trying to translate the marketing they have been doing for decades onto the web. They use email as they approached on the phone. They use a TikTok account like they used a billboard. They use online advertising as they used press ads. However, social plateforms allows you to go much further. To create relationships. To move from a one-way communication to a dialogue. To “turn strangers into friends, and friends into customers”, as Seth Godin wrote.
Taking your place in a community, being seen as an expert rather than a mere salesman, sharing for free before receiving, these are the bases of effective communication on the internet.
Whatever the choice of media, whether blogging or building a community on social networks, the objective is the same: to prove its value and create links before pushing visitors to buy.
“The value of a relationship is in direct proportion to the time that you invest in the relationship.”
Brian Tracy
Happy CEO 