I'm a member of various Facebook groups for full-time RV living as I'm sure you are if you are also looking to go full-time. There are two questions I always see posed in the groups by newbies - what internet service do you use on the road and what do you do for work on the road? Today's blog is going to focus on the latter because, if I'm completely transparent, we haven't fully figured out the first one yet - even a year in!
COVID-19 has undoubtedly created a remote revolution. There are good and bad that come with that but, so far, I've mainly see good come from it. When we started our full-time journey one year ago (yesterday), people thought we were crazy (thus the Lackeys Be Trippin' name). Our friends and family had so many questions for us. What brought us to this decision? What were the kids going to do for school? What were we going to do with our house? But the most popular question was, what are you going to do for work on the road? To be honest, when we first started our journey, we didn't fully know the answer to that question. I remember Rob and I saying to each other, "we'll figure it out". For those of you that cringed at that, you're right. It was very cringe-worthy but we did (mostly) figure it out so hopefully that lets you continue reading without too much anxiety. 
We actually both intended on looking for full-time or at least part-time jobs while we were on the road. We needed (need) the health insurance since our 13-year-old son has Type 1 Diabetes, Epilepsy and Abdominal Migraines. We also didn't really have a fat nest egg to be able to go too long without regular income. Fast forward to today and we still haven't fully figured out what we're doing but neither of us have looked for full-time or part-time employment in the last few months. In fact, we're both certain it would be incredibly difficult for us to go back to working for someone else at this point. (But never say never, right?)
When we originally went full-time, we were almost a year into our business, Bison. Neither of us were working it full-time but we had grown significantly in the first year and knew we were inching closer to hiring someone. Since I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do with my life after leaving my job as Vice President of Finance for a marketing agency, I was the natural choice to take Bison on full-time. I had the time. However, after much debate, Rob and I both agreed that I wasn't the RIGHT person to take it on full-time. Bison was born from Rob's passion for motorcycles and relationships he had created with suppliers. Because of that, we made the choice to have him focus on Bison full-time. He left his job as Service Director for a couple of car dealerships in Oklahoma City to work on Bison full-time and begin homeschooling the kids in September 2019. 
After leaving my job at the marketing agency in July 2019, I joined a real estate investment company as their Chief Operating Officer. The job was extremely flexible and, while I did go into the office most days, I could take off in the RV for an extended period of time and still be able to function in my role. During my time there, we spent 18 days on the road with a trip to Barber Motorsports Park just outside of Birmingham, Alabama and Gulf Shores. We had a great time and work was able to continue like normal. Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of my control, my time with the real estate investment company ended at the end of October 2019. I was officially on the hunt for my next thing going into the holiday season.
After much soul searching and several meetings with professional contacts, I decided to pursue my own clients for which I could do business consulting work. When I signed my first client, I formally created Caffeinated Consulting. While I was excited about my new adventure, clients don't just show up when you're building something new. It takes time and a lot of focused energy. I have spent the last eight months building a small roster of clients and advising them on all of their business needs, including accounting, finance, marketing and operations. I even went through additional training during quarantine to become a business broker so I could help my clients with selling their businesses and building value for their business until they are ready to sell. I work with my clients on an on-demand basis so there are no long-term commitments or dedicated hours every week. My work fluxes from week to week which is great for the life we are living on the road.
While I was working to build Caffeinated Consulting (did I mention it was a long, slow process?), I sparked an interest in developing a dropshipping business. Because I'm a firm believer in creating brands that support bigger missions, the dropshipping site I created was called Edie Kate (nickname for my daughter, Edith Katherine) and we committed to donating 10% of gross profit from the shop to charities that connect families to their babies in the NICU. (Our daughter was born 15 weeks premature at 1 pound, 14 ounces and spent 77 days in the NICU so it's something our family is passionate about.) Building the dropshipping website was fun and, while I still enjoy maintaining it, I hope to expand it to create signature products in the future versus only dropshipping. We are in the early stages of that right now.
Because I'm never tired of bringing on new things, I also committed to writing an e-book in April 2020 after connecting with a beautiful, brilliant digital nomad named Christina Voll in the Workew Slack group. Workew is one of my favorite sites for finding remote work, btw. I highly recommend checking it out if you're interested in going remote! Christina was in the process of developing a site for digital nomads to find resources to achieve remote work success called Rise Remotely. She asked if I would be willing to be a contributor to the site and I enthusiastically agreed. And then I freaked out! I had never written a book in my life. I wasn't good at writing. I started to doubt everything about my ability to write an e-book. Then I forced myself to sit down and just start writing. Now, I'll be honest, I still don't know if it's really all that good but I did it! I'm still waiting for feedback from Christina before the book is listed for sale but I'm proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone. I'll keep you all posted about when the book will be listed for sale so you can tell me if it's good or not. Please, be nice. Did I mention it was my first book?
That's a lot, right? Not for me! I swear it takes a lot for me to feel fulfilled with work. Earlier this month I started researching affiliate marketing and how to create a revenue stream through a website. I actually started researching it for Bison but ended up realizing it was more fitting for Lackeys Be Trippin'! That's when I created a website for Lackeys Be Trippin' and started writing blog posts. And because I don't ever do anything half ass, I committed myself to a 90 day blog challenge which started on July 10th. The theory is to create one blog post a day for 90 days to jump start your website traffic and begin earning affiliate marketing dollars. Here I am 18 days into the 90 day challenge and I've fallen a bit short with only 12 blog posts complete but I'm very proud of the progress I've made and continue to be committed to catching up and writing all 90 blog posts by the end of 90 days. Wish me luck! Btw, if you're interested in the details of how affiliate marketing works, I highly recommend checking Miles Beckler out on YouTube. He and his wife started blogging in 2009 and have created multiple blog sites generating millions of views and millions of dollars. He's committed to giving away the road map for free so people don't have to pay for courses or books to get started. His material was super helpful and did I mention free?
I guess the last thing I would mention is that Rob and I also rent our home out on Airbnb and VRBO as a short-term rental property while we're on the road. Now, this doesn't provide any true income for our family but it has allowed us to keep our dream home while we travel. It also comes with a significant amount of work which is another reason why I mention it. Depending on the week and number of guests we have in our home each week, I can easily spend 2-5 hours per week in overseeing the operations of that business. The operations includes accounting, coordinating with cleaning people, writing guest reviews, responding to guest inquiries and ordering supplies for the property. Those are all things I can do from afar. However, not everything can be done remotely. We are very thankful to have a great friend who has taken on the property to manage everything on-site while we help coordinate with her from afar. 
So there you have it - that's (pretty much) everything we do for work on the road. While we enjoy the entrepreneurship journey, I also understand that life is not for everyone. I simply present it as an option to all of the other blogs you will find out there focused on full-time and part-time employment. If you are interested in learning more, feel free to reach out to me at any time. I'm an advocate for entrepreneurship as I believe it's one of the best options for creating a flexible, remote friendly lifestyle.
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