Check out here for a full list of apps and software and how they can help you to move your business online fast. 

Undoubtedly, coronavirus has affected our lives in many different ways since its outbreak, and the impact it brings extent to the post-pandemic economy. Many leading experts have mentioned and continued to foreseeing a prediction for the upcoming post-pandemic market slow down.

Various leading professionals and thinkers have come to predict how our world is going to look a lot different in the years post-pandemic. The way how we use to digital lifestyle will change, the way how we interact with digital usage will be different “politico.com” news magazine. 

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, many many areas of our lives are a lot different. It affected our healthcare system, our government policies, economic impact, lifestyle, the way how we shop, how we live, how we interact with the community and much much more. When everything of our lives is being affected in one way or another, we can only be sure things, and the economy for the worst or better will be a lot different in months from now. However, the question lies in how we should adapt to these changes and prepare ourselves and our business accordingly to these changes. 

The good news is no matter how bad the situation is or will be, and it will end at some point!! So how do we prepare ourselves and our business for the post-pandemic market is what as entrepreneurs need to do.

Here a list of action plan you could implement right away in your business.

1. Grow your client base
   • focus your marketing resource on establishing more clients
   • Diversify your client base
   • Get to know your existing client better. Observe/Learn carefully with what your existing clients need relating to the current market. If you could add value to them, you could establish a new way/form to make a more significant impact by offering these services to them. Since these clients have been in business with you in the past, the chances of them buying from you again are much higher. 
2. Change/establish and adapt to new methods (trend)
   • as the pandemic, more people are working from home, and this has become a new trend. As an entrepreneur, you have to adjust your business to fit the recent business/work model. The latest adjustment means more opportunity to establish a new pool of potential new clients who are also adjusting to this new form of working style.
3. Offer new services/product to serve more people in a changing economic environment 
   • Diversify your offer “develop alternative revenue streams” Brian Moran, CEO, small business edge. From https://www.cnbc.com
4. Expand your offer internationally.
   • If you could offer your product or services to an international audience even if it requires making some adjustments to your current business model, the time and energy investment will be well worth your while in the long run. 
5. Diversify your market.
   • If one market niche was affected more significantly than the other, it might take longer to recover, you will still have some other recourse to depend on.
6. DO NOT STOP your MARKETING.
   • You probably should step up your game in marketing as Susan Ward mentioned in https://www.thebalancesmb.com
   • when the economy is moving slow, and things are uncertain, it’s easy to get skeptical and preservative on our resources. People tend to spend less on everything because of the uncertainty of the foreseeable future. Yet, by playing small and not focusing on spending money to bring in new revenue, you are risking your business growth opportunity. 
7. Don’t skimp on service or quality by understaffing.
   • When economies are slow globally, you can easily find and hire talents such as freelance and part-time staff without sacrificing the quality of your services at a reduced cost. US Business administration https://www.sba.gov
8. Stretch on your debt repayments when possible, and enlarge your reserve money
9. Use this downtime effectively!
   • When the economy is slow or when your business is restricted to temporarily close down, use the time to organize and systematize. When your business was striving, chances are your time and your team’s time are likely more focused on growth rather than planning. The best time to organized, plan and systemize your entire business model when things are slowing down. 

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At times like this, anyone can use a little more positivity. Knowing that things will be tough and will likely get even more robust could mentally prepare ourselves to adapt to market changes and look forward to riding the next wave.

Here are some of the apps I recommend to look into in order to turn your product or services online.

ClickFunnels – one of the best apps to create sales marketing funnels to generate more leads on autopilot. Having a sales marketing funnel for your business is a MUST in today’s fasting growing digital world. If your business still doesn’t have an online presence, you will be losing your competitive edge to your competitor who does. Right now is the best time to go full fledge on building your online presence. 

Asana – it’s one of the best digital project management app I use so far. There are many apps for project management and are easy to find. Many of these apps are even free of charge. However, Asana works well with my business style, and I would recommend it.

Zoom – is very user friendly and fun to use. If you manage a small team and require an online meeting, then zoom is an excellent choice to get things rolling quickly because it requires little learning curve relative to some other apps.

Microsoft team – is also another user-friendly app and free to use. It doesn’t have limitation like talk time and allows a more significant size group meetings. 

Instagram – Yes, I mean Instagram; even if you are a service-based business, Instagram is an excellent way to establish a new market for your business only by sharing your business service-related content. Hence, people have a way to find your services. 

Google doc – an excellent tool for systematizing and organizing your digital documents for easy access and reference amongst your team. a

Dropbox – allows systemizing your digital assets and easily share projects with your team.

Check out here for a full list of apps and software and how they can help you to move your business online fast.

Please don’t get me wrong here, I don’t recommend people to quit their 9-5 to travel forever, and for however long their wish and that shouldn’t be the goal either. Different people might have different responsibilities at a different stage of their life and in whatever form they wish to develop their career path. Instead, by give yourself the ability and skill set and put yourself in financial independence to your 9-5 is what I want to you get out of this post. 

There are easily hundreds of different ways to earn a side income, either online or offline. In my opinion, the following three skill sets not only have a high income earning potential but also, by learning these skills, you will acquire invaluable skill sets needed in today’s rapidly growing digital space. These skills set will add credits to employers in many ways, making you better competitiveness and an invaluable candidate. 

The three skill sets I recommend you to learn before moving away to another country/place for you sabbatical/ gap year from work experience are:

1. Funnel Building. – A marketing funnel is a marketing sales system that allows you to visualize your prospect’ s/potential clients’ journey with your company. With a proper marketing funnel strategy in place, you will be able to understand better, attract, nurture, and turn these prospects into pay clients. Your marketing funnel will allow you to generate and monitor performance with data so you can improve every step of the way. 
   • One of the reasons to learn about funnel building is because it’s a relatively easy skill to learn. You can find much recourse online. Both pay or unpaid resources are accessible if you would like to learn about funnel building. One place I highly recommend you to look into if you want to learn about funnel building and the whole funnel building marketing system is at “click funnel.” Russell Brunson, the founder of click funnel, does an excellent job of educating people about the ins and outs of funnel building. An excellent read I would recommend to start with is the “Dotcom secret” – by Russell Brunson. Russell is not only a brilliant educator but also does an outstanding job of ensuring you succeed every step of your way on your funnel building business. He assures you get every support needed to build a profitable business. So definitely check out his resources. I will link some of his courses I went through in the past and gain lots of value and useful resources here for you as well. 
   • Another good reason to learn about funnel building is you can apply marketing funnel strategy to pretty much any industry. No matter if you are selling physical products, digital products, or if you have a brick and mortar shop, you will need to have a proper funnel system in place to track your performance so you can improve and generate more sales. For the same reason, learning to build an effective funnel system is needed in many industries, making you an even more valuable staff if you acquired this skill!
   • Understanding and learning about this skill can add valuable credibility to your resume but also gives you the potential to earn a comfortable side income, establishing financial independence.
   • Because you can learn how to build effective funnels online very quickly, making this skill set another good reason to start. The start-up cost of this skill is small, so you can start earning money as soon as however long it requires you to learn. 
2. Affiliate marketing – is a marketing arrangement you can set up with any online retailer who offers an affiliate program and earn a commission by either driving traffic or bringing in sales for that retailer. 
   • Compare with funnel building; affiliate marketing requires even fewer start-up costs. You can almost start selling as soon as you wish. Having said that, if you want to do a good job and learn the proper way of selling online right from the beginning (which I strongly recommend), then you spend some time to learn the basics of affiliate marketing. An excellent resource to look into is Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s “making sense of affiliate marketing” digital course. I took Michelle’s course at the beginning stage of my digital marketing career and got tons of value from her course. Michelle’s clear communication style and insight into teaching all the ins and outs about affiliate marketing was enjoyable so that I would recommend it to you.
   • Learning this very easy to adopt method of selling allows you to break free from any location depended on jobs. 
   • You can also start this on the side on your own time with no interferences with your full-time job and still able to earn a significant side income. 
   • Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to make an income or turn it into a business if you prefer the least amount of face to face interaction. Most online business gives you the benefit of not have to chase your prospects via phone calls or sales meetings. However, at some point, you probably still need to verbally communicate with your prospects, especially if you are selling high ticket items. Affiliate marketing, on the other hand, eliminated because chances are the retailer will have their marketing strategies in place to sell their products, so all you have to do is focus on bringing in traffics/leads to them. 
   • You get to choose what to sell. You should only recommend products or services to others which you have used and like in the past.
3. Blogging – blogging is an excellent skill for travellers, period. It is something I highly recommend any traveller to start. Not only you can begin documenting your experience and share your memories with others, but it’s also a great way to set yourself up for generating an income online.
   • Having a blog in any topic area can increase your authority in that particular topic area. It can eventually turn into a niche you wish to sell. 
   • Another benefit would be to train yourself to be a better writer. Blogging requires you to write, and it’s defiantly not an easy task or skill to get used. Even professional writers will tell you writing is not an easy job. However, if you start with writing topics, you love that could make it a much more comfortable and much more enjoyable task. Another benefit relating to this is writing can train you to be better at organizing your thoughts. 
   • In addition to gaining authority in your area of interest, blogging also makes you stand out because having your blog is like creating yourself a brand that is backed by your words. 
   • Comparing to the above, blogging might require a bit more time to set up in the beginning, that’s why it’s essential to start with something you love, and it will be well worth your while. Once you put in the time to set it up and find your unique voice in the topics areas you are passionate about, you can start monetizing your blog and turn it into passive money generating machine in many different ways. Blue host is a web hosting company which I use and highly recommending it to you. The blue host makes starting and launching your blog a stress-free process. I have used a few other web hosting companies as well, and my experience was just a nightmare with some of those hosting companies. Not only with slow response to troubleshoot but also doesn’t solve my problems. Instead, the Blue host has its stand-alone team of supporting services called blue sky support, which, if you get their service, you can call into, and their support staff will walk you through building your WordPress site with you. If you are new to blogging, I highly recommend getting this service on the side, for I believe $99 per month and you get your technical support team. This service makes launching your blog 10X (I’m understating it) faster so you can focus on creating valuable content for your blog. 

To conclude, there are hundreds of different ways you can make money online and create different streams of passive income. However, if you are new to digital, online business and wants to plan your gap year travel from work in the near future, the above three different types of skill are what I would highly recommend you look into. The best part is you can start earning by learning any one of these three (which I recommend) skills. Yet, these skills can also be combined into more complex business models with more significant earning potentials — a business model that I use which combines all of the above three. If you are interested in learning more in this area, feel free to subscribe to my blog and stay tuned with upcoming blogs. You are welcome also to follow me on Instagram @cestories. Feel free to leave a commend below on your ideas of the best digital/e-commerce skill for travellers or questions of the area you would like to hear more about.  

2. This brings us to my second advise for you when planning your gap year from work. When you’re away from home and your regular routines, you have all the times in your hands with no distraction to reflect and pick up a new hobby or learn a new skill. I strongly recommend looking into developing your digital skills. It would probably be redundant for me to reiterate how social media and the internet have changed our communication style and life, in general, this day. Learning or deepening your skills set in the digital area will, for sure, goes a long way for your career development. I am all about social media marketing, so my suggestion for you will be social media marketing related;

• Funnel Building – I will include a few links where you can get “the .com secrets” by Russell Brunson – a great book to understand digital marketing. I learned a lot from this book and surely recommended it to anyone new to digital marketing.
• Learn to blog – for similar reasons to the above. Starting a blog would probably be your best time investment for your travel experience. Documenting your journey will not only preserve your memories, but it also allows you to reflect on them, not to mention the skill you develop by actually creating the blog. 
• Affiliate marketing – If you genuinely have a positive experience for a product or service and would like to recommend it to others, you can earn a commission by doing so.

3. I would recommend not overlooking the importance of purchasing sufficient insurance to cover your entire trip. Trave can be stressful. Your body will be dealing with Incredible amounts of stress in a foreign place both physically and psychologically. If things happen unexpectedly, this can mean early termination of your travel plan. So you want to make sure you have peace in mind that if anything happens, you will have access to proper medical care and not to worry about the hospital bills. To ensure yourself and your loved ones a piece of mine, make sure you have adequate insurance cover before you leave for your trip. 

In another article, I will write a little bit more details in terms of how to choose the proper travel insurance for your year-long travel. You can expect that there is no one cookie-cutter fits for all. You have to do some research in terms of the country where you will be going and what price point and with what coverage amount you are comfortable.

• A couple of things you should check before purchasing insurance is to make sure to check with your medical history. If you have a previous medical history, you need to let your insurance provider know about them. 
• Some people may have coverage from their visa; however, I think the usual coverage is minimal, and you have to make sure to find out what is covered and for how much.

4. Make sure you have appropriately stored away things you want to keep safe during your sabbatical year. Year-long travel is very different than regular week-long vacation travel because when you’re away on a shorter period, chances are you have less to worry because you know you will return home soon. If you have rent to pay or mortgage to cover, make sure you have a proper plan for that during the time you are away. 

5. Save as much money as possible. How much money you need while you’re away for this gap year from work generally depends on the person and depends on the lifestyle you prefer to live. The place you choose for your travel also matters. Europe, as an example, Western Europe’s cost of living will be more than Eastern Europe. So if you decided to travel to an expensive city, make sure to prepare yourself accordingly. If you’re planning to find a local job while you’re away, you should also consider picking up skill sets, which allows you to find local jobs easier. Some lower entry-level jobs, for example, grape picking or hostel, hotel, or housesitting, doesn’t require you to have a whole lot of experience in this area before they consider hiring you. However, these jobs tend to be a bit more physically demanding.

6. Another crucial thing you should do while planning your year away is to make sure you research the local resources for the place you decided to stay. It’s vital to make sure you investigate how easily you can find accommodation for an extended period where you want to travel. One thing I had difficulties with during my stay in France was renting a place. I was very ignorant about the dos and don’ts, which at the time was very stressful as a foreigner. 

7. This last piece of advice probably is essential to me personally, and that is to make sure you learn photography skills. When I say photography, I didn’t mean that you have spent thousands of dollars to learn photography. What I mean is with today’s advanced technology and photo editing program, software there’s no way you have excuses not to take the opportunity to capture your beautiful surroundings. While you travel to new places, there should be no shortage of beautiful places to catch. Take many beautiful photos so that your time and memory can last for a longer time and to share with your loved ones when you come back home.

What I’m looking for is not out there, it is in Me.

If you think and never do, you will never accomplish.

“Our chief want in life, is someone who shall make us do what we can. This is the service of a friend. With him, we are easily great.”

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

“And I just think that if you believe in something and you want it so much and you’re not hurting anyone else, you have to go for it. Which sometimes means taking a risk, even if it’s scary. But the thing you want most to happen doesn’t stand a chance unless you give it one.”