Working From Anywhere: Your Dream Come True

Have you ever dreamed of picking up and living in a new city for a few months? What’s stopping you? It’s probably because you’re tied to an office, trapped by meetings, and generally have too many commitments that require your physical presence.

Technologically speaking, there’s a whole host of possibilities in our lives.

With smaller, more powerful laptops, improved Internet connectivity worldwide and a host of cellular and web services to choose from, we’re no longer confined to working from home.

Now we can work from almost anywhere.

–We can travel the world, and still keep working
–We can live almost anywhere, even in the countryside for the summer
–We can travel to visit clients, attend seminars or pitch for new business in other cities without losing touch
with our current work and customers

Think about it: Is it truly impossible for you to work for a while from a rented house in France? Is it absolutely out of the question for you to rent a cottage in the country for a month? And is that dream you had about moving to Costa Rica impossible?

Nope. In fact, when considering the overall workforce, the number of Americans whose employer allows them to work remotely at least one day per month increased 63 percent, from 7.6 million in 2004 to 12.4 million in 2006, according to a recent report issued by WorldatWork. In total, the sum of teleworkers (both employed and self-employed) working remotely at least one day per month has risen 10 percent from 26.1 million in 2005 to 28.7 million in 2006.

Based on government estimates of 149.3 million workers in the U.S. labor force, the 2006 data means that roughly 20 percent of the workforce engages in telework. The rising trend in the past two years is likely a combination of factors, including the proliferation of high speed/broadband and other wireless access (which has made it both less expensive and more productive to work remotely) and the willingness of more employers to embrace flexibility and work-life balance.

Surely, the marketplace is equipped for telework, but, as a small business owner, you’d need to be well-prepared to run your business from anywhere without sacrificing customer service, productivity and ultimately revenue. This is just a basic reality. The only limitation is our comfort with old work habits.

Never fear – we have some tips and tools for you to realize this dream without sacrificing any of your hard work or goals. Why not explore the world? Simply put, a little organization, coupled with some innovation, can go a long way in making this dream a reality.

Long-Distance Relationships

Who said long-distance relationships can’t work? If they are treated right, and have a regular investment in communication, they certainly can.

If you’re thinking about working remotely for a long period of time, make sure to schedule customer or potential client calls before you leave. You don’t necessarily need to tell them exactly where you’ll be (if you have that type of relationship, certainly that’s fine).

However, if your contact information is going to change, you must alert all of your customers. The best way to do that is through a combination of proactive and reactive approaches. Proactively, there’s nothing wrong with sending out an e-mail to parties that you anticipate might be contacting you or will need service. Likewise, you can create an “out of office” e-mail message that does not say you’re out of the office, rather, it provides anyone who contacts you via e-mail with the appropriate current contact information.

Same goes for employees. If you have them, then have an expectations-setting meeting before you leave and plan regular check-in intervals. Be clear that nothing about their goals or expected workflow will change and that you will be supportive wherever you may be. The key will be following through with that support and leading by example.

Tools, Tricks and Tips

Now, let’s get down to business. You’ve talked to everyone and you’re ready to go. But being a truly effective mobile office professional means being prepared for any situation without taking your entire office with you. We’ve narrowed it down to a few key tools that will help make your mobile office life easy, while remaining just as productive as before.

Get a universal phone number from Grand Central. Each caller is required to announce their name before the call is dialed, and you are able to preview the name and send them to voicemail, where you can listen to their message as they leave it. If you want to speak with them, you can jump in. It will transfer the call to any phone you have, block phone spam, has unlimited voicemail, and business callers can hear different messages than personal callers. Cost is free.
Get your voicemail delivered to your e-mail inbox, which then serves as your single communications “funnel”. This would be our single “bucket” in the parlance of David Allen, and our remote control postal mail joins the voicemail here: e-mail, postal mail, and voicemail all in one place. GrandCentral can e-mail audio files, but for those who want text, Simulscribe is a popular option with near 90% transcription accuracy.
Pinger enables you to send voicemail to people without calling them.
Get a electronic fax number. With MyFax.com you can send and receive faxes from any computer for $10 a month
Get a Google Apps account. You have access to Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk accounts that use your own custom domain. You also get Docs & Spreadsheets that lets you share Word and Excel files and collaborate in real-time. All of this is for free.
Create a website on TypePad. There is a 30-day free trial. You can have a site up in less than an hour and only costs $5 to $15 a month.
Collaborate with coworkers and clients with Basecamp. Stay up to date with schedules, tasks, files, messages, and more. Prices can range from free to $150 a month.
Replace your expensive land line phone with VOIP technology. Skype allow you to use your computer to send and receive phone calls to any computer or phone in the world. Computer to computer calls are free. Computer to phone calls are either free or around 2 cents a minute.
Use Campfire for real-time group chat. It’s like instant messaging, but optimized for groups. Especially great for remote teams. Cost is free to $50 a month.
Make sure you have universal electrical and phone jack adapter kits.
Have your mail forwarded to special processing centers, where it is all scanned and emailed to you. One popular service is called Remote Control Mail, and there are two big benefits to the time-focused and mobile-minded: relevant postal mail is funneled into e-mail, so you can check both email and postal mail at once.

A Quick Word About Wi-Fi

We thought it helpful to give you a more detailed explanation of Wi-Fi, your options and how it works. This is yet another technology that is literally changing where and how we can work.

Wi-Fi (or wireless network technology) allows laptops and PDAs to connect to the internet at high-speed without the use of wires. Thousands of public-access points called “hot spots” are popping up all over the globe. Today, hotspots can be found in airports, public parks, college campuses, coffee shops, bookstores, airports and hotels—as well as in diverse locations such as truck stops and malls.

With a wireless network card in your laptop or PDA you can access the Internet at high-speed in these hotspots easily. While some of these are free to use, others charge a fee.

Here’s a link to an index of Wi-Fi providers:
http://www.youcanworkfromanywhere.com/wi-fi/index.htm

It’s possible and it can work. And in the process, it may even help you simplify your work style a bit. We also encourage you to visit these other sites that can give you additional specifics on the how’s and where’s of running your business remotely.