#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards

#207 - Unlocking the Secrets to Living Internationally

• Jordan Edwards • Season 5 • Episode 207

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Imagine trading the hustle and bustle of New York City for the vibrant streets of Colombia, while still earning in US dollars. Join us as Ron Reich, a seasoned business coach and marketing consultant, shares his captivating journey of geo-arbitrage and the pursuit of financial freedom. Uncover the secrets of living abroad without sacrificing a quality lifestyle—whether you're a remote worker or an entrepreneur. Ron's insights paint a vivid picture of how thoughtful financial planning and lifestyle choices can transform your living situation, offering a refreshing perspective on the possibilities of a globally flexible income.

Ron’s entrepreneurial journey is a fascinating tale of innovation and adaptability. From early marketing successes driven by guerrilla tactics and Google AdWords to pivoting into the dating business, Ron discusses the challenges and victories that shaped his path. Learn how he balanced personal growth with business achievements, culminating in the adventurous leap into international living. His story serves as a testament to the power of innovation and confidence in navigating evolving market landscapes and underscores the essential balance between professional success and personal fulfillment.

As we delve into the nuances of international living and business strategies, Ron provides a candid look at managing relationships and business across borders during challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic. Discover the financial benefits and enhanced quality of life available in Colombia, from the U.S. Foreign Exclusion Tax advantages to affordable luxuries that boost day-to-day living. Ron offers practical advice for those venturing into remote coaching and digital nomadism, sharing tips on selecting niches, connecting with a global client base, and choosing the perfect work location. Whether you're curious about geo-arbitrage or looking to expand your coaching business internationally, this episode is packed with insights to inspire your journey.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, what's going on, guys? We've got a special guest today. Here we have Ron Reich. He's a business coach and a marketing consultant and, Ron, I'm so excited to have you on the Hashtag Clocked In podcast. So my first question is is America the best place to live?

Speaker 2:

Wow, you're starting out with heaters here. That is a loaded question. Well, obviously, the answer is of course, it depends. You know, for some people America is not the place to live, for other people, america is not the best place to live. I actually have a client who she currently lives in Spain and she's actually denouncing her American citizenship.

Speaker 2:

So she does not think America is the best place to live. I, as I know we'll talk about this I've spent a lot of time over the last few years living in South America, specifically in Columbia, and that is an amazing place to live, and so I really love spending time there. I'm going to be spending a lot of time there in the future as well. A lot of time there in the future as well. Currently, at this moment, I am in the United States, so I am going to hedge with my answer. I really say that having a US passport is, overall, a very, very good thing, and being able to enjoy the benefits of being a US citizen is a good thing, and spending a lot of time outside the us is also very good.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I would I'm not sure.

Speaker 2:

To each his own go ahead absolutely, because I think it's.

Speaker 1:

The reason I wanted to bring this up is because I feel like it's something that a lot of people are starting to think about. They're considering it with the cost of living and all these different expenses and like. Even this year, I was able to live in Europe for seven weeks, so me and my fiance would go travel around and then we come back to America and it was such an eyeopening experience, but it's not always. Hey, I want to go live there but it's like it's good to get the taste and.

Speaker 2:

I think, travel in general is super important good to get the taste, and I think travel in general is super important. Yeah, I would really say, for a lot of the people listening to this, their thing I do, I am very passionate about is I do think there's unless you have specific reasons to be living in the united states the whole idea that if you can essentially make dollars in the US and then live abroad this idea called geo-arbitrage, which I heard Tim Ferriss talk about many, many, many years ago there's a lot of benefits to doing that. So there's a lot of benefits to doing that. It really is something that I would really encourage kind of everybody to at least be open to experimenting with spending a little bit of time, possibly living in another country, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and it's this idea that the geo-arbitrage is basically, this idea of making US dollars. So it might be someone who works remote or has a remote business, and then they might live for some of their time in a Thailand or a South America or a Europe or somewhere, just because the dollar is the strongest or very strong in that regard. So it gives you a good hedge so it gives you a good hedge.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly. So the idea would be that, yeah, essentially you can. If you're making money in US dollars, where the cost of living in places like South America, southeast Asia, parts of Europe, it's just a lot less expensive than it is in the US, so you can literally go there, live like a king, probably have possibly a better quality of living or at least as good as a quality of living as you are in the US. But you'd be able to, you'd have a lot of money left over, it'd be a lot less expensive. So there's a lot of different ways you can go about doing it. So, for example, if you like, for example, if it so, for example, like, if you like, for example, if I was, so, if you were a I'm 44 years old if you were a, if you're a younger person listening to this, I would highly, highly encourage you to consider doing this kind of thing, because you know, literally you could.

Speaker 2:

Just you know, the fastest way to become wealthy is by saving, is saving a lot of money. You could, you know you could, you could like go to, you go to live in Columbia for a little while. Maybe you could live nicely off of like $2,000 a month. Oh, wow, let's say Maybe. Okay, that would be nice, that would be fine and you could live like a king, kind of like $3,000 to $5,000 a month, like maximum $5,000 a month. So if you're making even $100,000 a year, if you're making $5,000 a month, so if you're making, if you're making even $100,000 a year, if you're making 10, $15,000 a month, if you're able to save five to $10,000 a month, do that for a couple of years and all of a sudden you're a wealthy person and you know it can just snowball from there.

Speaker 1:

You're building the wealth exponentially quicker than you would have. Yeah, and then you would have trying to make it by. Like I have a lot of friends in new york right now and they're spending six, seven grand a month and that's just to get by and live and it's like a small apartment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, just do the math you could, and that's the thing. Like do your friends have jobs or are they like online entrepreneur types that don't need to be so?

Speaker 1:

some of them of them are job a lot of them. So the big thing for me is, like anyone who's living in New York and is my friend, I'm like you. Better be a mandatory live in New York kind of guy Like some of them are in real estate. Some of them are in finance.

Speaker 2:

Where it's in office, I'm like, okay, it makes sense, like that's fine, but do not live in New York and and be like hey, I'm a virtual guy, I can do whatever I want. I totally agree with you.

Speaker 2:

Like I totally agree with you because, yeah, I mean, if you're into like big cities, you know you could go to like I've not actually been there, but like sao paulo, brazil, it's like a, it's like a big city, massive city, yeah, go there. You know like, uh, go to bogota, big city, like, and you know, live literally, yeah, again, live with your live on three thousand dollars a month and use another four thousand to save the rest.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. How did you even get involved with online entrepreneurship and marketing and coaching? How did you even get started with that?

Speaker 2:

so my quick, uh quick story there is that I I was actually in school this was back in 2004, 2005. And I kind of had this intuition that being a lawyer wasn't really going to be my destiny, and so I'd go to the bookstore all the time and I always would find myself in the business section of the bookstore. And then one day I found a book by this guy named Dan Kennedy, who is this legendary marketing guru expert, and at the time I read his books and he would talk about this idea of information marketing. He's like, yeah, the way to do it is you want to sell information. This is really before internet marketing or online marketing was really a thing. This was like direct response marketing, information marketing, and this is when we actually would like sell horses and we would send that home to 70 horses, Like we would ship people a box of stuff, for example. So really that was my initial kind of gateway into the online marketing world. My first ever product that I released was actually a product on how to do good in law school and talk about what you write about. You know about that. I had a product on how to pass the bar exam, which was that was kind of my first successful product.

Speaker 2:

And then I ended up those markets the law market wasn't quite big enough for me to really make a living off of it, yeah, and so I ended up. I ended up partnering with a guy who was a dating expert. He was like the front facing expert and I was like the behind the scenes person who did the marketing. And for the first, the next eight years, for the first half of my marketing career, I really was that behind the scenes type person kind of like you know, writing a lot of copy, doing all these marketing promotions, running the business, and I did that for a little bit. Then eventually people were kind of wondering like how I did it? And then I kind of got into the marketing education space where I started showing people, teaching them how to do marketing, how to grow a business, and I started coaching people on how to grow a business, which is what I'm doing today.

Speaker 1:

That's incredible, and I think the first big point to realize here is like, even though Ron was in law school, he had had his destination, he had where he wanted to go or was like society was telling him to go. He still explored, reading a few books like people don't realize that it's such a minor commitment of time and money to learn something new. We think it's got to be this big overhaul and it's like no, just if you're interested in topic.

Speaker 2:

If you're interested in cryptocurrency, the economy, politics, anything just pick up a book it's kind of an amazing thing like, uh, books are really like there's really there's fewer things more high leverage you can do than like read a good book, especially like if you want to learn something, for example, because, like, um, for example, I've written a book. Um, my book is uh, it's unfortunately not yet on amazon. It's called the profit cookbook uh, 35 revenue recipes guaranteed to multiply your coaching income, and really this book is about 180 pages and this book literally has like almost everything I know no, not exactly that, but a good portion of everything that I know.

Speaker 2:

When it comes to, you know, marketing, business, and you know these are things that I've spent you know, you know like almost two decades of my life learning and anybody who they threw a lot of child error. I've spent almost two decades of my life learning and anybody who did a lot of trial and error, and I've also invested a lot of money in my own marketing, education, hiring experts, joining mastermind groups and things like that. So somebody can buy that book and I think it's like $7 on my website and they can literally buy that book and get like my 20 years of experience, for example, and I was just. You know, there's so many examples that that, like you know, you can get somebody's like all of their knowledge, or a lot of the knowledge that might've taken them years, decades to compile, and just get a hand into you on a silver platter. So there's really, there really is a there's really no better kind of you know method for learning than than reading books.

Speaker 1:

I would say Absolutely and like nowadays, there's only like three ways of changing your life at all. It's literally the people you talk to, the books you read and then whatever you consume TV wise, youtube wise, podcast wise like there's intakes and outtakes and a lot of people, podcast wise like there's intakes and outtakes and a lot of people. That's why the conversations you have impact how you think. If you're only talking about drama or only talking about negative, it's going to be negative mindset. But if you're able to pick up a book and like this is what got me into reading, is like you literally pick up the book and you look at the author and you look at like ron marketing 20 years, let me learn all these skills. Or you pick up like a Ray Dalio book where he's like hedge fund?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, totally for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 100%, You're talking to the main person who spent hours and hours and hours and hours to compound this, for sure, and you're having the conversation with them and it's one-sided You're just listening which a lot of people have an issue with, but which a lot of people have an issue with, but it really opens the door to what it, what is out there and what is possible. So yeah, absolutely so. When you were going through selling those courses, how did you think about that? And, like, how'd you overcome rejection? Cause? I know, throughout that process, you're probably like I don't know if I'm doing this right, like, should I stay with?

Speaker 2:

this Is the plan yeah, yeah, if, like, I think the um yeah, I remember it's a good question. I'm just trying to think about kind of like those early days. So when I did my um, one of the things that I really had going for me towards the beginning is that I I was really like I really got involved in like the the Dan Kennedy stuff, and then this really was before. You know, obviously things are much different these days where people, where there's a new marketing expert every you know every single where you have no idea.

Speaker 2:

Everybody's an expert. But like when I, when I really found out about, about his whole idea, like you know, direct response, marketing, the idea of, like you know, he and he would just have this a really different way, a kind of a radical at the time way of like looking at things about how you talk to customers, how you actually, you know, nurture that, how you follow up with them and things like that. So point I'm getting at is that when I um entered the law market, for example, I really felt like I have like an an advantage, like I have like this competitive advantage, that like I, because I had I was going to have better marketing than the competition, if that makes sense. So that kind of allowed me to have. Like I kind of came in with a lot more confidence than I might've. I might've, uh, you know, expected or the normal, uh, somebody else might've expected. And then what ended up happening was I um, I ended up selling like my first um really for the first year or so. Like I ended up, um, overall stuff worked pretty good. That was a thing. So that kind of that kind of helped with my, with my confidence.

Speaker 2:

Um, I ended up my first ever program I had. It was like a $400 course and I remember when I sold the first one of those. And then fun story, I actually uh, cause I actually went to at most of the at the law schools each all the law students would have like a cubby where they would get their mail or whatnot and you could basically put flyers in there. Oh blah, go to this website to get this free report. And then this free report was that this is like really old school kind of marketing tactics. Then that sold my $400 program, or $397 at the time. And I remember like I opened up my email one day and I saw there was the first sale and to this day it's still like the most excited I've ever been to make a sale ever.

Speaker 2:

This was back in 2007. And then that was earlier in the year and then the next summer, because the law school, the bar exam, is in July I was really focused on the California bar exam because that's where I was living and the bar exam is in July. So the summer, that's the time to sell. So I think it was. It was like may, june, may and june uh, that's, I guess even before that. So probably around april, may, june, that was like. That was like the peak months and I at the time I, I, I did pretty well, I was I was spending money on google adwords at the time, after I kind of graduated from you know, doing the guerrilla marketing style, and that actually worked pretty well that summer and then, unfortunately, the next summer, I don't know, it just didn't work as well, and then so that would have been early 2008. And that's when I was kind of figuring that I just it just wasn't a big enough market Like it just because like go ahead.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because it was so like it's niche.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I yeah and I, and I was specifically looking law school's three years, I was specifically looking to reach third year law students. So it's just like, it was just like, so you know, so it's so. So it was just like, um, not not that it was impossible to read them, but for me to really, like you know, make a real real money.

Speaker 2:

It would just have been difficult. And so then I ended up, um, getting into my uh, uh, then I, then I, then I graduated I guess you could say to uh my dating business, and that's what. That's what I had with a partner, and that one I was in a pretty fortunate position because the expert I worked with he had a little bit of a following, he had some good things going on. He didn't have a huge following, but he had a pretty good loyal following and he was pretty well positioned in his market, but he didn't know marketing. So, same thing I came in there with some good marketing and we were able to do really, really good at the very beginning in there with like some good marketing and we were able to do really, really good at the very beginning and this is one of those things where go ahead.

Speaker 1:

So for him he was. So, basically, from your experience of you doing the guerrilla marketing and the google adwords, then you had this guy who you see a lot of it today, where there's social media or influencers who have know how to captivate the audience but they don't know how to sell on the back.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, exactly, it was that type of situation and so same kind of thing back. That market didn't really um, they didn't. The marketing that I ended up doing, um, that we ended up doing it was really effective. And so, for the first about how long was it? Pretty much for the first, that was late 2008 and then going into 2009. Yeah, pretty much for the first year. Almost everything we did worked, so I was pretty lucky.

Speaker 2:

Then things stopped working at some point, as they always do, and then we had to get some you know, we had to kind of innovate and all that. So I was pretty lucky in the sense that I think it was kind of a combination of like you know, we had to kind of innovate and all that. But so I was pretty lucky in the sense that I think it was. It was kind of a combination of, like you know, you're Almost like that blind faith, I guess, where you just like you know, you know you're just, you're just like I got the system, it's going to work, and then it's like you're not jaded yet with stuff, like not working. So that's kind of that's how we were able to get some good success in those early days.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and when you really sit there and think about it, just for the audience to understand, is that whenever you start a business, that first win, that first sale, is the one that you keep chasing.

Speaker 2:

You keep chasing that For sure 100%.

Speaker 1:

And then you get other clients and you get stuff. But it takes a long time to build out the skill set of what you're actually trying to do, because we're constantly innovating and you get stuff. But it takes a long time to build out the skill set of what you're actually trying to do, because we're constantly innovating and you constantly have to keep trying new things and get better and spend money on the ads and you're like am I wasting money? I don't know, like we're gonna try this out and see. And so for you with the dating coach, like how did you guys end up making it work? Did you put like a coaching program on the back end? Or like what did you end up selling, or was it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so I can. I remember this pretty, uh, pretty vividly so I'll give you. So the first thing we did, we actually launched a coaching program at the very beginning. Yeah, like a higher end coaching program. It was a year-long, like five thousand dollar coaching program and nobody in that market did this at the time. This was legitimately an innovative type thing. That was the thing that kind of got us that initial momentum. So there's a digression about I'm not going to get into it, so that was that.

Speaker 2:

And then we ended up launching. That was our first thing. Then we ended up launching like a CD of the Month Club type thing. This was really popular back in those days. That was like $29. That worked pretty well. Then we ended up about six months later we ended up launching. We did a big launch for a $497 course a 497 course like a 500 course and we ended up whatever the math is we ended up selling about 65 000 worth of those courses. So that whatever it was pretty cool, like, and we did like a big proper launch. It was pretty, it was pretty innovative. That worked pretty well.

Speaker 2:

Then that was this was middle of 2009 and then I I don't really remember what happened between then and then I was like quitting my job after that. So, like that, that was a, that was a thing, but the big thing that it was actually a year later. I remember pretty vividly it was July of 2000. It was July of 2000,. Uh, 2010. That's when we did a big launch. This is when I was I was I was I big launch. I quit my job at the end of 2009, so I was working full-time after that and then, really for the beginning of 2010, I was working on doing this big launch, a big affiliate launch. I had a lot of people promoting us at the same time and that ended up being a really big success. The product was it was like 97, and then there was like a 97 per month membership on the back end and, um, yeah, no, we ended up. In total, we ended up doing like three hundred thousand dollars from that, from, oh, not yeah, because.

Speaker 1:

So here's the thing, when you really think about it, like you just saw three different options, like one one was a big coaching, which was really high ticket, then you had a middle ticket with the course and then you had the low ticket with the CD, and then you start to realize that you're like, hey, maybe if we test this out at the 97, but now people are paying 97 a month, so now it's like a thousand twelve hundred bucks every single year. It comes out a little bit differently, but they're all.

Speaker 1:

All it is is the packaging and the presentation which is a lot of the information is similar, for sure, because that's the most important thing that people need to realize is that whenever you're going into something, it's all how you package it, and it's how you package everything. It changes it all. So, while this is going on, you're building out the business, and then when did you start traveling to Columbia and starting that experience?

Speaker 2:

That would have been a little bit later. So, yeah, just to close one. So it was really that that launch in 2010, that's something that really allowed me to really kind of. That's when I was really starting to make like like kind of good, like not amazing, but like good money, where I was able to kind of like you know, um, you know, that's when I was kind of like. That's when I started making like at least a hundred thousand dollars a year, where I was able to kind of live a little, a little bit better. And then I started, I went to, I took my first trip to Columbia in, uh, 2013. So it was a couple of years after that.

Speaker 1:

Gotcha? Yeah, cause it's's important, and I want you to bring it up that it's important because everyone wants to go oh, just get a job and then just go or just do this or just quit your job or just do that it's. It's not always that easy, like ron's telling us how he worked for four or five years on this thing six years before even taking the trip and checking out.

Speaker 2:

and, to be fair, yeah, I'm not one of those just because I was really like I was nervous, you know, I wanted to. Of course, we're always nervous yeah, yeah, yeah, so, um, yeah, so anyways, that's kind of uh, but yeah, to answer your question, yeah it was.

Speaker 1:

And finally taking the plunge in 2013 and how long did you go for that time?

Speaker 2:

so, yes, I, I ended up finally taking the plunge in 2013. And how long did you go for that time? So, yeah, so I ended up going, for I went to Ecuador for the first time. I went to Quito, ecuador, because that was like kind of a hot expat spot at the time, and I went there for three months. I had a buddy who was living in Medellin, colombia. This was back in 2013. This was like way you know when people are still freaked out about, about Columbia, but they were even way, way, way more freaked out at that at that moment in time.

Speaker 2:

And so then I had a buddy who was living there and he's like hey, you should come, come to Medellin. And so before I headed back to the U? S from Ecuador, I wanted to go to another country. So I went to Medellin. I was there for about 10 days or so and I just really fell in love with the city, with the country, and then I always kind of wanted to go back there. So I ended up, um, to give the exact uh, I'll just give you the, the full math, because I would keep dabbling.

Speaker 2:

It took me a while to really totally embrace, like the full-time international living. So I I, in 2015 I went back. I was there for three months, then I came back, then it was 2000 at the end. Then I came back, then it was 2000. At the end of 2017, that's when I was like you know what? I'm going to go, I'm doing it, I'm taking the plans, I'm going full time. And so I ended up, end of 2017, beginning of 2018, I ended up moving to Columbia. I got rid of my apartment, I put all my stuff in storage and I actually was of my apartment, put all my stuff in storage and actually was there for about. I was there for seven, seven months, seven, eight months.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, the thing there is.

Speaker 2:

I, I would have really stayed there longer, but I didn't really. I didn't have a visa, and so the you can basically you can be there six months out of the out of the year, unless you have, like a longer term visa. And I just, uh, you know, I kept looking into how to get a visa, like you know, like, uh, like I could try getting like a student visa, but that it just it just it wasn't the right thing to do. And then, like I actually had friends at the time, they would actually get like a medical beat pieces, like they would get like braces or something like that. But anyways, like long story short, I nothing really made sense visa wise for me at the time.

Speaker 2:

So my plan was to this would have been this is that was this was like July I think July, august of 2018, is when I moved back from from Columbia, and my plan was it's funny how these things work out my plan at the time was okay, I'm going to go back to the US, I'm going to be there for four or five months, I'm going to be there till the end of the year, then I'm going to go back to Columbia. And then what ended up happening, of course, is I ended up going to San Diego. I have quite a few friends who are living there and it's like, oh, I was planning on being there till the end of the year. But then, like there was this big marketing conference, the big the traffic and conversion summit if you're familiar with that that was like in that was in san diego in february, I think it's like, oh. Then I was like, oh, yeah, I might as well stay there till february yeah, it's like another thing.

Speaker 2:

so, long story short, I ended up staying in columbia for uh, uh like no, I'm sorry. I I stayed in San Diego for for until the end or at the beginning of 2020, then COVID happened and then actually, so I was there till the end of 2020. Till the end of 2020, I was in San Diego and it was at the end of 2019, that's when I met my wife, who's Colombian, and then I ended up moving back to Colombia at the end of 2020, where I was there for two years.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, Because of COVID yeah.

Speaker 2:

Or not, because of COVID. I'll give you the exact story. So I met my wife. I know we're going in a few different directions here. I met my wife at the end of 2019. We really fell in love and I was planning on moving back to Columbia. I had a ticket to go back to Columbia April. It was April 2000 to 2020. That's when my ticket was.

Speaker 1:

And then unfortunately the COVID happened.

Speaker 2:

You know, the country was shut down in 2000, uh, at March 2020, as we all know, and so it was a super bomber. My wife was in Colombia, I was in the US, or my now wife. At the time, we were just technically just a couple and so, yeah, we did that. We were like a COVID romance, whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 2:

And seven months where we weren't able to see each other, and then, finally, I moved back. I made it to Colombiaumbia in october of 2020. We got married a couple months after that, and then I was there for a couple years before we came back to the us, and now we're heading back there once again next year and when you're doing all of this, how does the tax structure with that work?

Speaker 1:

so, like, if you're going to columbia for two years, are you still paying us tax? Like, how does all?

Speaker 2:

that, yeah, so the way it works is that, and again, I know enough to be dangerous about this. There are people that can wax poetic about kind of the international tax system and things like that, but but essentially, yes, unfortunately as a us citizen, no matter what you are, all you always have to pay us taxes, that's just yeah, that's from what I heard, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And they have this thing called the US Foreign Exclusion Tax which says that if you are spending the majority of your not the majority you have to be spending kind of like-. It's like at least 11 months out of the year. It's like a lot. If you're spending like most of your time, as in like almost all of your time, outside of the us, you're not taxed on your first hundred thousand dollars of income oh wow so it's pretty good so, yeah, so it's a pretty good uh.

Speaker 2:

It's yet another reason why it makes sense to spend more time abroad consider some time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, absolutely, and for you? So what? What's been the draw of like going back to the US and back to Colombia? Like, obviously, stuff happens, life happens, but is there really?

Speaker 1:

It's just like I feel like the idea now of just living in a specific area has, like it's, I think it's going to go like I think it's going to go away down the line. I think people are just going to kind of formulate and live in multiple locations. Yeah, I think there's going to go away down the line. I think people are just going to kind of formulate and live in multiple locations.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think there's something to that. So I would honestly say that. So, for me personally, I would, I would rather live in Columbia, so that's why I'm planning on moving back there. My current thinking is so we have a six month old daughter is so we have a. I have a six month old daughter and my initial plan is to actually be, is to be back in Columbia next year and then probably stay there for a little bit and then when I, when my daughter is ready to kind of go to school, we're we're currently leaning towards, you know, raising, raising, raising her and having her go to school in the U S. That's kind of. That's kind of our long-term vision as a family and then, yeah, within that, most likely we'll probably be, ideally we'll be spending, you know, summers in Columbia, that kind of thing. But really like right now.

Speaker 2:

Again, I would say, overall I think it's for me personally, I would rather be, I would rather be in Columbia than be in the U S, mainly because I'm not. I mean, there's many reasons, um, but one of the big ones is is, is, is like, it's that that quality of living, is, is, is better, you can really live like a, live like a King there. One thing we didn't mention was that how, like when I was living in Columbiaia, I had like a. I had a cook who would come five days a week. I had somebody who came and cleaned my house and things like that, and yeah, it was just kind of just a really, you just have a higher vibration, you just feel better, you feel very taken care of, you know.

Speaker 1:

So things like that, um, go ahead because you're not spending as much time doing these remedial tasks for sure people don't realize that when you spend an hour a day cooking and when you spend 30 minutes a day cleaning.

Speaker 1:

it adds up a lot and it's like, oh well who's going to take care of it and it's majority of families make enough money where you could eat out or you could get a meal prep service or you could get a cleaning person coming more frequently, and that would give you a lot more time, and the reason I'm bringing this up is because a lot of us sit there and complain about these like five, ten hundred dollar activities that will open up your eyes and give you a lot of your time back so you can enjoy what you actually want to do yeah, for sure, and that's expensive.

Speaker 2:

Even easier, easier when you're living in South America.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely so for you. In regard to the marketing, what are you seeing nowadays in regard to, like, everything going on? Is it Facebook ads, because I know it's getting a lot harder regarding Google ads, facebook ads and, like I know, you have other revenue streams that people could look into. So how does that all work?

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean, if you're asking kind of what's working, I don't the thing, to be honest, I think it's kind of it's kind of always the same, in the sense that you know the same things that are working now. Are this more or less the same things that are working in the past? In the sense that, like you know people, I know people who are still doing well with with facebook ads, for example, or who are doing well with social media. I have clients that have a big, bigger youtube channels. I think the thing is is that, when it comes to things that are more saturated, like facebook ads, for example, um, you just have to be more dialed in with your messaging. I think that's a big part of it. You have to be more dialed in with your messaging. I think that's a big part of it. You have to be more dialed in with your messaging. You often just have to be more specific with your targeting, for example. At the same time, you want to make sure that you really need to have your entire business model mapped out.

Speaker 1:

That's why you have to have, typically, most I don't know if there's I'm sure there's exceptions, but there's very few people who are who are making ads work without like a high-end offer on the back end, for example I was gonna say because, like the basically for the audience, like the way ads work are, you run the ads but you're gonna run twenty dollars, fifty dollars, a hundred dollars a day and if you're not able to convert these people, let alone have them on a monthly recurring stream, it becomes very, very challenging to run these ads because you're going to it's just not going to work, it's just not going to add the math's not going to add up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so, and you said you have in your book there's like a bunch of different revenue streams that people can access. What are those different ways of doing that Like?

Speaker 2:

what are some of the so there's, I call them revenue recipes. So what we mean by that is so there's actually only, there's only, really five ways to grow a business. I learned this from my friend, Paul Lumberg, so give me, give me some credit. So one of them, and I call them profit food groups. So one of them is, you know, raising your prices. So if you have higher, if you just raise your prices, even if you didn't do anything the same, your business would go up. The other one is selling more to your existing customers and retaining them longer. The third one is increasing your sales conversions. The fourth one is getting more leads. And the fifth one is essentially executing better and faster.

Speaker 2:

The idea of all of these is that if all you did was this one thing, and if you didn't do anything else in your business, like if you just got more leads, even if everything stayed the same, your business would grow. If you increased your stock conversions by X amount, even if everything stayed the same, your business would grow. And so, and the idea, of course, is, if you optimize all of them, then they can actually have exponential impact. They compound on one another. So in the book I have, there are these five different categories and within each of these categories I have what's called different revenue recipes, if that makes sense. So, for example, if you take a look at sales conversions, in the book I give a bunch of different ways to increase your sales conversions. For example. These would be techniques, strategies, things that you could just go out and implement, Kind of like a cookbook. If you just implement the recipe, then you're going to increase your sales.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, like actionable tips for people to do to grow their different areas. Exactly 100%, so that's pretty cool. And then, if someone's looking to just get into coaching or get into business, what do you think would be the main thing to focus on?

Speaker 2:

So let's talk about coaching. If you're looking to get into coaching, so this step one, step, zero. It's all about finding that mask between what you're good at, like how you can help people, what you're good at how you can help people, and whoever your person is, the market that's going to pay for that type of thing. So this is kind of what I saw. So if you're starting out like if a person was starting out like, hey, I want to get into coaching, that sounds awesome, I want to quit my job, I'll say, okay, great. Then I would ask them, I would talk to them, I figure out, like, what are their, what are their marketable skills that somebody might pay to have them coach on, for example?

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know they might have, like you know, ability to, they might have some marketing skill, they might have some skills. So they might have, like, project management skills or leadership skills or something they might be able to help people with mindset, or they might be a healer or whatnot. So then I would basically figure out okay, so, okay, based on this, which of these is going to be the most marketable. And then, of course, the big categories are helping people with health, wealth and relationships.

Speaker 2:

If you can help people make money, that's awesome. If you can help them be more healthy, that's awesome. If you can help them be more healthy, that's awesome. If you can help them optimize your relationships, that's awesome as well. So that's what I would be leaning towards. And then, once we find out, once you have kind of having a hypothesis of like how they can help people and and who, this and who and who might be a good fit for this, then you got to go out there and you got to. You got to market right so then've got to make an offer.

Speaker 2:

You have to go talk to people. You have to use whatever channels you have. That might be the contacts on your phone, the people you're going to do on social media there might be some partners you can tap into. Then we need to just get in front of people and we need to be able to make them an offer and then, once we figure out what our offer is, once we have like a coaching package that works, then going from like zero to a hundred thousand dollars a year, it's not that difficult. It's just all about getting good at selling that one offer.

Speaker 1:

That's kind of a version and staying in the niche and staying focused.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, once you find a good that message to market match a good offer for a good audience, you definitely want to stay focused on that one audience for sure.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely so. Do you think it makes sense to have a remote business where you can travel and, if so, how often should people travel? The reason I'm saying this is just because it's something I really enjoy. I think travel is awesome, but I think it takes awesome and you got to but I think it takes time to build that remote life out and rebuild.

Speaker 2:

Well, yeah, I mean it's well. I mean in the sense that yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean I think I definitely think there's a lot of benefits to having a remote business for sure. It's like having a coaching business, consulting business, or if you're selling information products. I mean a lot of things that people are doing are remote these days. And yeah, kind of going back to what we said before, obviously everybody teaches them Like everybody has their different rhythms and things like that. But if you have a business where you can work from anywhere, then I definitely recommend kind of looking into living in another country for sure. And especially if you're listening to this and you're single and you're under the age of 40, I would almost shake you and say, dude, you really should. I highly highly recommend you spend some time living in another country, because not only are you going to get those life experiences it's a good time, it's going to be hard to do when you're older, especially if you're married and have kids and things like that, and then also it's that huge opportunity to really build exponential wealth, as we talked about earlier, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1:

And the other big thing I think that's super valuable is that when you're in these locations for maybe three, six a month, like you, one of the biggest changes I think that happens is that you, you don't take your time for granted. So what I mean by that is like, if you finish work on monday at like six, if you're in the states, it might be make dinner, watch tv, read a book, go to. If you're in the States, it might be make dinner, watch TV, read a book, go to bed. If you're in a different country, you're like hey, we got, we got to eat out tonight. Like we got to go explore, go for a walk, cause there's a shortness on how long you're going to be there, and that's something I've always found.

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure if that's relevant to you, but to me it was like whenever you're like that's why, when you go on vacation, most people will sleep less because they're like I have to get every minute out of this experience. Yeah, so when you shorten the time that you're actually in a place, and even if it's three months, you're like dude, I got to go see that play, see that experience, go to that sporting event, do that thing. But meanwhile, when you're in the same place for so long, you just take it for granted and you're like, yeah, we don't do that.

Speaker 1:

Like yeah for sure, and you, you. The funny thing is that you experience more of these things in foreign places than you do in your own place so yeah I think it's massive. I think it's a huge thing for people to realize and it's hard to put that time limit when you've been living in the same place for five years, 10 years 20.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I mean, that's one of the biggest things for me. And then, is there any tips that you would give people who are considering doing this? Like, yeah, I know you found Columbia and that was great for you, but is there, is there any way that you think people should go about it, whether it's a 10 day, 20 day, three months?

Speaker 2:

I see what you're saying. Yeah, I would. What I would recommend is yeah, I think you want to spend, so, yeah, if I was like. So the thing I would do if I were and this is kind of a common kind of digital nomad thing is I would take a look at, I would do some research, I would take, I would look at places that I would consider. I'll research and find like a few places that I might consider staying for a longer period of time, and I know the hot spots are pretty much like. There's places in South America like Colombia is popular, they're like. There's Argentina is popular. I know people who are in Brazil. It's like Southeast Asia, which I have not really spent a lot of a ton of time there, but there's places there. There's places in Eastern Europe that those are kind of like some of the popular places. Also Mexico, like I know there's a lot of entrepreneurs in Playa del Carmen, for example. There's another city called San Miguel, which is like in the mountains, which is another kind of expat.

Speaker 1:

So anyway, example there's another city called san miguel, which is like in the mountains, which is another kind of expat.

Speaker 2:

So anyway, so I would take a look at. Obviously there's way, way, way more places, but those are some of the places. What I would do is I would do some research on which of these of like some of the ones I mentioned, maybe look at some of the other ones and just, and I would just um and I would like, I would plan on maybe just doing some experiments again, maybe stay, I'm going to stay here for a couple weeks. I'm going to stay here for a couple weeks. I'm going to stay here for a couple weeks. Probably, like two to four weeks is probably a good time. It's a good amount of time to kind of get the rhythm of whether you would like want to be there for a longer period of time, and then once um, and then, yeah, once you find a place you like, then I would consider staying there there for a longer period of time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's.

Speaker 1:

I actually did it in the US, where we traveled around for eight months and we literally stayed in each place for three weeks to probably six weeks and you just stress, test everything and you start to walk around and see if you like the area and like cause I think it's crazy now that people are like yeah, I just signed a lease for a year and I'm like you've never been here before, bro, what do you mean? That's crazy, because to me it's like how does someone make that decision so fast without knowing? And I think it's just. It's just, uh, you want to take action right away and I get that. But I think there's a component of like go on a two-week trip to the place see if you like it.

Speaker 1:

You don't have to uproot your entire life yeah and then try that approach. Um, just because it's there's so much out there and it's never been cheaper and it's just never been easier at this point, especially like going from the us to columbia.

Speaker 1:

Like, if you look at these flights like they're not, they're pretty low cost, like you can get there for an easy, easy amount of experience, like it's really not that hard to experience a lot of these things. 100, yeah, absolutely so. Is there anything that you think you'd want to leave the audience with?

Speaker 2:

um, yeah, it's really what I said before, like, yeah, if you're, uh, just, I would definitely be open to this idea of geo arbitrage. Um, again, especially if you're, if you're single, if you're single under the age, especially under the age of 30, single under the age of 40, I highly highly recommend you, you, you take a look, you take a look into it. It's, it's a very big optimization in my, in my experience 100 and it's just never been around big optimization in my, in my experience a hundred and it's just never been around like that's the other thing, like this hasn't been relevant.

Speaker 1:

Some people have done it who are older, but, like the flights have not been this affordable since they are like, since it's been like that. So I think it's a really important thing. And then one more question before we close up. You noted that you had a couple of clients like in different locations, different countries. How do you, uh, first of all, attract them and then how do you kind of think about time zones and working and all of that stuff?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So as far as time zones go, um, I've been pretty fortunate because the only real bad time zone, like the real, real, real bad time zone, is like people are in Southeast Asia, for example. But I've had a couple of clients who are in Australia and that's not so bad. That's when I would have to talk to them, like later on in my day, like 5, 6 pm, which is their morning.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

That's kind of the way you make that work. And then I've had clients who are in the same thing. If I have clients who are in Europe again not ideal, but often I can talk to them my morning and that'll be there later on in the day, typically it isn't really a problem. So you just have to go with the flow on that, that one, if that makes sense. As far as attracting clients, I mean the majority of my clients are in, uh, would be in north america, but I do have, you know, you know the internet is, as obviously like you know, my kind of part of the of the industry, or my, my niche a lot of. There's a decent amount of them that are located in the UK and some of them you know there's a few that are are are in Australia as well. So so yeah, I'm not with, I'm not specifically targeting those countries or anything, it just kind of works out that way Comes.

Speaker 1:

it comes to me. That's awesome. So, Ron, where can people learn more about you and hear more if they want to get in touch?

Speaker 2:

Yeah about you and hear more. If they want to get in touch, uh, yeah, probably the best place to, uh, you can go to my website, ronreichcom, so that's r-o-n-r-e-i-c-hcom. I have some cool free stuff there. And also, if you want to, if you go, just go to my my personal favorite space, facebook profile. I post a lot of content on there, so feel free to uh, send me a a message, add me as a friend, send me a me a message, and then we'll love to say hi.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Appreciate the time yeah.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me. This was awesome.

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