I don’t think most people want to run a huge business when they retire overseas. It would be crazy to think about meetings and conference calls while you enjoy the weather in Bali. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t own a business while living overseas—we need only delegate our responsibilities.
Welcome back to the Living Overseas Passively series (101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107), where we discuss moving overseas and living on passive income.
A quick refresher on Automated Business. An automated business is run chiefly by automation, out-sourcing, and management. The concept is to build a company and convert it to passive income by automating the processes or hiring a manager.
What Would Your Life Look Like Without a Paycheck?
To be successful at automating a business, you need to prepare to remove yourself from the beginning. If you plan to retire overseas in five years, work that timeline into your business. Begin to hire managers or out-source as soon as possible.
How does running a business from overseas look? You can be as involved or detached from your business as you’d like. However, the more responsibility you give your management, the more you will have to pay them.
Depending on your lifestyle, you may want to work for an hour a day at your company. The significant advantage would be limiting the amount of stress you take on. You can completely control your work-life balance.
What type of automated businesses work best at a great distance? That depends on who you have running your business in the States.
I have two sons, and if they become highly involved in my business, I can create almost anything I want. Starting a family business is a perfect choice before moving overseas. Not only can you give your children the gift of ownership, but you can earn residual business income.
Print Your Own Money
If you don’t have dependable family members, your choices may be limited. Just like property managers, finding a good business manager may prove difficult. Remember, you will be thousands of miles away and can’t babysit anyone.
Not to worry, you can always start an online business. You can create an automated e-commerce business or a passive e-commerce business. One deals with buying and selling physical goods, and the other is more about affiliate marketing and content creation.
I would lean towards content creation, affiliate marketing, and search engine optimization. This business model can become almost 100% automated. You would only need to create content from time to time.
Running a local automated business. There are even more ways to run an automated business by starting a physical company in the country in which you reside.
Start a Home Business
With local approval, you could leverage out-sourcing and management to start low-profile, high-margin businesses.
When my wife and I visited Turkey, we saw many small carts that sold fresh corn on the cob with salt. Imagine buying a cart, say $1,000, and hiring someone to run the corn business.
You need to ensure that the worker picks up the corn, cleans the cart, and does other minor tasks. You would pay the worker, buy more products, and take profits. You could even buy more carts as you expand the business. Even better, own multiple carts and put a manager in charge of handling all the business interactions.
I read a book about living in Turkey to get a feel for the environment. I wouldn’t want to start a business there, but other countries may represent a better opportunity for a local business.
Run a Profitable Herb Garden
Some ideas. Back in the States, a few ideas could work great as an automated business. You could go big with a commercial property like self-storage, a mobile home park, or an RV park.
I wrote a 3-part series comparing these three commercial properties. This is an excellent idea because you only need one property to earn $3,000+ a month in passive business income.
Otherwise, you would need to have a more significant business to gain residual business income. For example, if I wanted to start a rental car business, I would need to have about 5-6 cars to reach this income level. I would need to pay a manager a full-time wage to manage this many cars.
You could buy some farmland and rent it back to the farmers. However, the return on farmland is like 3-4% a year. The value of land moves up quickly (because they aren’t making more land), but you would need a lot of acreages to see a good amount of income.
Automation Can’t Replace Creativity
Maybe you buy some land and start your own farm business. There are many ways to create a successful farm, even outside of growing crops. You must have a great manager to turn everything over to when you move.
Your best bet. As much as I love business, your best bet is to start an automated online business. If you create content for royalties, you can insert your automated business into your content.
You can add affiliate links, sponsorships, online courses, merchandise, email marketing, and Facebook ads into your content. As people travel down your sales funnel, the process is completely automated.
Run a Profitable Dog Park
Don’t forget about the metaverse. The metaverse will be a massive catalyst for augmented reality, virtual reality, decentralized finance, and cryptocurrencies. It will also allow you to conduct business inside its digital world.
The metaverse will bring people closer together than ever, and you will want to be at the forefront of this revolution. There may be a time when we can all live anywhere we want and not have to worry about employment because our jobs will be in “The Matrix.”
Conclusion. No matter where you plan to live, you probably won’t want to work into your 50s, 60s, and 70s. This means that we need to automate our businesses as soon as possible.
6 Types of Income Streams
Yes, it’s great to work on our businesses all night and day. They become our babies, but eventually, they need to grow up and move out of the house.
Two good resources to learn how to automate your business are “The 4-Hour Work Week” and “Company of One.” These books will put you in the correct frame of mind for turning over your business to someone else when it is time.
“Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant” describes the difference between a self-employed person and a business owner. You want to be a business owner and remove yourself from the equation of making money.
The person with long-term plans and diverse income wins in the end. Combine your automated business with dividends, cryptocurrencies, rental income, retirement income, and royalties for the best results. Until next time, I’m signing off.
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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. All Right Reserved Military Family Investing
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