How to Create A Profitable Creative Online Business

“When you start your business you quickly realize that you cannot be online everywhere. You can’t be consistent when you try to be online in 10 different places.”

Meet Squarespace website designer and course creator Paige

Digital nomad Paige is an entrepreneur from Canada She has been nomadding for 6 years and started her online business because her (now) husband is from Germany. After graduating she moved to Germany and because of the language barrier, she figured that an online business would be the best way to make a living instead of looking for a local job. Travel has always been a big passion in her life and she used to blog about her travels. Doing this, she learned how to build a website in Squarespace. Paige decided to leverage her self-taught website design and building skills and started offering Squarespace website design services.

Paige’s business has pivoted over the years and grew her Squarespace website design business into a fully booked-out gig. Even though she didn’t have professional experience or a degree in design or marketing, she build everything from scratch and even ranked for years at number one in Google Search when someone would look for a Squarespace website designer. So once she received a boatload of inquiries, something had to change in her business because she simply hit the max of her capacity.

Once you get into a scalable business model, the sky is literally the limit. – Paige

From successful website design business to course creation

Paige considered different business models that would fit her skills, personality and financial goals. Starting an agency meant managing people something she doesn’t enjoy so that was a had no. Selling templates was an option too but people would still end up having questions so it wouldn’t fit her service and quality style. However, teaching others how to become successful website designers and run an online business felt closer to her heart. This is how Paige’s thriving Squarespace website design business pivoted into a course creation model.

Aside from passion, Paige also decided to go into this model because it was far more scaleable. This would give her the financial freedom she desired simply because in a scaleable business model where you are not bound to time or people limitations, the sky is the limit.

Her income today is about 75% from her courses and the other 25% is earned from her monetized youtube channel, private coaching and affiliate income.

A profitable course creator business isn’t just about publishing a course and drinking cocktails while the money comes in. The same goes for the digital nomad lifestyle because, at the end of the day, you got to do the actual work to make it work and keep things running. We asked Paige what a typical day for her looks like:
👉 Creating marketing content like blogs and videos
👉 Writing sales content like emails
👉 Figure out all the tech
👉 The admin side of the business
👉 Coordinate a small team
👉 Update the course materials

Her business doesn’t require many meetings and she has a lot of flexibility and freedom in how to organize her day-to-day life. This a perk many digital nomad entrepreneurs like too and enough reason to start your own online business you can run from anywhere.
Just like website design, Paige didn’t know much about marketing, yet she was very successful. We asked her how she made it work and we absolutely love her tips!

Many solopreneurs, creators and freelancers deal with the same challenge, how to be online everywhere all the time and get your work done in time without going crazy. Paige shares that she experimented with many different things to understand what she like and doesn’t like doing. For example, she doesn’t like to be on Instagram and even though her ideal clients hang out on Instagram, she knew this wasn’t a good strategy for her and she shares:

Choose one 1 marketing strategy that you enjoy doing, where you can show up consistently and that matches your offering.

Paige chose a content creation marketing strategy solely focused on blogging and youtube. She also tried podcasting and while she loves it, it was too hard to talk about website design on an audio-only platform.

Today she expanded to 3 strategies, but only because she had team members and she still isn’t active on Instagram because it’s really not her vibe.

Tips for finding clients for your creative online business

Pick a niche that is specific and not broad

A niche is not vital but extremely helpful for finding clients quicker. If you focus on a broad audience, like creative small business owners, it could take longer to land clients. When you pick a small group who have one thing in common, so a niche, for example, authors in a country or state, it will be easier to find them online and showcase how you can help them. So without a niche, you can still be successful it just might take longer.

Pick one marketing strategy and be very consistent with whatever your marketing strategy is.

You already know the way but she emphasizes this one more time. Paige’s blogged her way up and published twice a week no matter what. She also shares that in her process she always works 2 weeks in advance so there is a good amount of time between the moment you create it and the time it has to go out.

Join the 3-day Profitable & Productive Web Designer Bootcamp

Paige has more to share about running an online creative business. You are in luck because she is hosting a 3-day Profitable & Productive Web Designer Bootcamp. Join her live on April 17th, 18th & 19th for three jam-packed days of educational trainings & Q+A sessions with designers who have successfully built booked-out web design businesses!

We learned from this entrepreneurial podcast episode that becoming a designer is possible for you, even if you don’t have “the right degree” and maybe also a serve allergy to coding too. So this event is for you if you are a brand designer, copywriter, virtual assistant or digital marketer dreaming of landing projects 10X the price and want to explore other services. click here to register for free

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad enter Samara

Find her on Instagram @betterbecurly

Find her on LinkedIn @Samara Ruighaver

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #01: How to Thrive in your Digital Nomad Relationship with Anat & Orr

🎧  Episode #05: Dealing with High Anxiety While Building a Successful Online Business with The Remote Yogi

🎧  Episode #07: Overcoming Fears and Building Community with Digital Nomad Magali

🎧 Episode #21: 10 Years Of Traveling The World With Daisy

How To Travel On A Budget For Digital Nomads with Samara

“I meet so many local people and they know the good spots. Just because something isn’t touristy, it doesn’t mean it’s a less pretty or cooler experience.”

Budget traveling tips for digital nomads

You can spend as much as you like on traveling and some digital nomads choose to live a budget lifestyle. Digital nomad Samara is currently enjoying her digital nomad budget life and she calls it ‘‘going back to basic’’.

Budget travel accommodation tips

Using the platform Couchsurfing is a great way to save money and have unique experiences. You basically stay with locals and it’s easy to meet travelers through the platform. Another way Samara is exploring is through collaborations with, for example Airbnb hosts.

How to pick budget-friendly locations?

A great tip Samara shares is to visit more untouched places and don’t focus on the most touristy hotspots. She loved Bali, but it was too busy and she is now enjoying beautiful Sri Lanka. Another country she enjoyed too was Turkey, where Samara even slept in her tent near the beach!

How do you budget your money?

Budgeting is a common challenge among digital nomads and Samara goes by a weekly budget that varies from 60 to 100 euros a week. This is her budget for food, accommodation and transportation. She usually takes shared transportation like busses and trains or even hitchhiking is a great way to get around.

How can you explore places with a low budget?

Aside from working, you also want to enjoy the place where you are staying. Digital nomads and travelers on a low budget are often more resourceful and find fun things today. Samara has had many unique and authentic experiences, here are some more tips:
👉 Get to know the local people.
👉 Be open-minded to new experiences.
👉 Avoid touristy places and activities.
👉 Find local community and do free activities like hiking.

Tips for how to get work done

👉 Get a laptop that matches the quality you need to get work done.
👉 Find restaurants, bars or cafes with free Wi-Fi.
👉 When you enter a new country, get a sim card.
👉 If you can’t find free Wi-Fi, use the phone hotspot.
👉 Avoid overwhelming by taking time for yourself.

I think it’s better just to do it, find the struggles and then find solutions instead of figuring everything out before you even start.

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad enter Samara

Find her on Instagram @betterbecurly

Find her on LinkedIn @Samara Ruighaver

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #01: How to Thrive in your Digital Nomad Relationship with Anat & Orr

🎧  Episode #05: Dealing with High Anxiety While Building a Successful Online Business with The Remote Yogi

🎧  Episode #07: Overcoming Fears and Building Community with Digital Nomad Magali

🎧 Episode #21: 10 Years Of Traveling The World With Daisy

Actionable Tips To Measure Your Daily Success with Digital Nomad Nienke Nina

“We don’t always have to celebrate the big stuff, we can also celebrate the smaller milestones.”

How digital nomads can create a more positive success image

Designing your own life and online entrepreneurship looks so easy and sexy, but that isn’t the reality. Digital nomads and entrepreneurs are constantly being challenged. We also live in a society where we share many things about our lives and most of the time these are highlights or just single moments and not the full story.

So on the Digital Nomads Daily Podcast we want to show you what is really happening behind the scenes so you can stop feeling like you are never good enough or you are always behind and will never reach your goals.

How digital nomads can embrace the growth process

So if you feel like you don’t have what others have and will never be successful, the first step is to shift your mindset and see and receive everything as a piece of a much larger process.

Your second step is to create a daily or weekly success image. These are not the tasks on your to-do list or your biggest goals but the stepping stones you at least want to hit to feel satisfied. You might think, what is a successful image and how can I create one?

A success image is basically how your picture your success. So for example, you will have a successful day if you have a notification-free morning, complete your client work or hours and read one chapter of a book. Everything you do beyond this is great and worth celebrating, but the purpose is that you focus on that success image no matter what.

How do you define your digital nomad success image?

To get more clarity about your success image Nienke Nina shared a few simple self-reflection questions. These questions can help you understand what success looks and feel like to you. Let’s look at some of the questions below:

1️⃣What does success looks and feels like to me?
2️⃣What makes me truly happy?
3️⃣When are you most satisfied?

Download the free guide below to explore all questions and get more helpful tips on how to feel better about your work and your everyday life.

Do you enjoy the daily digital nomad tips Nienke Nina shares on the podcast?

Her book Digital Nomads With Confidence has more in store for you, covering 101 typical daily digital nomad questions and challenges. The book talks about making money online, how to find a house, creating your remote office and so much more.

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode 22: Facing The Realities Of Online Entrepreneurship with Anne

🎧  Episode #77: 5 Key Questions Before Starting A Side Hustle with Nienke Nina

🎧 Episode #79: How Side Hustles Boost Your Freedom Lifestyle Goals With Nienke Nina

Embracing The Challenges Of Online Entrepreneurship With Jolien

“It’s a process and you just need to go through it.”

Meet digital nomad and multi-passionate entrepreneur Jolien

Embracing the challenges and messiness of entrepreneurship

We also asked her for tips on how she manages her day-to-day creative entrepreneur life and well-being rituals. All digital nomads have their own well-being nurturing strategies and we love asking how others do it.

Jolien shared the following tips in this podcast episode:

💙 Pay attention to what you tell yourself and always talk nice to yourself
💙 Focus on the process and fully trust your unique growth process
💙 Be selfish and make decisions that are good for your well-being
💙 Stay true to yourself, your desires and your freedom goals
💙 Leave open spaces in your calendar so you get to enjoy life
💙 Make disconnecting from your screen and work part of your routine
💙 Connect with your emotions and don’t avoid them.
💙 Reach out for help when you can’t process things on your own
💙 Connect with other people in your industry or space

We loved having Jolien on the podcast and we truly hope these mindset rituals will help you in your day-to-day digital nomad life.

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Jolien

Find her on Instagram @joleneonthego

 Connect with her on LinkedIn @Jolien Raemdonck

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #01: How to Thrive in your Digital Nomad Relationship with Anat & Orr

🎧  Episode #05: Dealing with High Anxiety While Building a Successful Online Business with The Remote Yogi

🎧  Episode #07: Overcoming Fears and Building Community with Digital Nomad Magali

🎧 Episode #21: 10 Years Of Traveling The World With Daisy

How To Get Back Into Your Flow When Feeling Stuck In Life With Nienke Nina

“If you are not curious, stay home. This lifestyle only works if you are curious and constantly tapping into your curiosity.”

The digital nomad lifestyle is an ongoing self-development journey and it’s not always as sexy and fun as it looks like online. That is the truth and on The Digital Nomads Daily Podcast, we share what is going on behind the scenes with experienced digital nomads.
As a digital nomad for over five years, Nienke Nina also experiences ups and downs and sometimes, this is very challenging. She is not alone in this because everyone experiences this in life and the digital nomad lifestyle isn’t a cure for never-ending happiness. So what can you do when you are feeling stuck in life? Or when you are unsure what your next steps are?

Journaling is a great way to understand yourself better and reflect on things in life. There are many different ways how you can journal and Nienke Nina recently had a clarity week, well ten days, where she was home alone and asked herself some deep questions.

7 reflection questions for digital nomads

Reflection question #01 What is really going on?

Maybe you are feeling uneasy or what is going on is crystal clear. Writing it down and dissecting it helps you deepen your understanding of what is truly on your mind. Sometimes it’s related to a specific event, but it can also be small things making you feel uncomfortable and stuck in life.

Reflection question #02 Why am I so worried or anxious about this?

Now that you understand what is causing you this nagging feeling, you can dive deeper into what makes you anxious. Nienke Nina looks at life as different pillars like health, financial security, giving back, professional growth and relationship. Your worries impact the health of each pillar so instead of thinking everything is jus bluuuh, focus on how your worries are impacting each pillar.

Reflection question #03 Where do I feel this emotion pop up in my body?

Whatever goes on in your mind impacts the body. The brain signals all sorts of things to the body every millisecond so your mind and body are undoubtedly connected. So if you feel happy, your body could feel lighter and when you feel anxious, your stomach could get upset. This differs from medical conditions; you should always consider seeing a doctor. The essence of getting to know your body better is finding signals whenever worry, anxiety or stress arise because sometimes the body can tell us more than the mind does.

Reflection question #04 What do I need to nurture myself?

Self-nurturing is super important because you don’t want to know what is going on but actually move forward. Remember that self-nurturing is not only about solving problems but could also be simply understanding them and accepting the situations. We live in a world where we always need to solve or improve something, but that isn’t always the best way to go about it. So create guidelines for yourself so that you can act on your feelings the next time they arise.

Of course, staying in a negative headspace isn’t healthy so your self-nurturing strategy will also focus on shifting the energy to a more positive state of being.

Reflection question #05 Which actions can I take to nurture myself?

So the next question focuses on shifting your energy. 4 action types can help you break through patterns and move towards a more comfortable and perhaps even more positive headspace.

Tap into your:

🌟 Playfulness: go for an adventure, play sports, or do something active outside the house
🌟 Nurture: Give back to people, animals, or the planet and join activities where you do good. If you want some inspiration on how digital nomads give back, check out the episodes below:
08: Leaving the corporate world behind and reinventing yourself with nomad Tarek
46: The 5 Best Ways To Find Friends For Digital Nomads With Marina
🌟 Lust: Focus on your relationship with your loved or go on a date so enhance your feelings of lust.
🌟 Curiosity: Get excited and do something new, like meeting new people or learning a new skill.

Why digital nomads want to have two notebooks

The last two questions in this process are focused on nurturing yourself. Self-awareness and personal growth are popular topics in the digital nomad community, including reflecting and focusing on learning. Not just when you feel stuck, but digital nomads have a habit of constantly tuning in with themselves so they can design and live the best lifestyle.

Growth doesn’t exist with our learning so while you are living life, you want to keep track of your learnings too. Especially during a clarity weekend, capturing your learnings can superpower you.

Nienke Nina travels with two notebooks. One tracks her overall well-being and is more like a journal, and her second notebook focuses on positive thoughts and exciting new ideas for her personal and professional life.

Reflection question #06 How am I feeling after nurturing myself?

Reflection question #07 What did I learn?

Looking for a remote job and you are totally stuck?

In this episode, Nienke Nina also shares a personal story about her remote job and career shift. If you are a remote job seeker or are switching careers, the episodes below are super insightful and inspirational.

53: Must-Know Resume Tips To Land A Remote Job with Michelle
12: The Secret Of Finding A Remote Job With Jordan Carroll
37: How To Find A Remote Job And Take Ownership Of Your Career With Juliana
48: How To Set Boundaries and Why You Want to Go Slomad with Kristin

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #:75: The Life-Changing Benefit Of Living Abroad With Nienke Nina

🎧  Episode #77: 5 Key Questions Before Starting A Side Hustle with Nienke Nina

🎧 Episode #79: How Side Hustles Boost Your Freedom Lifestyle Goals With Nienke Nina