Expat & Mobile Entrepreneurs, Infopreneurs, Netpreneurs & Solopreneurs

Are you, or do you want to become, an infopreneur?

2009-05-03T08:21:00.001+02:00

An infopreneur is a self-employed professional who uses his/her expertise and experience to create and sell infoproducts (ebooks, audio or video recordings, ecourses etc.). If you are an infopreneur or interested in this activity...
Click on the button to join Infopreneur Business, the online forum for infopreneurs

11 Internet business mistakes to avoid

2009-04-14T08:07:00.000+02:00

"If you've tried your hand at building an Internet-based business but haven't yet reach the success you want, find out these 11 deadly mistakes and how to avoid them.

Mistake #1 - Not Treating What You Do as a Business.

The difference between a hobby and a business is that a hobby doesn't make you money it costs you money.

If you're serious about starting a building a profitable online business approach seriously and focus on generating revenue.

Mistake #2 Being Distracted by Too Many Good Ideas.

You can light up a room with a light bulb, but you can cut through steel with a laser beam. The same is true with your effort and ideas.

Too many Internet-Entrepreneur-Wanna-Bes lack the will power to stay focused."...

If you want to read the whole article by Adam Urbanski that was published on the Biz Tip Blog (Denise Wakeman), please click here.

Starting a Business Overseas: a free ebook by Jo Parfitt

2009-02-20T08:01:00.000+01:00

I read again the ebook by Jo Parfitt Starting a Business Overseas today. It is quite interesting either for expats, who want for example to stay in their new country and become self-employed, or for expat spouses, who want to become self-employed and to create a home-business. In fact, you can find there all the substance of Jo parfitt's book The Expat Entrepreneur, but without all the examples of entrepreneurs (which are not always ideally chosen) and lists of resources.

I like in particular the checklists that can help you reflect about your potentiel as an entrepreneur (do you have what it takes?) and develop original business ideas. But, as I mentioned on this blog in my book review of The Expat Entrepreneur, I think the "entrepreneur" title is not quite appropriate, as it focusses solely on self-employed activities that are done from home and paid by the hour, quite often on a part-time basis.

Despite these restrictions, those expats or "trailing spouses" who want to develop a self-employment idea and haven't had any business experience yet will find the book quite useful. You can download it by clicking on the title of this article.

The cost of coaching for entrepreneurs

2009-02-10T09:46:00.002+01:00

A crucial question that potential coaching clients have to think about, before hiring me as their entrepreneur coach, is the question of the costs of the coaching.

Of course, there is the question of the fees. You can check my fees by clicking once on the "Payment Plan" button on the right. An entrepreneur should know that such costs cannot be considered separately from everything else, but by answering also the following questions:

What are the concrete and specific results that I expect from the coaching, in my business and in my life, within a time span of 6 to 10 months?
What are the specific rewards from achieving these results?
Are these rewards worth the investment in 6 to 10 months of coaching?
If I expect tangible results from the coaching, which increase in revenues will result from this? Will it cover at least a part of the coaching fees after 6 to 10 months?
If I expect more intangible results, how are they going to improve my quality of life - and therefore my performance as an entrepreneur?
What are the costs of NOT achieving the above-mentioned results if I don't have a coach?

Coaching is like anything else in life. There is a cost for doing something. There is also a cost for NOT doing this same thing - and not getting what you want.

Coaching is also not only an investment in money, but also an investment in time, energy and commitment. It requires basically a willingness to change - and to act. For example if you think that you don't get the revenues that you deserve, or if you are stuck in your business (so that everyday without coaching in order to help you get out of it costs you money) but you are not willing to change anything in the way you have been doing business until now, just don't do any coaching. This is also true if you think that you know already everything about your business, and the way to do business in general.

As we like to say in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), the beginning of insanity is doing the same things over and over again, but expecting different results...

Entrepreneurs (real ones I mean, not the ones who play the entrepreneur before closing their business after 2 or 3 years) should consider everything they do for their business - and for themselves - not as a cost factor, but in the perpective of return on investment (ROI).

I had very interesting discussions a few months ago with a young entrepeneur, who was creating his first business right after university, without having been an employee in the business world before. He said that young entrepreneurs like him needed coaching most urgently at the beginning, during the creation process and the 1st stage of the existence of the business - and that this is precisely the time when they have so little money that they cannot afford a small business coach.

This is interesting, because from my own experience 1° as an entrepreneur for almost 30 years and 2° as a business and entrepreneur coach, the phase in which an entrepreneur needs coaching most urgently is rather after a few years, when the business is growing. Coaching is then needed to master the growth - hiring and training employees, moving to bigger precincts, improving all the aspects of management, building an efficient organization that can eventually run without the boss, making the shift from entrepreneur to manager and leader, dealing with the increased pressure that comes from bigger projects and more employees, etc. This is often the phase in which a new business goes bankrupt, because all this requires more financing, which can be more difficult to get than if you are creating a start-up, particularly in these times of financial turmoil.

I explained to this young entrepreneur that saying that one cannot afford coaching because it is difficult to get money as a young entrepreneur is nothing more than a belief. As many beliefs, it comes from knowing only about one aspect of reality and the lack of experience with the many other possibilities, like raising funds for a new start-up. The interesting thing with beliefs is that the people usually behave in a way that corresponds to the belief, and therefore the belief is quickly backed with evidence and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On the other hand, if you believe in exactly the opposite - I consider business coaching so crucial that I will find the appropriate financing for my business AND for the coaching - the interesting things begin to happen. You look around for financing opportunities - business angels, venture capitalists, start-up financing from the state or other institutions, and of course your bank, and even your grand-mother or an old aunt. As you believe in yourself and in the future success of your business, you manage to convince and bring them to bring some money into the company. Or you find other ways of getting what you need and want, like having a part-time day job and creating your business during the rest of the time, which works very well for the growing number of Internet businesses - which in turn require less start-up capital anyway.

Needless to say, I also support my clients in doing exactly this!!!

I also think that, in the area of entrepreneurship in particular, it is important that coaching brings a return-on-investment (ROI), even though many results of coaching are of the intangible sort. Therefore, when I deal with young entrepreneurs who are starting from scratch, and can present a sound business and marketing plan for a business idea that is realistic and fits with their expertise, I can propose a payment plan that makes it easy to hire me as their coach. It is based on my belief that, after 6 or 10 months of coaching, the business should bring an increase in returns that cover largely the cost of coaching. If you are in this situation, don't hesitate to contact me so that we can have a discussion around this.

What are the next steps if you want to be coached by me?

2008-11-20T10:15:00.002+01:00

I spend a lot of time answering inquiries about my coaching services, usually with more or less the same questions. Therefore I attempt here to summarize the most usual answers that I provide to these questions.

Where have you been trained as a coach?
What is your academic and professional background?

You'll find (almost) everything on my Linkedin profile.

What kinds of clients do you coach, and in which format?

I coach specifically these target groups:

Expatriate executives or diplomats (individual coaching / group coaching / teleclass programs).
The accompanying spouses of expats or diplomats (group coaching / teleclass programs). Please note that I provide individual coaching to a trailing spouse only if he/she is an expat executive or an entrepreneur.
Multicultural teams, who can also be virtual teams at the same time.
International entrepreneurs / solopreneurs / infopreneurs - mainly in the various areas of information and knowledge transfer: coaches, trainers, writers, speakers, therapists, etc. I also coach increasingly creative people (writers, artists) and people who create an international business based on the production and/or commerce of goods, leveraging the Internet to do so. The coaching takes place in the form of individual coaching. Teleclass programs and coaching groups will be launched in 2009.

Please note that I don't coach persons who don't belong to these categories, but I can sometimes provide a referral to another coach.

You can find information about my coaching groups and teleclass programs on every specific blog. The list of all my blogs can be found at the bottom of every blog, like this one.

Can you send names and contact information of clients and explain on which projects or in which areas you are coaching them, or which results they achieved thanks to the coaching?

Absolutely not!

First of all, I take the ethics in my profession extremely seriously. Therefore I never provide the names and contact information of my clients to anybody for whatever reason. This applies to current and past clients alike. I never talk to anybody either about the individual projects or issues that my clients deal with through my coaching, as they are almost always very personal or business sensitive ones. I never do any exception with these ethical principles - otherwise it wouldn't deserve to be called ethics.

Coaching is a very individual process and a coach can be a good fit for one person and not for another one, or for a person dealing with an issue in which the coach is not specialized or knowledgeable enough. On the other hand, I also choose my clients. For example, I don't accept clients whom I consider as not coachable, who deal with issues that are of a therapeutic kind, or who have unrealistic expectations. That is why I request that potentiel clients have 3 individual coaching sessions with me before we sign a coaching contract together (see below). These 3 sessions gives also the potential client the opportunity to test if they like my coaching.

In order to be "coachable", you must be able, among other things, to set up your own mind as a self-sufficient human being, recognize and accept your own feelings fully, and deal accordingly. This is also another reason why I don't provide the names of my clients. I want to work only with people who don't need external advice to act and move forward.

Coaching is about finding your own solutions, not copying what other people do.

Anyway, as I only want to work with satisfied clients, any client who wants to cancel a coaching or teleclass subscription can do this anytime (see below).

In which languages does the coaching take place?

I totally trilingual French / English / German. I coach my clients mostly in English or French, but I am glad about any new client in German!

Do you provide free coaching sessions or free interviews?

Absolutely not, for many reasons:

I don't need to prove that I am a good coach, as my clients and partners confirm this everyday.
My time is very valuable and I am not interested in spending it with people who cannot afford individual coaching anyway (they can participate in my group programs) or who are not motivated enough to pay for 1, 2 or 3 individual sessions first.
I provide a lot of added value already in the first individual coaching sessions.
I am not desperate to find new individual clients. I want only very few individual clients - but only extremely motivated and competent ones. The rest of my business is focussed on the creation of group programs, e-learning and ebooks.
People who want to get acquainted with me as a coach can read all my 18 blogs and websites and subscribe to my newsletters.
If, after that, they want to experience my coaching "live", they can participate in my free teleconferences, my coaching groups or my teleclass programs.

But if I want to test your individual coaching, what can I do?

It is normal for potential clients to want to test my coaching and if they feel that I am a good fit for them.

At the same time, I select my clients and choose to work only with those who are extremely competent and highly motivated, as I want to work only with people who have the potential to achieve outstanding and long-lasting results quickly.

For all these reasons, I ask the interested persons to subscribe to one invidual coaching session, using the "Buy Now" button on the right of each blog. If both parties, the client and I, are interested in continuing to work together after this initial session, I ask the potential client to subscribe to 2 further individual sessions. At the end of the 3rd session, I'll propose a contract to the person or not, and this person will be free to sign up or not. It is a bidirectional testing process.

Another way to get acquainted with me as a coach, and as an expert in expatriation, intercultural communication and the various aspects of entrepreneurship and marketing, you have the possibility to participate in my teleclasses (for free or for a fee) and coaching groups first.

In the future, as the number of my teleclasses, coaching groups and e-learning programs will grow, I intend not to accept individual clients any more who haven't taken at least one of my group programs first.

How does the coaching take place?

The individual coaching takes place through the telephone, the Internet and an exchange of emails and electronic documents (assessments, questionnaires, ebooks, articles, and various other resources).

The client can choose between the coaching with a webcam, which is particularly useful for people who are very visual or kinesthesic (feelings oriented), and the coaching through a teleconference bridge, which allows to record all the sessions. The clients receives the recordings in MP3 quality a few hours after the session, without any additional cost. This is particularly useful for auditory people, or for clients with very challenging issues (for ex. entrepreneurs), who want to hear the sessions again in order to get all the "juice" out of the sessions.

Coaching is not about quick fixes, but a way to achieve deep and long-lasting results, even if the first positive results usually appear within the first weeks. Therefore I can accept only clients who, from the beginning, are willing to invest in at least 6 to 12 months of coaching. The coaching contract is on a subscription basis and not limited in time. The client and the coach can cancel anytime though (see below).

What does the coaching cost?

I provide a few 1-hour teleclasses or "Ask the Expat Coach" teleconferences for free. They are announced on my blogs.

Group coaching and teleclass programs are usually paid on a monthly subscription basis. The fees are always announced together with the program.

The fees for the initial individual sessions can be checked by clicking on the "Buy Now" button on the right side of the relevant blog. They are higher for entrepreneur (see my Expat Entrepreneurs blog).

Individual coaching above the 3 initial sessions is paid on a subcription basis. The monthly fees can be seen by clicking once on the "Payment Plan" button on the right side of each blog.

The fees for the coaching of entrepreneurs are higher than my fees for expatriates and diplomats. It can be found on my Expat Entrepreneurs blog.

Please don't subscribe to a payment plan for individual long-term coaching before the end of the 3rd initial session and before we have agreed upon a contract together!!!

All the coaching fees are paid exclusively per credit card on Paypal, which is a totally secured, international payment system. Paypal also manages the monthly payments on a subscription basis.

Please note that different conditions apply to the coaching for corporations (coaching of expatriates and multicultural virtual teams).

Can I cancel before the end once I signed up a coaching contract, or subscribed to a group coaching or teleclass program?

Absolutely, because I want to work exclusively with extremely motivated and highly satisfied clients anyway. You can cancel your coaching subscription on PayPal anytime. Please note that if you recently paid for a month in advance, I'll provide the remaining paid sessions if you want them. Otherwise, they cannot be reimbursed.

This cancelling policy applies not only to invididual coaching subscriptions, but also to teleclass or group coaching programs.

I am eager to start individual coaching with you as soon as possible. I have read everything above. Now, what are the next steps?

If you belong to the target categories of clients that I mentioned, the next step is to subscribe to your first initial test session using the 'Buy Now" button on the relevant blog.

I also ask test clients to send, prior to the initial session, an email to me answering these questions:

What are the 3 main goals that you want to reach within the next 1 or 2 years, or the 3 key areas of your life that you are currently trying to develop or improve? If you have more than 3, please choose the 3 that would make the most difference in your life or in your business once you have reached a positive outcome.
Which steps or actions are you already undertaking in order to achieve these results?
In which areas or for which specific steps (among the above) are you stuck or do you think you need my coaching most urgently?
Once you have reached these 3 main goals or objectives, or improved these 3 areas, which difference will it make in your life or business? What will you see, how will you feel, what will you do?

Please send your résumé, links to your websites or blogs, and an electronic picture, together with your answers to these questions. Please attach also your business plan and/or marketing plan, if they already exist. Needless to say, they will be treated absolutely confidentially.

Please note that this article applies to invididual clients, not to organizations or corporations who want to hire me as a coach.

In which phase of change are you?

2008-08-06T10:08:00.000+02:00

I like not only to read many books about the various aspects of coaching, entrepreneurship and marketing, but also to read them again after some time. Most of the time, I discover new nuggets of knowledge and insights.

This is also the case for The Successful Coach by Terri Levine, Larina Kase and Joe Vitale that I re-read yesterday. I found an interesting part about the five phases of change.

Precontemplation: The person is not yet thinking about making a change, although the situation is perhaps already unsatisfying.
Contemplation: The person has already started to think about change, but she is not sure about what to do.
Preparation: The reasons to change outweigh the reasons not to change. The person is determined to do something, but she is not quite ready for action.
Action: The person is ready to go ahead. She starts telling others about her plans.
Maintenance: The person has already been successful at implemeting changes. She tries to sustain the progress.

This is important for me as a coach for entrepreneurs. Now, I try to find out at what stage a person is when she contacts me about coaching. I receive mails and phone calls from people who are in the precontemplation phase. They just want to find somebody in order to complain about their life, what is not satisfactory in their job, and so on. Usually, they try to instrumentalize me and get advantage of my time without even considering hiring me as their coach. Needless to say, I don't enter in any conversation with them.

People who are at the 2nd stage of "contemplation" are often those who send emails to me where it is not even clear if they are interested in my coaching and in my programs or not. They say for example "I'll be retired soon and want to create some sort of home-business" or "I want to create a merchant website", but without being clear about what kind of products or services they want to sell there. Often, they ask at the same time about what are the possibilities of creating a business in Switzerland if you are a foreigner, or other difficult questions... In such a situation, the person is often obviously reluctant to hire me as a coach, because it would mean being clear about what they want and do what it takes to achieve it - and the paradox is that, at the same time, they seem to consider me as a allround expert, as if I were at the same time a business lawyer, a tax advisor, an accountant, etc. My reply to them is that if they need legal advice, they have to consult a lawyer, and so on. I also state clearly that I accept only clients that are crystal clear about what they want and have done their homework first. I am not going to coach anybody who doesn't have a clear business idea, doesn't know if he/she will can get a residence permit in Switzerland, and hasn't at least started a kind of business plan. If these persons need information, they can find already many targeted resources on this blog and my other blogs, including a few book recommendations. Unfortunately, I have often to make clear to this category of people that I run a coaching business, not a free information center about everything and anything. On top of that, I doubt that people who don't have enough autonomy and work power can succeed as entrepreneurs, and the role of a coach is not to compensate such lacks.

I also coach budding entrepreneurs who need support in the preparation phase, for ex. in order to create their business and marketing plan. My role then is to hold their hand during the planning phase. Unfortunately, some clients who are in the preparation phase are also difficult clients, because they are not ready yet to take action. This is OK if, at least, they are willing to learn from the coach, ready to make plans and willing to start implemeting them at the same time. If not, they are the kind of clients that I stop working with very quickly. As it is often frustrating to work with people in the preparation phase, I don't do individual coaching with them any more. Group programs for them will be launched soon.

As a coach, my ideal clients must be ideally in the action phase already for the coaching to be really efficient. Therefore, the person can make important shifts, develop strategies and take action in order to move quickly forward, while achieving long-lasting results. As an entrepreneur, it is also necessary to have created a business, financing and marketing plan, with my help or not. This allows the person not only to move step by step forward without being overwhelmed, but also to measure her achievements and results.

If you want to be coached by me, in which phase of change are you?

What kinds of results do my clients achieve with my coaching?

2008-07-24T15:25:00.018+02:00

I have different types of clients:

expatriates, diplomats and their trailing spouse
international or mobile entrepreneurs (who are often expats wanting to become self-employed in their new country, or expat spouses).

I have helped my expatriate or diplomat clients achieve consistently the following results over the years:

prepare for and manage the physical and psychological aspects of the relocation, the transition into a new culture (culture shock) and the integration process - together with their family
become immediately efficient at work in the crucial but stressful first 100 days
master the challenges of intercultural communication and leadership
lead multicultural and remote (virtual) teams successfully
learn the new language quickly and efficiently by using their own learning styles and NLP techniques
master the hurdles of intercultural communication at work (colleagues and team) and in private
create and develop new professional and social networks, make friends quickly with local people & maintain long-distance relationships (private and professional ones)
maintain a solid personal foundation despite the stress of coping with new environments, a new lifestyle, new relationships and a foreign culture
develop a good work/life balance an, in particular, find the time to discover the new country and culture
master the different phases of culture shock and integration
plan the next steps of their international career
find a new job abroad or at home
manage the often ignored difficulties of impatriation.

My entrepreneurial clients are mostly self-employed service professionals who are creating, or have already created, their own business based on their specific expertise, in the area of information management and knowledge transfer. They are trainers, consultants, coaches, writers, speakers, etc. Although working usually from their home-office, they develop their business internationally, based on the Internet, e-marketing and the NTIC (New Technologies of Information and Communication). I also enjoy very much working with creative people, like authors and artists, who combine their creativity with a business approach, and who want to leverage the possibilities of the Internet in order to do this. I am also increasingly interested in coaching entrepreneurs who produce and sell goods, not services, around some of the issues below (portable business, international strategy, leveraging the Internet, multiple streams of income).

I help my entrepreneurial clients

make the shift from being self-employed and trading their time for money, to being successful business owners
develop their business around their own vision, mission and values
identify their unique expertise and specialties
define 1 or 2 specific niches in which they become the absolute experts and which bring high revenues
create and develop programs and info-products, for ex. ebooks, teleclasses or teleconferences, audio and video recordings, seminars and events, etc.
identify and apply systematically the marketing methods that are the most appropriate to sell their products and services, and fit their personality
leverage everything they do in order to develop multiple streams of income
multiply their revenues through residual (recurring) income and even through passive income
develop their business as a "portable business" that can be run from anywhere in the world
automate, delegate or delete, in order to bring their business to the next level - so that it can ultimately be run and provide revenues even without them
use strategic partnerships to develop their business
develop an international strategy in order to leverage what they do in different languages.

I strongly believe that a service business can be successful only if it is based on excellence in the following areas:

expertise and technical / professional skills of the business owner
management (even a home-business requires strong management skills)
technique (Internet, organization of virtual trainings and events, use of software, etc.)
marketing (including all the new methods of marketing that are constantly being created, like social networks)
soft skills (communication at large, leadership, and intercultural business communication).

Too many service professionals make the mistake to believe that their technical skills and expertise are sufficient to become successful in areas where they don't event need to make investments, as they already own a computer, a phone, etc. My coaching aims at developing fully the potential of the 4 other crucial elements: management, technique, marketing and soft skills.

Last but not least, having an excellent work/life balance and sound personal foundations is also crucial for success as an entrepreneur. I also help my entrepreneur clients achieve this through my coaching.

Generally speaking, my clients also report a number of untangible and not measurable benefits as the result of the coaching: balance and fitness, concentration and focus on their goals, self-esteem, physical and mental dynamics, replacement of limiting beliefs by supporting ones, improvement of personal and business relationships and communication, just to name a few.

For French-speaking expat & mobile entrepreneurs

2008-07-15T11:30:00.000+02:00

Are you a French mobile entrepreneur, or do you speak French? If so, please note that I also have a blog called Entrepreneurs expatriés. You'll find also a small window on the right side that allows you to subscribe to the new articles and resources.

Interactive dialogue with the readers

2008-06-17T12:05:00.000+02:00

For the last few months, I have been spending quite a lot of time creating this blog and writing articles. But a blog is also an interactive too. Therefore, all my readers are kindly invited to use the "comment" function on this blog, below this article, in order to express their impressions, wishes, etc. Are there in particular any specific subjects that you would like to be covered or developed?

Thanks a lot and "see" you soon on this blog!

Book review: The Expat Entrepreneur, by Jo Parfitt

2008-05-15T20:57:00.004+02:00

The title of The Expat Entrepreneur, by Jo Parfitt, is slightly misleading. The book is in fact much more a motivating reading about how to become self-employed from home as an expat, doing what you are passionate about, and how to use your creativity in the development of new activities that can eventually bring money - all this based mostly on 23 interviews of expats who "have been there & done it".

There are a few practical parts, like the assessment "Do you have what it takes?" and the resources that are classified by countries. Despite the assessment, the first part of the book is rather in the style of the American self-help books, something like "if you want it, you can do it". The 23 interviews of "expat entrepreneurs" are quite interesting and there are a few specific resources behind each of them, which can provide food for further thoughts and research.

As I mentioned, the book is certainly about expats who became self-employed and it also motivates to do the same. But it cannot be considered a business book for budding entrepreneurs.

Many of the examples that are provided in the 23 interviews belong to the areas that I wouldn't really call a business, like painting, although I am always happy to see artists making a good living. Among the more "business-like" examples, I saw one case of a company that I know well and that has been constantly operating on the verge of bankrupcy for many years, and another one of a person who runs among other things a translation agency, but has a website in French that is very miserably translated, which is not a surprise considering that the translations into French are done... by a Danish person. Therefore, a better selection of the examples would have been needed.

I also regret that, although the book is written by a woman and its intended readers are expat spouses, i.e. mostly women, the examples that are provided are the typical traditional female occupations (teacher, artist, image consultant, women in various helping professions, etc.) as if we were still in the 50s. The very few examples that are more business oriented are the rather obvious ones that can provide a portable career for expats: relocation, web design and consultant.

What about women who are freelance engineers? Or who have a PhD and work as independant researchers and consultants for international organizations? And what about the people in the biotechnology sector who come from the US or Asia, in order to create a company in Europe in one of the recently created biotech clusters? Or the young finance specialists from Asia who come to London or Geneva in order to create a company in the financial sector? Aren't these people expat entrepreneurs too?

I also regret that, although the book is supposed to help budding expat entrepreneurs, such elementary words like a business plan or a marketing strategy are not even mentioned, although they are key elements of success for entrepreneurs of any kind. How to deal with bankers is also absent from the book, although, if we consider the missing examples that I mentioned before, it would even be appropriate here to mention examples of expat entrepreneurs who managed to get financing through business angels and venture capitalists.

I also regret that the book doesn't make a clear distinction between

the businesses that are created on a permanent local basis, like a bed-and-breakfast in France, by people who in fact are not expats, but immigrants probably for the rest of their life
and what I call the real "portable businesses", i.e. those that are run mostly through the Internet, indepently from the location of the business person, and which allow expat spouses in particular a huge flexibility.

Therefore, this book is a good resource specifically for expat spouses who are just looking for ideas and need some encouragement in the form of examples from real life. But expatriates and expat spouses who really mean business will have to find the resources they need about how to create a small business in a foreign country somewhere else.

Accepting and doing international payments with Paypal

2008-05-06T12:45:00.002+02:00

If you are an expat entrepreneur, your probably often face the problem of sending money abroad, or accepting payments from various foreign countries. I recommend using Paypal. You can open an account for free, and even create various types of payment buttons (in English or other languages) that you can put very easily on your website or blog, as I did on the right side of the present blog. The fee for money transfers is very small, and in any case much lower than what banks usually charge for international money transfers. Your clients can pay you through Paypal per credit card. They can also transfer money from their bank account to their personal Paypal account, and then pay you "manually" - you just have to send a payment request per email through Paypal. You can also use your Paypal account the other way round, for example in order to transfer money back home.

If you are interested in opening a Paypal account, just click on the banner here:

What is a "portable business"?

2008-04-17T16:41:00.003+02:00

I created the notion of "portable business" in the context of expatriates and expat spouses back in 2007, when I launched several blogs either for expats or for international or mobile entrepreneurs. In fact, I haven't defined yet what I meant with this, apart from my coaching sessions with clients that deal with this.

The term "portable business" came to my mind as the quite obvious alternative to the "portable career" - a term which was coined by Joanna Parfitt, who wrote among other things A Career in Your Suitcase and A Moveable Marriage.

In fact, creating your own "portable business", usually from home in a foreign location, is quite often the sole alternative for:

the accompanying spouses of expatriates who have difficulties finding a suitable job in their new location, in particular if they are highly qualified
for expatriates who, at the end of a 2 or 3 year assignment, want to stay in the new country because they love their life there so much
for people who have a partner or a spouse from another country and want to move there.

The development of the Internet, the email and the NTIC (New Technologies of Information and Communication) have made it quite easy in the last few years to move from one place to another, while working from home for distant clients. If you focus on long-distance clients instead of developing only a local client base, the huge advantage is that your business becomes really portable - you don't lose your clients along the way if you have to follow your husband or wife once again to another country, and don't have to start again from scratch.

The principles of the "portable business" being laid, a few conditions are necessary in order to be very successful:

to have accumulated already a lot of professional experience beforehand and to be an expert in a particular area
to master perfectly all the technical aspects of the Internet and the above-mentioned NTIC
to have invested a lot of time, efforts, and maybe money, to learn the methods of traditional and, above all, electronic marketing.

Of course, these conditions have to be added to all the prerequisites for people who want not only to create their own business... but to be successful with it, like:

starting with a good business plan and marketing plan
good organization and time management skills
the capacity to motivate yourself
being self-reliant and able to work alone all day long
the capacity to overcome the ups-and-downs or the rollercoaster phases of a business
the ability to play at least 10 different roles on every single day, from cleaner to financial director
and many others...

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

2008-03-17T19:24:00.001+01:00

I just published an article on my other blog, "Expat Coaching", about EFT or the Emotional Freedom Technique. You can read the article here.

What is an Infopreneur (Wikipedia)

2008-03-12T19:39:00.001+01:00

I already used the term "infopreneur" on this blog several times. In fact, this is what I do: I translate and create ebooks and articles, tele-programs, and other kinds of information products, or infoproducts, that will be sold soon on the Internet.

Being, or becoming, an "infopreneur", is also probably one of the best types of "portable business" that an expatriate, or an expat spouse, can create for him- or herself - and I also coach my entrepreneur clients on doing this.

Additional information on this subject will be published here in the next weeks and months. But, before, maybe it would be useful to define what an infopreneur is?

There is such an excellent definition of "infopreneur" on Wikipedia that I simply copy it here:
"Infopreneur is a person whose primary business is gathering and selling electronic information.^[1] This term is a neologism portmanteau derived from the words "information" and "entrepreneur". An infopreneur is generally considered an entrepreneur who makes money selling information on the Internet. They use existing data and target an audience.

The term is often used on the Internet. In November 2006, the term first appeared in the printed book title From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur.^[2]

Before the explosive popularity of the Internet, at the turn of the millennium, such an occupation already existed. Prior to the wide-spread availability of the Internet, these legacy audio tapes, audio CDs, CD-ROMs, videos, talk shows, and conferences. The classification of infopreneur has created a new style of business on the Internet, which allows anybody with a computer and an Internet connection to start a businesses by publishing information that may appeal to a specific market. inforpreneurs sold their information in other mediums such as

There are generally two kinds of infopreneurs: those that sell information they have amassed on their own and those that earn commissions from selling information that they know nothing about. The latter may be considered more of a "information trafficker".

[edit] Online publishing

As the infopreneur is his/her own developer, marketer, producer, and distributor - some infopreneurs consider themselves being in the publishing business. Unlike in traditional print publishing, the infopreneur puts down, in electronic form, what he/she knows from experience or what he/she learned and passes them on to the world through publishing on websites, blogs, ebooks, emails, etc.

[edit] Blogs and advertisements

Information traffickers do consider themselves infopreneurs. Afterall, they are making money off of information. Many of them utilize the power of the World Wide Web - creating web sites and blogs to act as their storefront.

The infopreneur may attract traffic to his/her site by manipulating their site to appear higher on search engine results.^[3] This may be done by creating a site that is robust in information, and configuring META keywords and descriptions that accurately describes the web page. But often, infopreneurs that are out to get a "quick buck", will create a mash-together of information by publishing popular, sought after content, often incorporating RSS feeds from more popular sites. The infopreneur then makes money from Adsense ads, affiliate links, referrals and leads, and/or selling ebooks that are related to the search parameters and keywords. Essentially, these infopreneurs "piggy-back" on already established information. In fact, there are many such splogs that copy verbatim the articles from Wikipedia."

[edit] References

^ Farlex. The Free Dictionary. [1] (retrieved Sep. 19, 2006).
^ Chandler, Stephanie (November 28, 2006). From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur: Make Money with books, E-Books and Information Products. Wiley, 240. ISBN 9780470050866.
^ Mann, Charles C. (2006). "Spam + Blog = Trouble". Wired 14 (9). (Online version available. [2]).

10 Top 10 Lists for Entrepreneurs

2008-02-24T00:20:00.001+01:00

"The Best Top 10 Lists for Home and Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs" is a catalogue of 10 lists, which in turn contain Top 10 lists of advice about how to run a home business or small business, and which mistakes are to be avoided. A great resource for budding entrepreneurs!

The 10 Ten Lists were created by Coachville, the biggest coaching networking and training institute in the world.

A new breed of professional expat spouse: the entrepreneur

2008-02-14T21:54:00.001+01:00

This article was published originally on http://www.expats.org.uk/. It presents the book "The Expat Entrepreneur" by Jo Parfitt. You can click on the link in the right column of this blog to order the book directly on Amazon.com.

"Jo Parfitt looks at a new breed of professional expat spouse - the entrepreneur.

I have been running my own business for longer than I have been an expat wife. In fact, my first opportunity to leave '9-5' arose when I was just 25 years old. A year later I was living in Dubai, so working for myself seemed an obvious choice. Since then I have created and maintained what I call a 'shifting portfolio of portable careers'. Most have had something to do with writing, and so, during my 18 years abroad I have been a copywriter, journalist, CV writer, author, publisher and writing teacher and now help others to write their books. But I am also passionate about the concept of portable careers in general and have developed a range of books and workshops that focus on this topic too. Oh, and I have sold Dorling Kindersley books, made and sold date chutney and even framed my mother's watercolours of Oman to sell at Muscat craft fairs. Perhaps I am just a 'serial entrepreneur'?

You may not be comfortable describing yourself as an entrepreneur. It may be a term that makes you think of Bill Gates, Richard Branson or Anita Roddick. If you are happier to consider that you are 'freelance', 'self-employed', 'work for yourself' or 'run your own business', that's fine. It's the same thing.

For many expatriate partners, like you, working for yourself is the solution to the dual career problem. Running a business of some kind that can move when you do is the best way to retain a professional identity and even sanity while on the move. Work, for me, is a necessary constant amidst all that change.

Do you have what it takes?
So, could you be an expat entrepreneur? Ivan Gould recently conducted a survey to ascertain whether women or men were more cut out to run their own businesses. He found that sex had nothing to do with it. Both required the same five traits, which are:

Desire for control
Strong self-motivation
Problem-solving abilities
Flexibility and lateral thinking
Willingness to take risk

Look around you, at the proactive spouses in your community, whether they are working for wages or not, and you will see that they possess similar traits to those above.

Meet the expat entrepreneurs
Emma Bird first went to Milan to work as a journalist but before long had tired of the long hours. With a desire to be more in control, which also demonstrated her flexible thinking, she trained as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), took a risk and changed career. When she met Mario, Emma took another risk and moved to Sardinia with him. Here she found few work and networking opportunities solved the problem by deciding to start her own network, at www.weaveweb.it . Now that she has been self-employed for several years, yet still in her 20's, Emma's self-motivation can be seen in the fact that she has continued to add more skills to her portfolio and to spot opportunities. She still works as a freelance journalist, is writing a book on living in Italy for How To Books and now runs a second website offering advice to those who are thinking of coming to live in Italy, at www.howtoitaly.com .

Emma is perfect illustration of the kind of expatriate, female, entrepreneur that we are seeing these days. Over in Dubai, Maria McMahon began life in marketing, moved into business services and has now jumped on the recruitment band-wagon, where she runs Elite HR Services from her own villa. Debbie Jenkins was determined to create a business that moved when she did. Now based in a cave in Spain, she runs the virtual publishing company, Bookshaker.com with her brother, Joe, who is based in the UK. In April their book 'And Death Came Third' reached number 2 on Amazon.

Susanna Reay is an expat spouse based in Switzerland. She has just conducted research for a dissertation on the networking habits of female expatriate entrepreneurs, which highlights 'the emergence of a new breed of entrepreneur - 'the expatriate female entrepreneur [EFE]'.

Reay has discovered that while not all expatriate female entrepreneurs are also 'trailing spouses' their motivation to start a business shows that they are, indeed, natural entrepreneurs and do not follow this path simply through necessity.

'She [the EFE] is an 'idealistic sustainer', wanting to fulfil her business dream whilst maintaining a healthy work/life balance. This is made possible by being an astute businesswoman, with a clear vision and a business plan that is portable for possible future life-changes. She is generally aged between 31 and 50, multi-lingual, confidant, highly motivated, and a conscious and proactive networker,' writes Reay.

Having just had the privilege of attending the Shell Outpost Global Conference in Houston, I have been overwhelmed by the passion, drive, determination and problem-solving ability that was to be seen in each of the 88 Shell spouses who were there. The majority of them were working as volunteers, helping to run a range of settling in services for other Shell spouses, wherever they were living in the world. Interestingly, Reay considers the desire to be part of a large network as intrinsic to this expat entrepreneur, continuing:

'The EFE's sociability is core to her success and motivation in networking, along with a willingness to adapt and change with different locations. She builds a strong, supportive network of close family and peers to provide inspiration, motivation, emotional support, and tangible or informational resources when required. The EFE affiliates herself with several formal networks to help establish herself into the community as a serious business person [. . . ] Her strength lies in spotting niche markets that need to be met with an international yet personal touch to the business offering.'

Whether you have ambitions to be the next Gates or Roddick, to do business from your kitchen table or just to hang onto your professional identity you can do it. You are an expatriate spouse. You are a born entrepreneur.

Jo Parfitt is an expatriate partner, who has lived and worked overseas for almost 20 years, in five different countries. She makes her living from writing, speaking and teaching about what she has learned along the way. Find out more at her websites www.career-in-your-suitcase.com and www.summertimepublishing.com, where you can sign up for her free ezine, The Inspirer.

Susanna Reay is a British expatriate, currently residing in Basel, Switzerland. This research was completed for the final part of achieving an MBA with Brunel University, UK. Susanna currently works as a freelance consultant to small companies, helping them to develop an integrated business, marketing and design strategy for future growth.
Contact: susereay @ hotmail.com

Networking: a big issue for some expat entrepreneurs

2008-01-24T16:53:00.000+01:00

Some expatriate entrepreneurs (and in particular so-called "solopreneurs") experience a double challenge in the area of networking. They feel isolated working from home, without any support from colleagues and teams, and they find it difficult to network locally because they are not fluent enough in the local language.

Another aspect of this problem is that the situation of expatriation often works like a magnifying glass for situations who would barely be considered as problems at home, or who would be approached differently. For example, if you move to another town within your own country, you might be thrilled at the idea of meeting new people and take active steps towards this purpose, instead of feeling overwhelmed and staying at home watching TV because you don't know anybody. Do you remember the Peanuts cartoons and the little dog lying on the roof of his kennel, with his paws above his head, thinking "Nobody loves me"?

In the wave of the new social networking solutions that are now developed on the basis of Internet, a new system appeared a bit more than a year ago: the Meetup meetings. You can go to the website, enter your country and town, and get a list of the Meetups that already exist in your area. They are quite often in English, or bilingual, and focused mainly on expats, or with a high percentage of them. If there are not many Meetups to choose from yet, you'll get a lost of all the possible Meetups by subjects, and quite often several local people have already signed up in order to be informed once a group is created.

Therefore, if you are a lonely expat and/or entrepreneur, just take the initiative and create your own Meetup. It costs, according to the payment plan you choose, something between 150 and 200 US$/year, but it is certainly worth every cent.

You are invited to post comments about this article directly on the blog. You can also use the "comment" function to put some information about your local Meetups, or even the ones you created after having read this article!

For expat entrepreneurs in Switzerland

2008-01-21T16:56:00.000+01:00

The Swiss Entrepeneur group on Yahoogroups is a great mailing list about entrepeneurship in Switzerland. If you join as a member, you also get access to the message archive.
Click to join SwissEntrepreneur

For expat entrepreneurs in Geneva / Switzerland

2008-01-15T11:28:00.000+01:00

The "Cercle des Dirigeants d'Entreprise", which is based in Geneva, organizes the next "Place des Affaires" at the International Conference Centre (CIC) near the Place des Nations in Geneva. It will be open to the public on January 22nd-25th. I plan to attend at least the two meetings for entrepreneurs at 9:00 AM on the 22nd and 23rd. Please contact me at office[at]aplusb-coaching.info if you wish to attend too, so that we can meet and discuss our respective projects. Click here for more information about the whole conference. Click here if you wish to attend specifically the "Petits déjeuners des start-up" on the 22nd and 23rd at 9 AM and register directly.

Unwork - Just What Is It and How Can You Get Some? - by Andrea Lee

2008-01-14T14:09:00.000+01:00

Andrea J. Lee is one of my mentor coaches and the developer of very powerful "multiple streams of income" systems for coaches and other information professionals. I reproduce here an article that she published a few months ago. It contains many original ideas - although they cover, in fact, many things that I have to deal with when I coach clients, and in particular entrepreneur clients, like the underlying fear of success, or allowing yourself to be successful only if it is the result of hard work and long hours.

"With apologies to Byron Katie's important 'Work,' I've been using the phrase Unwork quite a bit lately to help foster the premise that working hard is NOT the way to riches or happiness.

For some people working hard is a license to feel justified about complaining. Or feeling self-important.

For others it's a way to pull the wool over their eyes about the fact they aren't succeeding - they're doing everything they can, aren't they? Exhaustion is the proof of this statement. It can't be their fault because they're trying so very hard.

Still others are subconsciously using hard work as a way to avoid something. Could it be fear of success? or almost any other fear/feeling?

I've been exposed to enough variations on the theme of hard work that I feel I can say with confidence:

The message "Work hard and you'll be rewarded" is MOST useful to people in authority (teachers, parents, church leaders, politicians, etc.) Tired people (adults and children) are less likely to act up.

What I know for sure is that it takes a certain amount of guts to think about Unworking. Hard work is a potent anesthetic that like any addiction numbs us to life. Time to wake up.

Let me be clear that Unwork isn't about being lazy. And it isn't some fancy way of talking about delegation or time management either. I hate to say it's a kind of 'consciousness' as that's just too floofy for many people to care about, but it is in fact what it is. And...there are specifics that can help you start 'doing' unwork in a concrete way so this isn't all just ethereal stuff.

Register for the no-fee Open House TeleSeminar on Unwork (post coming soon) if you'd prefer a more interactive version of this. But here are my notes in response to those of you who don't want to wait. ;) Remember - Suzanne Falter-Barns is spearheading the call so I'm sure she'll have much to contribute on her end too.

Or, check out the radio show Pam Slim did with me on 'Taking the Struggle out of building your business' over at VoiceAmericaBusiness. You can download the program here.

Now here are my notes on just what Unwork is and how you can start integrating some...

(1) What does Unwork mean?

The first step to understanding the concept of Unwork is noticing that for everything you do, there is a hard way and an easy way. Whether it's picking a photograph at IstockPhoto to illustrate your blog post; putting together your new TV stand or making ends meet this month, there IS a hard way to reach your goal. Perhaps it's the road you're most used to taking.

So the best way to help connect you with the concept of Unwork is to ask you to assume with me there IS an easier way to what you are doing. So pick a challenge you're working on this week. Or a long-standing obstacle in your life. My assumption is going to be that there is an easier way. If you were to play along, what comes up?

This is about practice because letting go of the habit of thinking life has to be hard isn't going to be an overnight thing. So practice challenging yourself. Gradually your way of 'being' in your business will become less onerous.

Just start with one thing. Go ahead, you can think of one thing that you're annoyed at that feels terribly hard...what is it?

Unwork = noun. Definition = a contrarian idea that for everything human beings seek to do or achieve in life there is a hard way and an easy way or unwork way. Especially applicable in entrepreneurial settings.

(2) What might be a useful metaphor that conveys the sensibility of Unwork?

Unwork can feel like a foreign concept the first time you hear it so I like to use metaphors to help us get intuitive about it. Here are two:

Metaphor #1: If you were hanging a calendar on your wall, you wouldn't go to the basement to get your power tool, right? Yet so many of us in our daily 'to dos' are doing just that - using a power tool to put in a tack.

We might be spending way too much time to complete something...or doing a menial task at the time of day when our brains are most creative...whatever it is, there is an ineffective use of energy to accomplish the task in front of us...using a power tool on a tack when just your thumb would do the trick.

How are you burning out a power tool doing something little in your business?

Is it possible you're giving a long lecture to your teenager when a small curfew reminder would do the trick?

Metaphor #2: The Sun and the Wind fable, excerpted from the book 'Money, Meaning & Beyond' and previously posted here.

Okay, I lied. There is another very colourful and slightly PG-13 metaphor that illustrates Unwork to a 'T'. I think it's the MOST effective metaphor there is for some people but I'm not going to post it here. I'm being a little coy here alright? Okay maybe a little chicken too. :-) So if you'd like me to post it I will, but encourage me a little would you? I'm not a prude (especially in 1-on-1 coaching sessions) but I'm still not sure how colourful to be here...

(3) What are some recent examples of how you apply Unwork in your life?

Example #1: After being self-employed nearly 10 years, I know there are two major activities that consistently generate income. For me, these are speaking and writing; they may be different for you. But speaking takes a proportionately HUGE amount of my time, effort, patience from husband and family, etc. in order to do. Not to mention health and other environmental costs.

By contrast, writing takes up much fewer resources and - important - does almost as good a job generating business as speaking does.

Unwork decision I made? Speak even less frequently than I do now, and make every speaking engagement really count. Net result: I have much more energy and time to spend writing. Ultimately this gives me better results (more money) for less work over the course of the year - exactly what was proven when I visited my accountant last week - gross income increased only 10-20% last year, but we had about the same amount of expenses and both partners worked about 40% less. That's a great raise as a result of unwork.

Example #2: Here's a smaller example.

When searching for a great photo to illustrate a blog post, I discovered a friend who was looking and looking on IstockPhoto. We all do the equivalent of something like this - go through all the bids on Elance for example, or researching an additional hour when you've already found a good link.

What if you were to stop? Meaning, stop when you find the first useable photo? When you find a decent bid on Elance that meets all your criteria?

We spend a lot of time looking for what could possibly might be a slightly better answer. But all the while we already have a serviceable solution.

Does this apply to you? If you haven't been able to think of a place to concretely apply Unwork, this should help. Make a list of things you work unnecessarily hard at now and practice letting your work go.

Insert a food-related Andrea-ism here: Like trimming the fat off the steak before you barbeque, you can trim wasted energy off many of your daily tasks, if only you start thinking the Unwork Way.

Remember...Hope is not a strategy. Neither is hard work.

In conclusion...do you know the saying 'work smart, not hard?' I don't know who said it originally but I have a huge dislike for it. Why? I just don't think it's a useful phrase when it comes to implementation.

The phrase 'work SMART' has the exact opposite effect...in fact already-smart people are the ones who are most guilty of working too hard in their businesses. Their try to 'smart' their way out of problems when simplicity would be better. Since smartness already gets them in trouble, more smart thinking isn't going to make things better.

So I say dare to be different. Embrace unwork instead by picking a few clear action steps that lesson what you do in order to get a result, today. Now that you understand just what Unwork is about...you have no excuses!"

Have a comment on this article? Click Here to Share!

Andrea Lee is the author of Multiple Streams of Coaching Income, Money Meaning and Beyond and Pink Spoon Marketing (with Tina Forsyth). She has helped businesses around the world reach six and seven figure financial success while creating lives rich with meaning and laughter.

Andrea mentors, teaches, coaches and writes from her home in Calgary, Alberta. To reach Andrea visit her website at: http://www.andreajlee.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrea_Lee

3 Start-Up Tips for Expat Entrepreneurs

2008-01-03T16:00:00.000+01:00

You can read the 3 tips by clicking on the title of this article or here. The tips alone are rather obvious and the list is a bit short, but the article is very valuable because of the examples of expat entrepreneurship that are presented under each tip.

Books for expat entrepreneurs

2007-11-30T12:35:00.000+01:00

I added recently a few books which are particularly useful for expat entrepreneurs and infopreneurs. Each book that is presented has a direct link to www.amazon.com. Please have a look at the column on the right side of this blog! Some of them could even be the perfect present for your expat friends (or yourself?).

Kindle, a new electronic reader for e-books and magazines

2007-11-26T11:47:00.000+01:00

Amazon just launched its new electronic reader, with which you can download and read e-books and American and international newspapers and magazines. This is certainly a very interesting device for expats who want to subscribe to their newspapers from home without any delay, and to read the latest books without having to pack a whole library in their suitcases...

Setting up your own business in Germany

2007-11-21T15:58:00.000+01:00

"If you listen to some gloomy voices, you would think you would have to be mad to invest in Germany, with its bureaucracy, high unemployment and flatlining economy. In fact, many expatriates are choosing to set up businesses here. James Kennaway looks at how expats can start companies here, and the opportunities and pitfalls that await them."

The rest of the article can be found here: Click here.

Are you an expat entrepreneur in Geneva?

2007-10-25T15:27:00.001+02:00

A new Meetup event is being created in Geneva: the Geneva Entrepeneur Meetup group. Please find below a description of the group from the Meetup website. As I plan to attend the first meeting next week, on Tuesday 30 October, I'll write more about it afterwards. If you wish to come, please click on the title or on the button on the right of this blog (downwards). There is also another Meetup specifically for high-tech entrepreneurs (biotech, Internet, electronics & telecommunications, etc.) and their partners (business angels, venture capitalists), which I attend as much as I can. It is called the Geneva Open Coffee Meetup Group. It is really amazing to notice how many bright people from the whole world are attracted to Geneva, or want to stay here after a short-term expat assignment, and have a high potential and great ideas in order to create their own business here.

If you are an expat entrepreneur in another location, please click on the Meetup buttons in the right bar of this blog in order to find a suitable Entrepreneur Meetup near you.

"MEETUP, STARTUP.
Networking for people who are involved in a startup, running a business or looking to invest in one. Chill, chat. Expand your environment.
WHO ?
To those who are starting up, running or looking to invest, or would like to be in the future. Corporates with skills welcome.
FIELDS
No rules, the variety is great to get discussions going.
FEEL
Friendly. Laid-back. Conversational. Unstructured. Enjoyable. Open to those with ideas to share.
ORG
Monthly"

Owning a Business

2007-07-25T16:28:00.000+02:00

Secrets to Successful Entrepreneurship

2007-07-02T15:59:00.001+02:00

Resource for the trailing husbands of expats or diplomats

2007-06-21T21:48:00.002+02:00

"Trailing husbands" or male trailing partners of expatriates, diplomats or international civil servants are a new phenomenon and their numbers are increasing. Apart from several issues that they they have to deal with, that are exactly the same as in the case of expat wives, they also encounter specific situations and problems. For example, the clubs and networking opportunities for expat spouses are mainly female. Stay-at-home dads are largely mistunderstood in many cultures. Even if a trailing husband welcomes at first the opportunity of taking 2 or 3 sabbatical years, the "hole" that appears afterwards on the résumé can be dangerous for the further development of his career.

I just created a new mailing list on Yahoogroups specifically for trailing husbands who want to discuss these issues and situations.

In order to register, please click here.

10 Ways to a Killer Blog

2007-05-22T12:25:00.001+02:00

Tips for presentations with slides or Powerpoint

2007-05-07T22:00:00.000+02:00

Invasion of the Entrepreneurs

2007-05-01T22:37:00.000+02:00

I copy below a great article about the differences in entrepeneurship in Europe (particularly France and Germany) and the USA. The article is a bit old (2000), but still highly interesting. It was published in Computerworld (click to see the original web page).

Invasion of the Entrepreneurs

Steffan Heuer 08/02/2000 12:01:01

SAN FRANCISCO (02/08/2000) - Most European entrepreneurs follow a well-beaten path in the United States. They take their ideas to Silicon Valley, gather a team of engineers and MBAs, and set up shop amid the faceless maze of office parks. They play it safe.

A rare few, however, seek a bigger thrill. They pack up and go home, carrying their crusade for innovation - and their IPOs - back to Europe. There they battle with conservative venture capitalists and timid partners; they stave off prohibitive stock-options regulations in France; they endure hardships they'd never face in the States, all to prove they can make the high-tech revolution work in the Old World.

"The single biggest asset I brought back [to Germany] was the optimistic mindset," says German engineer Gerhard Fettweis. "Every single researcher [in the U.S.] has some loony idea he or she is working on. And a year later, just like that, they turn it into a company."

After four years in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fettweis decamped in 1994 and moved to the eastern German city of Dresden to assume a newly established chair in mobile telecommunications funded by telecom giant Mannesmann. Last June, the 37-year-old professor founded a chip company, Systemonic, to develop integrated circuits for mobile communications devices, so-called digital signal processors. He has $5 million in venture funding and a staff of 20. His company is a poster child for the East's economic revival since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Of course, he'd not be where he is now if he'd listened to his doctorate adviser in Germany, who told him in 1988 to embark on what Fettweis disparagingly calls "the classic German quest: Get a [research] assignment, perhaps take out a loan and then pull yourself up by your bootstraps."

The old-school engineer-cum-entrepreneur in Germany always planned for the worst-case scenario, Fettweis says. "Their exit strategy was to get bought by Siemens or, even more absurd, to buy back the stakes in their company. It still happens. If I hear somebody talking about approaching a bank with a business plan, they're already heading down the wrong path."

That's why he quit his lucrative job as head of a research group at TCSI in Berkeley, Calif., and went back to Dresden. He wanted to evangelize his students and colleagues, to convince them that they could and should start their own companies. "I was literally trying to get disciples," Fettweis adds, "to create the mentality, the hunger for a startup team."

He encouraged his students to spend one semester out of 10 abroad, advice that only half of them accepted, to Fettweis' disappointment. "We need more people to learn on-site in Silicon Valley to catch up in the next five years," he notes.

THE MARCO POLO EFFECT You could call it entrepreneurial tourism. John Griffin, an American expat living near Geneva, calls it the "Marco Polo effect" - Europeans traveling to the United States to learn new ways of doing business.

"The idea is to go off to this exotic place, see what's going on," says Griffin. "You can't get it by reading or hearing about it. You have to experience firsthand the lack of fear, the feeling that building a company is a natural thing."

Griffin moved from San Francisco to Switzerland four years ago and now advises startups in Austria, France and Germany on the nuts and bolts of entrepreneurial financing. The 49-year-old former Hewlett-Packard executive deals with the intricacies of structuring options packages in countries that until very recently didn't even consider the stock market a sound investment for individuals.

But aside from the urge to bring American know-how back home, Griffin says there's another reason why Europeans are returning to the old country: quality of life. "Europeans go to the U.S. and see how exciting it is, but then they realize that other things are missing. Things like culture, lifestyle, the well-roundedness of life are not as good in Silicon Valley. So they say, 'I'd rather go back and try to do exciting stuff at home.'" But before there's a true shift in the status quo, Griffin adds, more entrepreneurs will have to make the trip to America. Once the entrepreneurs reach critical mass, he says, change will build on its own.

To push things along, the European VC scene needs to evolve as well. Financing is now about where it was 15 years ago in the United States. "Three years ago they were 30 years behind," Griffin says. "The catch-up rate is ever-accelerating." [See "Old World, New Economy,".] Why does Griffin put up with the laggards? For the same reason Europeans go home. "If you know the recipe to make bread, you can apply it anywhere," he notes. "It's the business equivalent to technology transfer. Besides, I like life much better over here."

LE COLD SHOULDER Croissants, cobbled streets, free schools - nice perks, sure, but not enough to lure every European back across the Atlantic. "Honestly, most of my friends don't go back after spending three, four, five years in the Valley. After that much time, you've become a local," says Pierre Cesarini, CEO and founder of Paris-based software maker TempoSoft. He lived in the Bay Area for nine years, rising through the ranks of Apple Computer, before his wife finally talked him into going home.

Repatriation was a double-edged sword for Cesarini, 36. "I knew things were slowly changing, but I had lost touch with France," he says. "Going back was about as hard as first coming to the States in 1989. I knew more people in the U.S.; I could have put a team with global experience together faster and come up with funding more easily." Instead, Cesarini got "le cold shoulder" from the risk-averse financial community in France. "They want to see not just a business plan," he adds. "You need to have a team, a product, customers. But if you have all three and still seek VC funding, I think you did something wrong."

After knocking on doors for a year, the determined Frenchman finally scored $5 million for his idea: software for enterprise workforce management. "I think that was a first in France, to get that much funding without a line of code, without a customer," he declares. He launched TempoSoft in April 1998 and now has 40 employees in France, the U.K. and the U.S. Sales are expected to hit $10 million this year.

Cesarini sees an upside to leaving the easy access in Silicon Valley for the stodgy ways of his native France. "The odds are much higher," he says. "You have to accomplish more in a much more fragmented market; you have to deal with three or four countries in the first year, otherwise you will be perceived as a local company. On the other hand, valuations in Europe are 10 times under what you see on the Nasdaq. There's enormous potential."

FRONTIER EUROPE Youssef Ghazal, Clemens Henle and two other students from Switzerland and Germany took their Harvard MBAs and their Silicon Valley exposure and went back to Europe to get seed money as fast as they could.

The four had been runners-up in their school's high-profile business-plan contest with a scheme for Vitago, their European knockoff of Drugstore.com, and immediately had East Coast VCs banging on their dorm-room doors. Instead, they moved to Munich a few months after graduating last May. Why haggle with European financiers instead of taking the easy U.S. money? Because the payoff is bigger in the less-crowded European market, explains Vitago cofounder and CFO Ghazal, 32.

The Austrian investment banker gives a lot of the credit for his initiative to Silicon Valley, where he got religion within a week. "You feel like a martian walking around there," he recalls. "Everything is new, everybody is talking shop all the time. It's hard not to want to do something immediately, too."

Before he went on Harvard's annual WesTrek excursion to California, Ghazal figured he'd do consulting. Then he didn't know what to do anymore. "I sat down with my girlfriend and spent night after night talking about it," he says.

"What's my unique selling proposition as a European?"

He decided to take his insight and his management tools back to Europe. "We figured the opportunity is much bigger back home," agrees cofounder Henle, a 28-year-old German who's now VP of purchasing at Vitago. "Our goal was to become players in e-commerce from the very start. Sure, we debated whether to start a business in the United States, like others from Europe do all the time."

Advantages, Henle points out, were a language and culture they're familiar with and the window of opportunity that's been left open by Europe's lagging adoption of the Net. Young entrepreneurs can pursue a niche without bruising competition and get huge exposure should they succeed.

Still, if they hadn't gone West first, there likely wouldn't be Vitago, which just closed its second financing round in the double-digit millions.

"The impulse from the U.S. and Silicon Valley in particular was absolutely necessary," Henle says. "It liberates you from that German mindset to get a job and climb the career ladder over decades. You realize people in Silicon Valley are just normal guys who were raised with entrepreneurial spirit and are not afraid to fail." They needed all the motivation they could get, since implementing their vision of an online health-care store - without any experience in either industry - turned out to be a bumpy ride. Henle remembers meeting with CEOs of large firms who were very curious about their business model but couldn't act on it even if they wanted to. "They would tell us how fascinating they thought our concept was, but they'd say, 'We have 15,000 employees. No way we can do something like this that fast."

TempoSoft's Cesarini met with similar intransigence when he went looking for executives in their 40s or 50s who would drop their careers to join a startup.

"It just doesn't yet happen in France," he sighs.

Vitago's founders even met resistance from their backers. Where American partners in an international venture firm would aggressively push for a deal, the Europeans were cautious, asking Vitago to think smaller and forcing them to negotiate longer.

If it works out, though, and Vitago goes public on Germany's Neuer Markt, its founders' decision to leave the relative safety of Silicon Valley for the European frontier could be right on the money.

Globalization in the 21st Century

2007-04-30T22:38:00.000+02:00

Free 'Starting A Business Overseas' report by Jo Parfitt

2007-04-25T15:38:00.000+02:00

Jo Parfitt, who published 'The Expat Entrepreneur' recently (book review follows), created the www.expatentrepreneurs.com website, where you can a free report about 'How to Start a Business Overseas' (24 pages).

A home-based business requires work!

2007-04-25T13:49:00.000+02:00

Here is another link to an article that points out that, despite all the "get rich quickly" schemes, creating and developing a home-based business requires a lot of work, and not only that... You can find it at by clicking here.

Checklist for potential expat entrepreneurs

2007-04-25T13:19:00.000+02:00

Here is a very good checklist in order to find out if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. It is published by Living Abroad Report:
http://www.livingabroadreport.com/entrepreneur.html

Trailing spouses and entrepreneurship

2007-04-22T13:34:00.001+02:00

Amazingly enough, some expat spouses move to a foreign country without enquiring properly beforehand if they are entitled to work at all once they arrive in the foreign country, and under which conditions.

In countries like Switzerland, for example, an expat couple usually gets a B permit. Therefore, only a spouse who comes from a country of the European Union may get a work permit, provided that they find a job - which means that they must prove that they are more qualified and competent than all the other Swiss candidates for a given job. If the spouse is not a member of a country of the European Union, she (or he) is not entitled to work at all. But this only means that this person cannot be hired by a local corporation and receive a work permit.

Under some circumstances, which depend from your host country, your nationality and various aspects, it is possible to work as an expat or trailing spouse, if you create what I call your "portable business" or virtual company. You can for example create a company in your host country. Or you can create an individual company or a micro-business in your home country, with its own office address and website, and then work from there. You can also create a business from a third country. When your husband or wife moves to another country, you can usually pursue your business from there too.

In any case, I wouldn't advise any "trailing spouse" to consider creating their own portable or virtual business in the first months after the move to another country. It is rather obvious that, 1st of all, you need time to adjust to everyday life, explore the new country and - last but not least - learn the local language in order to speak itfluently. Too many English-speaking spouses assume that they can do business anywhere in the world in English. This is not true, at least not if you want to be really successful. On top of that, learning the local language is also a way to adjust to the intercultural differences, which are an essential factor of success in business. It is also a key factor for networking locally, and for dealing with administrations, which are both essential for the creation and development of a business. Another mistake that many trailing spouses make is assuming that becoming self-employed is just a nice part-time occupation from home. You need to have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, to run your business and to market your products or services - and all of this in an international context, and with much less support than you would have in your own country.

Therefore, first things first:

Take the necessary time and steps to adjust to the new country (learn the language, travel, read, network...). Don't consider creating a new business in the first adjustment phase, which lasts typically between 6 months and 1 year. You would have too much on your plate.
Hire an experienced coach in order to find out if being an expat entrepeneur is for you, and to help you with the creation of a business plan, the administrative steps (host and home country), etc. The role of an international business coach is also to help you avoid the costly pitfalls.
Create and develop your virtual business, including a website and other electronic marketing systems, with the ongoing support of your coach.