Traveling the world while working, Josefine Mai Kraemer shares her secret to living the best digital nomad life in 2019.

WHY DID YOU QUIT YOUR FORMER LIFESTYLE?

I quit my life at university because I was miserable. Luckily for me, I found a way out when a fantastic opportunity came my way. I had the chance to visit Canada and Hawaii for six weeks during the summer holidays in 2018, but I knew that with no income and paying expensive rent in Denmark, I wouldn’t be able to afford it. But I really wanted to, so I had to find a way to make it happen.

A couple of months before I left, I started doing a lot of research, trying to figure out how I would be able to work online and earn while I traveled.

After two or three weeks, I landed my first VA client and instantly loved it! About one month later, I was referred to my second client, and another two months after that, I worked with my third client.

It all went by quite fast since I was in Uni at the same time and had a student job in marketing in Denmark. But it was an amazing opportunity, and it didn’t take me long to realize that this was what I wanted to do. So, I took Sarah Noked’s OBM certification course, and in November 2018, I dropped out when I was almost halfway done with my bachelor’s degree.

Fast forward six months, and I am now the first certified OBM in Denmark, working 30 hours a week and traveling full time. Needless to say, I haven’t looked back.

WHAT IS THE BEST PART OF BEING A DN?
Compared to working in a corporate environment, working online is more personal. My clients are all online entrepreneurs, so I have a pretty close relationship with most of them, which I love. It makes so much more sense to me to work with someone you like, who inspires you, but at the same time being able to show an interest in their personal life, for example, “How are your kids?” I would actually consider myself friends with a lot of my clients, and I recently went to Israel for 10 days to visit three of the people I work with.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO FIND MORE PROJECTS IN YOUR LINE OF WORK?

If you want to find clients, the best way to go about it is to network. Join Facebook groups; share useful stuff on Instagram and LinkedIn; talk to people and give them some advice without expecting anything in return. Trust me, people will come to you once they get to know you!

Just think about this for a second… If you had to hire someone and you could pick between a total stranger with a nice website or someone you’ve been chatting with on Facebook for months, who would you hire?

Of course, the person you feel like you know! If you want to get clients, I would suggest finding Facebook groups and connecting with fellow DNs and entrepreneurs there – trust me, there are millions of them, and there are only going to be more in the future.

WORST PLATFORM THAT RARELY OFFERS RESULTS?

I don’t like Fiverr, Upwork, and those kinds of platforms. I have never been able to land a client through them, and the rates there are way too low! Not enough to earn you a full-time living, that’s for sure.

TOP 3 TIPS FOR BEGINNERS TO SIGN ON NEW CLIENTS?
Engage, engage, engage. Join Facebook groups, talk to people, and be part of an online community that can help you with referrals.

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE DN WORK-LIFESTYLE?

A lot of people think that being a digital nomad is easy and that all you do is travel full time. That is the perception they have through social media, but it’s actually pretty hard to work and travel. There’s a lot you need to balance out, and you also miss out on quite a bit because you have to work.

I have come to realize that being a digital nomad, for me, at least, is part-time traveling, part-time working. My clients’ businesses need to be my number-one priority if I want to keep them and continue living this lifestyle. Clients can replace us pretty quickly if we don’t deliver; therefore, it’s important to be professional and deliver (quality) work on time, every time.