April 5, 2019
Should I relocate to a tech hub?
Sent by Jonathan Stark on April 5th, 2019
One of the subscribers to my YouTube channel asked:
“I live in a remote town in India and I travel a lot. I visit the US almost every year so I mostly get clients either through my travels or via online networking. However, I’m being advised to move to a tech hub if I want to grow my business to the next level. My question is how much does geographical location matter and what steps can one take to overcome any geographical disadvantage without actually relocating?”
If you’re trying to get funding or launch a startup or something like that, I can see some definite advantages of moving to a tech hub.
But if that’s not what you’re doing and you’re already working remotely and doing remote-type services (and don’t want to move), I don’t see how relocating would be worth the trade-offs.
A developer or a designer or a copywriter or a videographer or an audio engineer - or any other job that is executed primarily in the digital realm - can obviously work remotely. The question is: how do you build up trust online so that you’re attracting more leads and better leads? And by “better” I mean people who have bigger problems to solve and therefore bigger budgets so they can pay you more.
To grow your service business, I think it’s really more about putting yourself online in a way that’s going to attract bigger and better customers. You have to have a really clear message. You have to be really clear about who you help with what expensive problem. You have to be sharing a lot of your expertise with people who would be ideal customers for you.
So, identify who are your ideal customers. What is it that they need that you can provide? Talk about that on your website or your social media or wherever you (and they) are hanging out online.
Bottom line:
For a service provider who isn’t excited about moving, I firmly believe getting laser-focused with your marketing would be a better choice than relocating.
Plus, you’ll have a lot more runway living in a place where you’re not spending $3,000/month to live in a closet 😊
Yours,
—J