{"id":1303,"date":"2014-02-04T04:21:12","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T09:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/?p=1303"},"modified":"2020-08-27T01:55:57","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T05:55:57","slug":"7-small-business-mistakes-to-avoid-when-living-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/blog\/7-small-business-mistakes-to-avoid-when-living-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Small Business Mistakes to Avoid When Living Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Running a business overseas can be an incredibly rewarding endeavor, particularly since you get to be your own boss while living abroad.\u00a0 With your business, you\u2019ll be able to assimilate into the community faster while being in charge of your own destiny.\u00a0 However, with this power comes great responsibility and if things go badly, you\u2019ll have no one to blame but yourself.\u00a0 By keeping these tips in mind, you can hopefully avoid disaster when running your business abroad.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The devil\u2019s in the details.\u00a0 It seems obvious, but paying attention to the small stuff and not assuming anything, especially in a foreign country, will help you from making costly mistakes.\u00a0 For instance, never assume you get a refund if you\u2019re not happy with a supplier\u2019s product or that something is included in the price without seeing it in writing first.<\/li>\n
  2. Have a plan. \u00a0Believe it or not, sometimes it\u2019s easy to \u201cfall\u201d into a business.\u00a0 For example, a hobby can suddenly become lucrative.\u00a0 If you find yourself in this position, start by making a clear plan for where you want the business to go.\u00a0 Having an end in mind is better than just floating along and scraping by.<\/li>\n
  3. Be a business from the beginning.\u00a0 Whether you planned on having a business or not, treat it like a serious business from the beginning.\u00a0 Establish it legally from the start, either in your home country or current country as necessary and keep your personal finances separate from your business expenses.<\/li>\n
  4. Taxes, taxes, taxes.\u00a0 As one of the few certainties in life besides death, you\u2019ll have to take your tax situation into consideration.\u00a0 And depending on where and how you have your business set up, it could be tricky to navigate.\u00a0 Although there are lots of resources online, when in doubt, bring in an international tax professional to help.<\/li>\n
  5. Overseas Internet differences.\u00a0 If your business is primarily online or even if you only use a few programs to assist with your business, be warned that some online programs will operate differently or not at all depending on where you\u2019re located, especially if bank accounts are involved.<\/li>\n
  6. American responsiveness: Mission Impossible.\u00a0\u00a0 If you\u2019re coming from the States, you will drive yourself crazy if you expect others to have the same response time as you.\u00a0 Learn to slow down and accept the natural pace of doing business wherever you are abroad; it\u2019ll save you lots of gray hair.<\/li>\n
  7. Always have a back up plan.\u00a0 This is especially true for your suppliers.\u00a0 Never put all your eggs in one basket.\u00a0 This also applies in making sure your business will continue running without you in case of health problems.\u00a0 Don\u2019t make yourself the big bottleneck in your company.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Running a business overseas can be an incredibly rewarding endeavor, particularly since you get to be your own boss while living abroad.\u00a0 With your business, you\u2019ll be able to assimilate into the community faster while being in charge of your own destiny.\u00a0 However, with this power comes great responsibility and if things go badly, you\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":1304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[203,254,396,406],"yst_prominent_words":[2670,20558,20555,1716,19133,2680,7462,4887,4006,4482,5262,20557,2017,2131,3477,20556],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/bigstock-Stack-of-banknotes-isolated-on-26768957a.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6432,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions\/6432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}