How Sean Ogle Quit His Job, Traveled The World, And Became A Location Rebel

Don’t forget to subscribe to this show on iTunes.Maneesh: Hey guys, this is Maneesh Sethi, your no. 1 Digital Nomad, coming at you live again today from Portland, Oregon. I am here with Sean Ogle from Location 180 and Location Rebel. Sean and I are, this is the first time we’re meeting, but I have been following him for a few years. He is one of the main location and independent professional guys online you have seen these days, one of the four hour peaks of lifestyle. And Sean agreed to be interviewed by me to talk a little bit about his lifestyle and talk about what he is doing in his projects. So Sean, can you go ahead and introduce yourself to my readers?
Sean: So, I am Sean Ogle. I run a site, location180.com. Basically 2-years ago I was unhappy with my life so I quit my job almost exactly 2-years ago. And I did not know what else I was going to do so I decided to move to Thailand and actually started doing all of the stuff that I wanted to do in life. Travel, built a business that I have no idea how it was going to happen, but things slowly fell into place and I started learning more skills and here I am now, and I have got number of online businesses, I am able to travel around the world and kind of do whatever I want at the same time.
Maneesh: and what took you 2 years?
Sean: You know I would say after a year, I was completely self-sustaining.Maneesh: It is amazing. It is really cool to see, like the amount of time it takes for people and the amount of time or the time of like the ways in which the people monetized or figure out the way to finance their lifestyle. And I have noticed that a lot of people have start off by doing some kind of like freelancing and such. But before we jumped into monetization on your blog strategy, let us talk a little about what was your job before you started to turn-around.
Sean: So I used to be a Financial Analyst. I work for a small investment firm here in Portland that I sat at a cubicle for 60-hours a week just analyzing stocks and trying to find you know the best things to buy and sell for our clients. I realized very quickly, I was probably the only person in Portland that had to wear a suit and tie to work and that was really just not cool. And so, finally, it took me the better part of the year to actually get up the guts to do it. But it was a trip to Brazil that finally, I used all my vacation time for the year to go to carnival in Brazil. And after that, I was like, something has got to change.
Maneesh: Did you go to Rio?
Sean: I went to Rio.
Maneesh: Nice.
Sean: Dance in the carnival parade. And literally the day I got back, I found Chris Guillebeau’s Blog. So that’s what started this whole thing. So I sent him an email and he had just moved to Portland. He agreed to meet me for a cup of coffee and from there, you know, I started my blog, and the rest is history.
Maneesh: So where have you been travelling since the last 2 years?
Sean: So last 2-years, so I quit my job on October of 2009 and I took off for Bangkok, Thailand where I live for 7 months. Travel around Southeast Asia. I went to Bali then I went to the Philippines, came back, did a bunch of travel around the US to meet up with various, people that read or readers of my blog, mentors, some business partners and then the most recent trip is that I spent 2 months living in Bali.
Maneesh: Okay. And so what is your plan now since you are back in the States?
Sean: Plan now, I am here for the holidays. Just kind of to join time of friends and family and I am going take off for Mexico in January and kind of use that as a jumping off point for maybe a few other trips.
Maneesh: Cool. I just spent the last, last year I went to Mexico. Man, it is such a good trip. It is such an easy good trip that Americans don’t do. I don’t understand.
Sean: I have actually had never been to Mexico. I have been all over to Asia but I have never been to Mexico so I am excited for this one.
Maneesh: And once you get to Mexico, it is super easy jump down into Central America and from Central America to South America, you know.
Sean: I am thinking another Carnival trip.
Maneesh: Yeah, Salvador next time, man
Sean: Yeah, that is what I’ve heard.
Maneesh: I spent; I lived there in 2009, by that time we’re living In Salvador. It was insane. Super unsafe but super, I lived on the same street as all of the transvestite prostitutes.
Sean: That sounds fun.Maneesh: So I would go outside at night and sometimes and I would just like say, hi, I am not going to be rude.
Sean: And then they would all follow you home.Maneesh: They live next door to me, they know where I stayed. But one day I went outside and I walk by one of the prostitutes. And I look at her and just give her an eye. And another guy is walking towards me. And he has his hand in his pocket. Super sketchy, I am really scared. He’s about to walk up to me, and like, the prostitute looks at him and says, no not him in Portuguese. The guy looks to me; he looks away, and just walks by me. I’m like, wow! I just got my life saved by transvestite prostitute. From that moment on transvestites prostitutes were okay in my book. They were okay in my book..
Sean: Exactly..

Maneesh: So tell me a little bit about your blog. So what are you focusing on?
Sean: So when started location180, I was solely using that as a vehicle to figure out what the hell I want to do with my life. I had no clue what I wanted to do. I was unhappy. And I created my bucket list. It was basically a way to hold myself accountable for all the things I wanted to do. And it has been pretty cool to see all the things have done in the last 2 years because I published that and was held accountable by my readers and accountable to myself. And the blog’s basically evolved into, you know, the tagline kind of says it all. Build a business, live anywhere, and achieve freedom. So I talk about using entrepreneurship as a vehicle to achieve your dreams, to travel the world, and generally just live a higher quality of life.

Maneesh: Okay. And so you found that travel really allowed you to like find freedom and to do whatever you want to do?
Sean: Well, I have always wanted to travel the world. So it started out as I used to travel as a way to save money. Because, you know, I quit my job, you know, I did not have a ton of money saved up, so I went to Thailand where I can get a nice apartment in Bangkok for 200 bucks. Live of you know giant plates of padthai that cost me a dollar. And so, travel in that sense helped me built my business. You know, now I use travel as a way to help me establish my brand. You know, I launched location rebel, my new program, I launched it by doing it in Bali you know. If I am going to launch a program about working from anywhere, I better be doing it someplace cool, right? So travel for me, not only is an aspect to my business and my brand, but it is just fulfilling to me personally to go around the world, meet people that are doing things similar to me and just kind of, you know, be inspired by them and learn from them all over the place. It’s really pretty cool.
Maneesh: Have you found that you have an easier time networking or building your business when you are in the US than when you are travelling or you found it to be, with the internet these days, just as easy anywhere?
Sean: It is very different depending on where you are. So I go to Bali and you probably aren’t thinking of Bali as this big entrepreneur hotspot but there are some guys over there, the tropicalmba.com, they have got house over there. So there is kind of people that would not probably ordinary come in to Bali. Maybe on backpacker scene or whatever, they have been popping thru and so I’ve had the opportunity to meet all sorts of people. One of the things is this, getting in touch with high level businessman in Asia is much easier than it is in the United Stated. So I am in Bali, and just by virtue of the fact I am an American, I can get in touch with a lot of the other English speaking people. So I was, I had drinks with a Chairman of one of big Southeast Asian Airlines, you know I played golf with the General Manager of some, you know, very big name resorts. You know, just by, you know, having that little connection of being able to speak the same language, being from the same place, you are really able to get in touch with people much easier. The same is true in Bangkok, you know. I was able to get in touch with a lot of the big executives in Bangkok just by the virtue of the fact they wanted to talk to me about what I knew and I had something different to bring to the table.
Maneesh: Where these like Thai Executives or were they American Executives who live in Thailand?
Sean: Both.
Maneesh: Okay.
Sean: So I actually met a surprising amount of Thai Executives. Where as you come back to the States, I wanted to, you know, sit down with Donald Trump; it is not going to happen. You know, I don’t really have anything to offer him or at least it’s probably how he would view it.
Maneesh: It is sort of that situation where you meet an American in another place and you guys are best friends immediately because you are both American and you come back here and like, dude that guy is boring. How was I suppose.…
Sean: Exactly. Exactly.
Maneesh: That is cool. And so did you go out of your, wait like not working is really interesting to me. And I just read a huge article about networking and how to meet people that you really want to meet. Did you find that it was like, how did you meet these people, was it by, how did you know they were there, and did you just sent them an email or go by LinkedIn?
Sean: First of, twitter is huge. You can go on twitter, do a quick search for Bali or you know, similar hash tags, immediately get a sense of who is there, what they are doing. Through my blog network, you know I am able to; you know, kind of put the call out and say, hey! Is anybody in Bali or Thailand or wherever I am going to be? And people starts to come to you and say, oh I am going to be there at such in such date, you know let us hang out. You know, it is kind of like you, you have read my blog, you have said hey! I am going to be in Portland, let us get together. Similar things work all across the world like that.
Maneesh: It is true. And twitter is an interesting situation because like the 140 characters nobody is not going to respond to that. And an email, is people just this, people never check their emails, it disappears. But twitter seems to be a really good way to just….
Sean: Well, the biggest problem most people have, is when people approach me via email, they send this long, long messages. And I am going to say, I going to look at that later. Two weeks down the road, I do not want to deal with that archive. If someone sends me a quick 140 character message, hey! Where you at in Bali? I am in Sonia, not hard to respond, let us get together.
Maneesh: So when you say, this is interesting, how would you, like the emails that you get that you actually respond to? How do you like them to written like? What is the ideal email? How many sentences should it be? Or what should it say?
Sean: I like emails that are 5 sentences or less. Tell me who you are, why you found me, why am I interested to you, and what you are looking to get at our relationship. So if you come to me and say: Hey! I have been reading you are for a really long time. I am really inspired. This is what I have done because of it. I am working on this blog and I have this quick question. You know, if you’ve got one quick question, you know, even if you have a thousand questions, pick one, and I will probably give you an answer, and just starting that relationships can make it much more likely that I’ll respond to more in-depth questions later on down the road.
Maneesh: I have also noticed that one of the most effective techniques is like if you ask; if you had a simple email, a few of them in five sentences says do you mind if I ask you a few questions about something. And then you’ll respond yes, and then you are kind of screwed if you have to answer them nicely.
Sean: Exactly. Because that shows the people are respectful of my time and everything I am doing. The people that just launched into, you know, huge essays about their life and what they are doing, you know, that is not really having respect for my time. Showing that goes a long ways.
Maneesh: So how much email do you get? Like is it a lot of overload these days? Or is it pretty manageable?
Sean: It’s steadily growing to the point where, you know, it is definitely manageable but I am also at the point where I like to put things off. So it gets to the point where it is not manageable, you know, I have got the total entrepreneur’s ADD Personality. So we just sit down and actually do all the work is not always the easiest thing for me. It is kind of my own fault.
Maneesh: Inbox 0 man.
Sean: It has been a long time since I have something like that.
Maneesh: What happened to me was just really interesting was, I told you about this month on the while I spent. And I came back really worried about email. I think about it all the time. I came back to 1083 messages, I am like “Oh, God there are 1083 messages”, then I went through it and I realized that out of those 1083 messages, there were like 9 or 14 that really needed a response. And most of it is just like crap and spam, but that data just gets in your head and it just boggles you and you just never get through that thing.
Sean: And it is kind of the thing, you think of the worst case scenario. If I would just take my 1083 emails and hit archive on all of them, is the world going to come to an end? Probably not! You go through it, make sure there is nothing that says “Urgent! Your Grandma’s dying.” But if that is really the point it gets to where you just need a fresh start, just do it. And people will understand. If they really need to get a hold of you, they will send you another email.
Maneesh: One of my biggest regrets though is I did exactly that and then one day later I went through it and then one email was from the BBC, wanting to write an article about me and I was like, arrrrrr…
Sean: That is the downside, at least give it a quick scan.
Maneesh: Quick look. But I am interested a little bit in the method of growing a blog. So I talked to JD Roth today, a little bit about how his blog started off just for friend and family, and then slowly, slowly, we’re talking like 5-10 years, slowly, slowly started to get a daily hit. And he said Digg was the first thing and it started to grow a little bit after that. And I am wondering with yours, how many viewers do you have for an example.
Sean: I have gotten to a point now where I am getting right around 40 thousand unique viewers a month
Maneesh: So what is that a day? About a thousand?
Sean: About a thousand or more.
Maneesh: Okay. So you got a thousand unique visitors a day, and so when you started 2-years ago, did you launch basically it on October 2-years ago?
Sean: Actually I launched the site before I quit my job. So I launched the site, May of 2009, so almost 2 ½ years ago.
Maneesh: So how was the growth? Was it pretty steadily growing or?
Sean: My growth, it is actually interesting. You look at a lot of people on my niche and they have got a lot of big spikes. So they will hit Yahoo or MSN and they will get a ton of traffic. You look at my stats and up until about the last 4-months, mine has been extremely steady. The 1st big thing I had, it is actually interesting you mentioned JD Roth, right after I quit my job, I wrote a guest post for Get Rich Slowly. That was without a doubt the first big hit I have ever had. And for almost a year and a half, that was the largest traffic day I ever had in my site.
Maneesh: How much did that bring in? If you remember?
Sean: I think at that time, I had about 5,000 visitors, something like that. And then just in the last 4 months, I think I’ve kind of reach the tipping point. And things exploded a little bit. I did reach front page of Yahoo, a variety of things happened that just kind of lead to quicker growth which has been fun to see.
Maneesh: Okay. So I’ve noticed that a recurring theme seems to be getting on guest posts or getting on alternate Medias. Like that seems to be a big expose of growth factor for blogs. So how would you say that it’s, like for somebody who is just starting their blog, really wants to someday be on the front page of yahoo or really wants to be on the front page of MSN?
Sean: I think getting exposure in a broad variety of areas is really huge. And you know the idea of guest posting has been done to death. Everyone will tell you that, whatever. But for me that is really what worked. Because I went to a couple of different niches where there is JD, I went to Unclutter which is kind of a big blog but it is little bit outside of my niche, and I was able to get quite a few readers and quite a few subscribers from doing that. And once you got more of a broad arching overview, people that are coming from all walks of life, then it gets easier to just start going into some of those mass media channels. I woke up, it was like three weeks ago, and I’d hit the front page of Yahoo, unfortunately, I do not have a link back to my site because it was syndicated from I think it was the young entrepreneurs council, but I think that day I had 300 people Google my name, because that was all that was included. But just starting to use the leverage you got to reach out to some of the major media channels and just being able to approach them and say hey I have got this idea, or hey you should take a look at this, and opening up that conversation is huge.
Maneesh: It is interesting when you think about mass media because mass media is actually made up of journalist. You do not have to approach the New York Times, you just have to approach one of the New York Times reporters. And like my brother, whenever he wants me on New York Times, he told me is, he would basically just get a bunch of twitter followers on his to follow another Twitter reporter, Twitter, to follow another New York Times reporter. Reporter is not like, you know, 300 followers, he’s not anybody special, and then suddenly they get a thousand followers in one day and then he will call the journalist and like “Yo! I just got you a thousand followers. What’s going on?”
Sean: Exactly. That’s good advice right there.

Maneesh: So the beauty of building a blog is building a leveraging platform, the way that I see it. And it seems like you have been doing that a lot with your location rebel course, right?
Sean: Right. So, the blog really, I was not necessarily, I do make some money off of it but that was never the goal. The goal was to: One, figure out what to do with my life. And then as it evolved, it was to leverage all the other opportunities. So I got 250+ posts where I have built credibility on the idea of working from anywhere. And so I am able to take that credibility transferred over to location rebel and say “Alright, I have shown you what I have done, here is how you can do it too” and so that’s worked out really, really well.

Maneesh: So let us talk a little bit about location rebel. So what is the course, tell me about it.
Sean: So location rebel, the goal is to help you learn the skills necessary to build a business that you can run from anywhere. So there are so many people out there, they are talking about affiliated marketing, niche sites, social Medias, all of this stuff, but they fail to look at building real skills that you can build a real business around. So the idea here is I built 9 blueprints and there is a couple more that are on the way that teach you skills, like search engine optimization, copy-writing, technical writing, web design, where I have brought in experts in those field. People that have built five-figure businesses around these concepts and had them help me create blueprints to teach you from ground zero, exactly how to learn these skills and then turn that into a business. So I launched the site to the Beta Group in July.

Maneesh: To what group?
Sean: To the Beta-group. So I opened it up to 20 people to kind of test it out, make sure it worked before I did the broader launch. And it has been very cool to see the majority of those people already creating an income through the skills they have learned.

Maneesh: That is pretty cool.
Sean: As soon as I got that 1st email saying I just booked my 1st thousand dollar SEO gig and I am going to go travel to Thailand from the United States be able to do it, that was like, “Alright, I have done something right here.”
Maneesh: It is great feeling, right?
Sean: It is great. And so the community aspect to it, there is forum that has really been much stronger than I could have ever anticipated. People are more than willing to help each other out, seek advice, ask questions, and I think that is really the kind of the core of it is building that community and getting that support.
Maneesh: So how many subscribers do you have in the course?
Sean: I think right now, we are about hundred.
Maneesh: Is it mostly funnelled through your website or through your email list.
Sean: It is a combination of both. So I get a lot of people that are coming from the location180 list and location180 site. When I first launched the site before I had even finished creating a product, I created what I called location rebel arsenal. It was a free eBook that tells you all of the tools I use to work from anywhere. So I launched the page, gave that away for free and built up the location rebel email list which is now even bigger than my blog email list I’ve been working on for 2-years. So just giving away very high quality content, I probably could have sold this for 20 or 30 bucks, but give it away for free, the people who are interested in the course will buy it, and the ones that are not, still got something valuable out of it.
Maneesh: So you gave away an eBook in the same way that Chris Guillebeau’s did of his manifestos but you actually capture the email addresses, right?
Sean: Exactly. Same kind of thing.
Maneesh: Okay. And so how did you launched. Because I am working on an eBook right now that I am about to launch for free —- How did you actually launch it?
Sean: So basically I started the site with a squeeze page and the eBook and said okay. I did a big blog post about it and within a couple of months I released a series of 4 videos to compliment it. And so they are on ideas like how community is the most important aspect to building this type of business to the idea of rapid skill building and you can build real skills much faster than you think you will be able to. And so once I got to video number 4, the course was ready. Launched it to a beta group, basically said it is going to be open to the first 20 people to buy it and then it is going to shut down for a little bit. And I was amazed. I was just hoping it will sell out in like a week. And it sold out in 48 minutes. So I was sitting there, it was the biggest business day of my life. To see all these sales coming in and to see people really excited about it, so from there then I closed it down, worked really hard to make sure everyone was happy with it, worked out all the kinks, and then 2 months later I went to Bali and re-released it.
Maneesh: Isn’t it a good feeling when you launch your 1st product and you get your first sales, and you are like, what is happening, why is my PayPal keep coming out.
Sean: Oh, it is the coolest feeling. And I have released a couple other smaller products but this was the 1st one that I really spend a lot a time on to make sure it is a life-changing for people and that is what has really turned out to be which has been fun.
Maneesh: And what do you charge for the course?
Sean: It is $297.00.
Maneesh: I am always laughing at these numbers because my course is like $367.00 and I am like I do not why I picked that up, these seem cool.
Sean: It was interesting. So I was thinking I want to charge $300.00 for it because I wanted it to be a significant enough investment that people would buy it and actually do it. I did not want to have a forum full of people that would just give up on it. So I was like, okay $300.00 I feel like it is an accessible number, it is not too much but it is enough that people are going to take this seriously. And so I said okay, how I can I create a $300.00 course that would be worth $2,000.00. And that is kind of what I did. What is a $2,000.00 course look like, try to back it up, and then put it in the location rebel. And obviously you cannot include all the things you want to but it is steadily growing, steadily getting more blue prints, more interviews and I think that it is great course right now and I think in 6-months it is going to be even better.

Maneesh: So have you found that most of the people who are using your course are actually doing something with the course? Or your blog just kind of let it go?
Sean: Well, I would say, when I first started it, you know there is going to be a people that are super Gung-ho about it, and there is going to be the people that are going to look at it and forget about it in a week, no matter what, it does not matter what you launch. I have been impressed at just how many people have been really active. So they have been going through the blueprints. They have been building the skills; they have been asking questions on the other people on the forum they are doing the same things. And a very large majority of them, I would say full majority, but a lot of the people in the course have had tons of success actually creating businesses. And they are on the track to be able to do it from anywhere. So it is pretty cool. It is pretty cool when I could get an email from somebody who is like “Thank you man. My life has been changed, now I am travelling to Argentina, or whatever.” One of the guys in the course, he quit his job, and he is walking from it was like Minnesota down to the tip of Argentina. Another guy who I did some consulting for, he quit his job or is preparing to quit his job and he is going to do a motorcycle trip all the way down to the tip of South America and back. So it is cool to see these people saying “Hey, you help me build the skills necessary to live my dreams.” And that has been fun. And we live in this cool society where finally for the first time ever we could actually do these things that are crazy and actually make money. Do you realize that 6 or 7 years ago there is no Skype or YouTube? Like, oh my goodness. The amount of potentials that is possible right now because of technology, I would not be able to do these 5 years ago. And that is one of the most difficult things I have found for people is that we grown up in a society where for decades you went to school, you got a job, you got married, and that was very traditional and so a lot of people I know they are not pursuing this lifestyle because of all these old-schools stigmas, my parents are not going to be happy with me if I do this and everyone is going to judge me. And they do not realize just how possible it is, just how easy it is to really live a cool, fulfilling lifestyle. There is always to be the people that are happy in their 9 to 5 jobs and that is fantastic but I am trying to market to the people that are not happy, the ones that are just going with the flow and kind of pushing all their feelings aside. They know it is not right but they are not willing to take a risk. And if you are willing to take even a little bit of an educated risk and start working down this path, the possibilities are endless.
Maneesh: It is incredibly endless and it is really cool to see like what people are doing with the opportunities and the constraints that they had these days. But one of the questions I got today for our interview was about dealing with peer pressure or dealing with society is essential. A lot of people are afraid, number one if they are going to lose their friends or that the friends do not agree with what they are doing. Or that their family is not going to accept them for what they are doing. I understand like people who have a child, who have a relationship or whatever, are in a situations a little bit different than us. But what about the people who are similar to us, but they are just not worried about society. How do you deal with peer pressure with beginning of your trip?
Sean: Well, it has not been an easy road. I remember I post to my post to get rich slowly 2-weeks after I left my job. And I got a lot of people that were totally bashing me. I got trolls on my blog, they would leave angry post on everything saying “you are ungrateful for the opportunity you are given at the job. There is no way you are going to be able to make this work. You are just another ‘lifestyle designer’ that is using it to just take vacation and using that as the guise of something that is meaningful. Two years later, it is pretty cool to look back and say what is up now. But the most important thing, that is why I was talking about the importance of community, if you want to do these, you have got to surround yourself with people that either are supportive of what you are doing or more importantly people that are trying to do the same thing. And for most people that is not going to be your close friends and family. You’re going to have got to go online, or go to meet-ups and get integrated into this new community. And the more success you have, the more other people are going to come around. A lot of my friends look to me and like “you are moving to Thailand? Why would you, you got this great life. Why would you do that?” and a lot of people take it personally, they would go like, oh what? I am on 9 to 5 job is that not good enough for you? And that is totally not true. It just was not right for me at the time. So the more success I found, the more people embrace it. And the people that really love and support you, no matter what, they will come around. And if you can find a few people to rely on, you know I had like one guy in particular, he is my best friend, and he was doing something similar and so to be able to turn to him and talk to him about it that was really important for me.
Maneesh: I noticed that my travel period has gone through a lot of ups and downs. And I have been tracking it in my mind and trying to figure out when I wanted to quit and go home the most versus when I was just like this is amazing. This is what my dream is. And basically my story really quickly is that I was a freelancing at first year and a half while I started my blog, launched the blog, I started to take off and then on 2010 August is when I had my first product sale at most. A lot of my stuff is freelancing and I realized when looked back the times when I wanted to quit the most were the times where I’d put myself in situations where I was not around people who were doing what I was doing or were supportive of what I was doing. When I lived in India, there was not a community in this village I was in which was doing entrepreneurial things where as the last few months, being in Berlin and not just being in Berlin and talking to like normal people, but being in Berlin and finding the entrepreneurs who were doing what we are doing in Berlin and then coming to San Francisco obviously, coming to Portland, UCAs where everywhere, you just jump through. I have been writing this article called “You are the average of the five closest Friends to You”. And it is amazing that like when you look at the people that you surround yourself with, you kind of – the average of who they are. If you hang-out with people who are way cooler than you are or more like doing whatever the 5 people you are closest to are doing that is what you start doing.
Sean: Exactly. That is actually a really good way of looking at them. I am excited to read that article.
Maneesh: I got to publish it sometime. So when you look at your closest group of influencing people, who would you say are some of the biggest lifestyle designers or anybody really who made you who you are these days?
Sean: You know, without a doubt, Chris Guillebeau. Chris has been my mentor since I started. I still remember we use to meet for coffee probably once a month, once every two months and I still remember it was August of 2009 and went to a meet-up and as I was walking to my car and he was like, “Hey Sean, I am writing about you in the book so you better follow through with all the stuff you said you are going to do because I do not want to rewrite that chapter. So that was in August, by the end of the year, I sold my car, quit my job, moved to Thailand, and started business. So I did not let him down which was good. Another guy is Dan Andrews, the tropical MBA. In January, he is the reason I decided to go to Thailand is because he offered me this 1st Tropical MBA internship which at that time was a sales page and he had no blog or anything, so I was like I have no idea who you are, but we will give this a shot and see what happens. And that turned out to be perfect thing for both of us. I was able to learn from him, help him with his business and he was able to leverage my audience a little bit to help build the tropical MBA which, you know they are bringing their 9th intern on board on January which is really pretty cool. Also, from outside the blogosphere, my friend Ryan, he has been my best friend since college. He quit his job right around the time we got back from Brazil. He is the guy I took that trip to Brazil with. And he had saved up $30,000.00 and moved to Hawaii to become a Cabana boy for 8 months and then in January, about ten he was going to take the money and go take a road trip. And so I would talk him on my lunch break everyday and he would be like “Yeah, I am sitting on a hammock, getting ready to go surfing and then I got to go be lotion boy at the resort.”When you hear that then you are like, alright, I cannot sit here for the rest of my life and listen to him tell this stories. And so basically it worked out great. I convinced him to come to Thailand in January of 2010 and start his trip there. So I got to start this trip with him. He travelled all over the world and we still do some travelling together which has been a lot of fun.
Maneesh: There is a difference between the people who hear cool stories like that and say “Oh my God, oh I better just figure out what he is doing because I need to be a Cabana boy too, I am going to be lotioning up some people right now. There is a very small percentage of us who feel that and a lot of our readers are these people. But then a large majority of people look at them and like I can never do what he is doing or worst what the hell, this guy is an idiot. What the hell does he think he is doing? He is like doing something stupid. And I do not know why or how that happens, but do you have any reason?
Sean: This is actually something that I have been thinking a lot about lately because it is really kind of interesting to me. When I see people maybe that I have not seen in a while or I meet new people, first thing I would do I will talk to them about what they are up to, genuinely be interested and ask a lot of questions and they will ask me and I will say things like well I run an internet business or I was living in Bali for the last 2-months and that is not to brag by any means, it is just that’s what I have been doing. And I would say 80-85% of the time people would say, oh that’s cool, turn around and that is all they say. And I am like man, you know I just talked to you for 20 minutes about your accounting job, I would have think you would be kind of interested to what I am doing, but I think part of it is that they do have these fears and it is like oh, I would never be able to do that, or oh that is not me, or oh, whatever and so they do not want to hear anymore about it. So most of the people I meet are not really interested in what I do which is kind of interesting, I’ve got a blog and I get all these emails from people that are interested but people I meet in real life for the most part, they are just not that excited about it.

Maneesh: And it really depends where you go too and when you get to the right places, you get to meet the right people. I went to Chris Guillebeau meet-up when he was doing his first, in New York City when he just launched his book. And he did a presentation. And then I went to a bar where everybody was going out after and like two people recognized me from my YouTube video in one bar in New York City. I’m like, this never is ever going to happen but it is like that self selected group of cool people.
Sean: Yep. I still remember the first, the opening party at the World Domination Center last year. We were waiting, we just opened the doors and one of 1st two people that came in were these Japanese couple and they were like “are you Sean Ogle? Can we get a picture with you?” and I was just like “whoah! You just took this to a whole new level and absolutely you can get a picture with me, can I buy you a drink?”so that was pretty cool and you start realizing that it is like, I do not want to use the word like minor internet celebrity, but in some ways that kind of is because you know there is people that would rather meet you than meet Tom Cruise. Maybe that is them. But it’s quite so….

Maneesh: I don’t give a shit about Tom Cruise. I’d rather meet you than him too. It is finding the right niche. And I also like the fact that we do not have to be celebrities anymore, like celebrities in the past were celebrities to everybody and then non-celebrities are non-celebrities to everybody. And in these days like I went to a conference about persuasive technology and BJ Fogg is this professor who invented it. And I went there and every conversation at this conference was about BJ Fogg. Every person was talking about him in some extent. And so this guy is like the king, he was famous for 4-days and then he walks away and he is a normal guy. And I love that about our business is that like we got to be a niche famous, like the world dominations some of you guys are going to be kings, but then you walk away and nobody’s taking, there is no paparazzi following you.
Sean: Exactly. It’s like you can look at even the biggest, people like Chris or Tim Farriss has maybe crossed that threshold where he gets recognize more but Chris can probably walk down the street and for the most part no one is going to ever bother him or know who he is or anything and that is a pretty cool position to be in, in my mind.

Maneesh: When I was talking to Tim, he told me that basically in San Francisco he gets recognize all the time and it sucks for him. But he told me that he was in Berlin and most people don’t know him in Berlin. But he was at a bar, just writing his book and suddenly this guy walks up to him, grabs a chair, sits on it backwards and he was like “you are Tim Ferriss, I want to talk to you, what are you doing in Berlin?” And he started pointing at him for every question and Tim was like “Dude, leave me alone.”
Sean: Alright, stop with the pointing and go over there.

Maneesh: And that is actually a little bit of, I feel like I am not really worried about getting famous, but I do not want to be that famous, that is too much. So I want to talk to you a little about your email list and how you are working with that on your site. So how many subscribers do you have these days?
Sean: I have got about 3,000 maybe 3,500 people on my email list. So compared to a lot of people it is not huge but it is enough to make a dent on what I am trying to do.

Maneesh: And do you know the conversion rate for when you send emails for sales or for affiliate stuff?
Sean: You know, I am one of the worst entrepreneurs in that regard. I have done a little bit of split testing and traffic and I can tell you basic things about my open radar, my click through rate but when it comes to sales and stuff, that is actually something that just this week, I sat down and kind of said, alright, here is what I want you do is to start actually getting on the bowl with these stuff. You are much better off talking to someone like Derek Kelper or something to get all that information.

Maneesh: What is your open and your click through rate though on most of your emails?
Sean: Most of the stuff I get about a 50 to 60 percent open rate and a click trhough rate of anywhere from 10 to 30 percent depending on what I am talking about.

Maneesh: It is really interesting to watch like email lists and see like un-subscribes and subscribes and like these days I’m getting close on, do you use AWeber? I am getting really close to like the next tear for bride, somebody, everybody, unsubscribe if you don’t like this blog I do not want to pay the extra 50 bucks a month.
Sean: Exactly. Well that is one the things you have got to deal with is the more like extra setting on emails, the more people on your list the more un-subscribes you get. Like just by virtue is like someone signs up for the free book or whatever and especially if you are now, we got the only 72 sell going on right now so I send stuff about that and that leads to more un-subscribes and you cannot take that stuff personally and a lot of times I just block that number. I was like I don’t even want to know because it is just going to make you like self-conscious and like what did I do? Like what?

Maneesh: I have noticed that people who unsubscribe are the people who are not going to buy your stuff anyway….
Sean: Exactly. And you know it is not even like I do not look at the email list as, yes it is sales phone on some ways, but I would not provide as much value as I can. I wanted people to open my emails and be like oh I got something out of this. In 90% of the emails I do not feel like I was pitched or you are always trying to sell me something you know, and that is something that I thought a lot about. I probably need to do a little bit of a better job with, but that is how I look at it. It is just a way to add more value into their lives and create more of a relationship with them.

Maneesh: So let us talk a little bit about your email list since a hundred percent of my email is from your only 72. So I have been basically pitched. So how do you do it? Do you basically just repeat the articles on your blog? Or do you write a completely different content for your email list?
Sean: Generally, I try and do completely different content. If you sign up for either location rebel or location180, they both have auto-responder series where I just said okay I want to provide as much value as I can. So location180, you get the eCourse called Six Steps to Location Dependence. So it is 6 weeks and you get one email a week where you got one very actual item for how to push yourself further down this lifestyle. With the location rebel, I have a series of emails and each one talks about the concepts from the different videos that people get. So whether its community, skill building, whatever. And then I will just periodically send stuff out, I do not send updates so people can sign up. They do not get every single post I do not want to bug them that much. But once every week or two, if I have a post that I think is particularly good, I will just send them up more casually in the emails saying hey, I was really proud of this, check it out, thought you might be interested. Then I found people respond to those much better than just about anything else I have sent.

Maneesh: Okay. They respond to emails that are base after your blog content.
Sean: So they respond to emails that are just short, casual, and they sound like an email that I would send to a friend. You know, hey I just wrote this article about the status quo or whatever. There are some interesting thoughts, I would love to get your opinion, check it out.

Maneesh: Okay. It is really interesting. I have been watching some of the Kings of internet Marketing or whatever, the One who Sell like serious and the more products or whatever, and you watch the emails they send and it is really interesting to see the one that sometimes convert the best are just like two paragraphs and then a link that says, check out this video here, click. So that takes you like a product launch promoted.
Sean: And one thing, I got an email from Dave Navarro at the lunch coach, today. And so he was basically talking about Jeff Walker in particular. He has a super salesy, very like in your face, sale stuff but that is just what his list is used too. But if you try and implement those same strategies on you, you are to get un-subscribes like nobody’s business and people are not going to be interested, they are just going to start to filter it out so most people cannot do that. So you got to figure out what works with your audience with your list in particular, and I think most of the time that means constant value added.

Maneesh: Just for a quick recap, the Dave Navarro email today was about how one person Jeff Walker, he sells a product called the product launch formula and almost all of his traffic comes from affiliate sources. So he just like sledge hammers over sales emails the new people are on his list and that is acceptable because the quality of his traffic has essentially funnelled affiliates and he does not care if he really gets a lasting relationship with these people. He is just trying to sell a product which is fine, it is just different. Whereas we are trying to build a business where we can have people to trust us, we are building a following, we do not want to sledge hammer people with the sales emails. We are trying to build an actual following who will listen to us because we are providing value. And so the funny thing is I was actually writing, I had already written up on the 72 sales email today, and then I had written up half of it and then I got that email in my inbox, I look at it, I’m like, I can do it if I was not reading. He is smart. Dave Navarro’s right. Thanks Dave.
Sean: Especially with the sale like that where a lot of people are getting a dozen of emails today about only 72. I am promoting it, a lot of it is because I do have a product that is the same, but if I did not, I would think twice about whether or not I would promote it just because people do get so burnt out after hearing that for three days straight that said, it is and incredible deal, so I do not mind doing it because it does add value to the people to pick it up.

Maneesh: It is a tough distinction, I am going to say that prior to the launch of my site this time, I have been doing basically purely sales emails because it was just, I set-up an auto-responder and I never updated it, and I was doing well enough. And now when I try to add value and actually create post, the cool thing is I am getting more sales absolutely but I didn’t care because the biggest thing is I am getting more and more emails of people offering, they were really like I got testimonials already being sent to me, I got a few people who have just like offer me services, they just like hi, I just seen your site, it seems really interesting, I like to help you with the copyrighting and stuff like that. And when you start actually providing value, you start to really build…
Sean: Well I got one guy, and he is like a lawyer in the Midwest and almost every single post, he sends me an email saying Oh, you had a typo or oh, you misspelled something and he does it in a way that is purely like I love what you are doing and I want to see if you need some help and you know I am not the best proof reader in the world in Middle East. So it is really nice to see and something that I have found the words to really well with my emails and really helps show people how genuine I am is almost to every email I will say, so what can I do for you? Just hit reply. Like anything you want, if there is something I can do, let us open up a conversation. Then I probably get, you know, 15 to 20 emails for every email I send out from people just saying sometimes it is as simple as keep doing what you are doing, thanks for providing the content. Sometimes it’s they want advice on their own blog or business or whatever it is, and you know that is just an opportunity for me to get to talk to people more and figure out what they are doing and hopefully make a small difference in their life.

Maneesh: So from your blog posts and your email post’s perspective, what have you found as been like really, really effective in getting a lot of traffic or like getting picked up or is it longer post, is it story post? It is like what sort that brings in traffic that is good.
Sean: You know, it is all over the map. Some of the big definitive how to post I have written are by far the most trafficked I get. So there is 2 posts in particular. How to become an SEO Freelancer in 48 hours and How to build a membership site in 48 hours?

Maneesh: 48-hours?
Sean: I was going with this 48-hours series which I kind of like, and those are the two longest posts I have written and I get a hundreds of views on that a day still and I wrote those months ago. So if you’ve got in-depth knowledge on something…

Maneesh: How many and how long are these posts?
Sean: I think the SEO one was about 4,500 words and the membership one was like 6,500 words. That is serious posts. And so if you got in-depth knowledge on something, put it in a big definitive post and that is going to, if it genuinely adds value just like a How To book, the kind of thing that could be sold as an ebook, those get a lot of traffic. I also found that generally much more so than a lot of people, I do not like to raffle feathers, I do not want to piss a lot of people off, and so you won’t see a lot of really strong opinions on my blog. But when I do, and a lot of times it comes across as this arrogant cockiness but everyone knows that is not my personality and so it is like they like to see the humour in it, for instance when I had an article that hit Yahoo a few weeks ago there was 700 comments, 2,000 Facebook likes in all of these comments. It was on a post called Six Businesses you can run from a Tropical Island. And all of these posts were just like the most ignorant, like unbelievable comments when people saying there is no way you can do that. That is absolutely no way.

Maneesh: Yeah. I was laughing at those comments.
Sean: So I went through and I copied a few of those and I basically gave personal responses to each of the things they said and that was one of the biggest post I have had in a long time. People loved that. Because I was kind of arrogant, kind of like cocky about it, but in a very like joking, just like, can you believe this kind of way? Also the one other kind of post I have found is where I give real in-depth information into my business. I had a post earlier this year called Why My Lifestyle Business is so successful? And that was the first time I ever released any financial information about my site, about how much money I make, and I broke it down for the month of May exactly all the income I made. And so not only did that helped build credibility, but people also look at that and they were like oh, I see where there is coming from. This actually seems to be much more attainable now, now that I see how you were doing these.

Maneesh: I have noticed like Pat Flynn obviously is the king of like releasing his financial information and then there is a few other nomads who also release their information and it is super interesting. Those are the posts I love reading. But like from your perspective, you said that over the last 6-months for example, like on average, how much do you think that you are earning or grossing per month.
Sean: You know, just base on what I do it varies widely, you know, for instance the month of September when I released location rebel, I think I had $13,000.00 something like that. On a given month, it is usually somewhere around $5,000.00 at this point and that comes from a variety of places, SEO consulting and affiliate marketing and product sales for the most part and some of the work I do for Chris Guillebeau.

Maneesh: You consult for SEO as well?
Sean: Yes. That is how I got my start. So I went to work for the tropical MBA. Started learning SEO to help Dan’s businesses. And then, once I got back from Thailand, I kind of said, okay I need to find a way just to sustain this and so I did some SEO consultant.

Maneesh: So you continue to do that these days?
Sean: It kind of depends. I am doing a little bit right now just because they are kind of either close friends or people that I know I can really help out with. That is one of the nice things about what I do is I can, if I need more money, I can ramp that up, or if I am saying, I am putting together a program like location rebel, I can back-off on that and really focus on what I need to and then generate the affiliating come from that.

Maneesh: How are you finding the percentage of your income? Is it like product sales then affiliate, then SEO consulting and then to Chris Guillebeau?
Sean: Right now, Chris is definitely the lowest. I do not do work a ton of hours for him at the moment. You know, the last couple of months, location rebel has definitely been the biggest chunk of that. And then I would affiliate and consulting probably round out the next, it is probably 25% of each with location rebel being 50%. So, it varies widely from month to month, but on a typical month that is probably just like 5 or 6 or whatever thousand dollars a month.

Maneesh: It is nice. So how much do you think your expenses are?
Sean: Low. I mean that is one of the great things is when you are doing information products or affiliate marketing; you do not have a cost of goods. I am not investing half the price of the product in the materials. I can put up a site, I have got my hosting fees and maybe some marketing fees things like weather whatever but the most part of expenses are pretty low. Especially when I am travelling, I have got enough of the network now that I can usually find places to stay for free or relatively cheap and so as a digital nomad for lack of a better term there’s all sorts of ways you can get around without having to spend a lot of money.

Maneesh: We were just talking about King of that today, Tynan who was talking about getting a private jet for one dollar. And then Chris Guillebeau talks about frequent fly and I have notice, look I have got over five hundred thousand miles using credit card deals. And I have notice that if I should probably put that much time into my business, I probably had made enough money to afford these tickets.
Sean: It is so funny how that works.

Maneesh: Have you been doing any frequent flyer, mileage?
Sean: A little bit. I got the chase deal that came out for British Airways this February, so I got a hundred thousand miles for that. So my trip to Bali this last time, it was pretty much paid for my flue. The nice thing about it is you can fly at any of their partner airlines. So I flew to Cathay Pacific out of San Francisco and that was only 50,000 miles and so I still get another round-trip flight. If only go to Europe, which I am thinking I am going to do next year, it is only 25,000. So I get 2-round trip tickets to Europe base on miles under the gap which is very pretty cool.

Maneesh: That is 20,000 with all seasons. That is very nice. I was talking to a guy, he is going to like I just went around the world. My dad has these like mileage deals, I do not know really, but he just booked them for me. And I am like, print that out. I want you to question me, it’s like how many miles do you think I was? I have guessed exactly base on his route how many miles it will cost and he was like you got that to the exact number.
Sean: I do not have a life. Now you see what he is really doing in his free time.

Maneesh: I really memorized the valley in short. It is really ridiculous. I called up the AA helpline and the girl recognized me.
Sean: You just said AA helpline so I am thinking you are talking about like Alcoholics anonymous. I think also is completely unrelated but I knew I had made it. I was getting started with affiliate marketing, this was like right around the time I quit my job and I was trying to do some of my PPC stuff and some Facebook stuff and so I have an affiliate manager, and I called him up, tell him I was doing, and he was like, wait a sec, do you have blog? Are you Sean? I follow your blog. And I was like, now I am on to something. And that was like 5-months old, and that was pretty big deal for me.

Maneesh: That was pretty cool and like it does not happen enough really….
Sean: But it when it does, it just makes you appreciate it that much more.

Maneesh: It is the truth. I love it. So I think that is really interesting about how you going with, you have said it, the product sales are the most amount of money for your courses. I find it that, that seems to be true. And really the question is do you feel like you are generating enough value that it makes it worth it? Like, are people really getting enough out of the course on average that the three hundred bucks that they are spending on your course, worth it?
Sean: I do not want to sound cocky or anything when I say this, but I think that I can charge twice as much as I am charging for location rebel and people are still going to get incredible value. Especially to see over the last couple of months, just how people have actually taken the stuff, learned the skills, and turned that into dollars in their pocket, I mean that is huge. And to have that built-in support system, I mean now just the resources you get through going back to the forums for the last couple of months is incredible. You get a lot more information on finances and business structure and stuff like that. It has been fun to see them. So I am working on three more blueprints that should hopefully be live by the end of the year.

Maneesh: What are they?
Sean: One is on how to become a paper-click consultant. One is an affiliate marketing blueprint because that is the thing that everyone said they want it the most. And one is on how to create a niche product. So it is like I wanted to just basically start with all the real skills. You can freelance doing these things. But then a lot of the program is about lateral skill sets. So it is like if you want to become an SEO person, you know it is also good to know copywriting and web design for instance. And so I want to get people more ways to cash in on these skills they built. Teach them how to create a product around something they are an expert in then leverage their copywriting skills or work on the sales page and create the product, do the SEO to drive more traffic to it. And so really, it is like you start out with everything, you can start with freelancing, get on like Elance, Odesk is some of the most basic way of doing some of these things. Move into the intermediate stuff or maybe you offer freelance services on blog or something like that and you’ve got some of the advance stuff that you can do later on where you know you basically build your own products or create your own things out of these. You are just trying to run the gamut of different ways to make a location rebel income.

Maneesh: That is really cool. I think that there is a lot of different ways to make money online and people do not recognize that there is more than one way. I think I have read one of the comments on your yahoo post, and that was like there were only 5 or 6 bloggers that are making a lot of money and most of the people are lying about it. But at the end of the day, there are just so many different ways to approach the attack. To attack to figure out a way to make money, but I see that most monetization strategies end up in either ads or affiliates sales or in product sales. Have you seen any other significant methods of making money online with a blog that has a high platform?
Sean: Services. People and I would say that ads affiliate product sales, those are definitely the big ones but people that have large audiences or whatever, for them to go through and especially if they have high price services, you got a really popular like SEO mobs or something. They are the kings of the SEO niche and if you want to hire them for consulting stuff, you are paying insane amounts of money for it. So I think that the people that are capitalizing on services are the ones that have established themselves as experts and have that audience to make it look well.

Maneesh: Have you ever offered services on your blog.
Sean: I actually do. I offer a lifestyle business consulting, so if you are interested in kind of doing what I am doing and you do not want to do the kind of self be paste location rebel program, you can hire me and I will do coaching for that. I have got a formal thought for SEO work. And for the most part lately I have just been saying that I am not accepting it right now, but it all kind of depends on the client.

Maneesh: But in general do you tend to get people like asking for lifestyle design advice?
Sean: I kind of tried it out as an experiment because most of the time people would just ask me questions, they either do not know ask consulting or have consulted or they don’t care, they are just going to ask question anyway, and that is kind of tough business to get into because I want to help people so if someone asks me or sends me an email generally I am going to answer the question. So I think it is more for the people that they want an ongoing they will pay you an extra amount of dollars a month to do in-depth business development. So I think that is the better way to look at it.

Maneesh: And honestly at these days I have been noticing the difference between having someone who just sells your course and it is being self-paste. The courses I have taken for example often just disappear whereas the ones where people offer a way to continually motivates you are really life changing. The information’s out there, nobody needs to buy one of the courses to figure out anything. The fact is that, it is all out there but you just do not want to go through it. Or you do not want to compile. And there is somebody like I started emailing and Facebook messaging all of my students and they were like, dude, what’s up? Why is the teacher or my class messaging me on Facebook? And I am like, yo man, it is nothing personal, but like you need to get your act together because I want to see you succeed so start working. And people just do not always do the work when they have these courses.
Sean: And that is the biggest thing I have found. Is that what people wants more than anything else, they want someone who is going to hold them accountable. And if you can find a way to like build that personal connection and if you see someone is not doing what they said they are going to do, send them a personal message. And that is the biggest thing you can do with any of these things.

Maneesh: It is funny how get mad at my students and I am like I do not care about your money, take your money back, just God damn it build a business please. It is not about the money. It is about helping you. I gave away my course at this meeting in Berlin. This 4 hour work week meet-up we used to have. And, all I said was like listen guys, you guys are all my friends, I am not going to charge you a lot, all I need you to do is donate 10 Euro to anybody. Go out on the street and give 10 Euro to anybody, any homeless bone on the street, I will give you my course. Three people did it, and those three people nobody even watch the videos. This is why that people that do it have to be self-motivated at least a little.
Sean: And that is the thing, I periodically I will get people, maybe their acquaintances or whatever and they’ll email me, they’ll say, oh will you give me a free copy of your program and generally the only reason I would say no is because if I give it to you for free, you are not going to value it. You are not going to go through it, you are not going to do it, you have to pay for it. And there was one person when I was in Bali, she asked me hey can I see it and I was like why? Everyone else paid why should I give it to you? And she was like, because I asked. And then I was like give me a real response like think about it, and she basically said no, she was like it is not worth my time. I just, you were sitting here and I wanted to ask, and I was like okay, well then, absolutely not. If you are too lazy to even to do that, I mean, you are obviously not going to go through the program.

Maneesh: And so anyways Sean, I think that is a great interview. We got a lot of information. So it is very nice to meet you, thank you very much. You guys should all check out location180 and location rebel. You will see it all at seanogle.com and come to the World Dominations Summit. It is June I believe (it would be on July this year), in July in Portland, it is Chris marketing conference, lifestyle design conference. Sean will be there definitely, I am hopefully going to be there DJ-ing, so I will see you guys on the other side. Thanks!

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