How to Run a Business Remotely

Running a service-based business while traveling full-time sounds like a dream — but the logistics? That’s where most people get stuck. In this post, I’m breaking down exactly how two business owners make it work: Sam, a copywriter and nomad behind Nomad Copy Agency, and Rachael, a fractional CEO and systems consultant. Both joined me on The Ordinary Business Podcast to share the real, practical side of managing clients, calendars, and capacity from anywhere in the world.

Can You Actually Serve Clients Well From Abroad?

Yes — but it requires intentionality. The biggest misconception about running a remote business is that “flexible” means “available whenever.” These two entrepreneurs prove it means something closer to the opposite: tight systems, protected calendar blocks, and clear communication that lets them deliver great work on their terms, from anywhere.

Here’s what actually makes it work.

1. Design Your Schedule Around Time Zones — Not Against Them

One of the most counterintuitive things Sam and Rachael both shared is that being in a different time zone can actually be a feature, not a bug.

Sam’s approach: She only takes meetings between 6:30–10am Pacific time — full stop. That structure means that whether she’s in California, Central Europe (where 6–10am PT becomes 4–8pm local), or Central Asia (where it becomes 6–10pm local), her meeting block stays manageable. “I’m not that flexible on my time,” she explained. “I just keep really tight control of my calendar.”

She also blocks Fridays and Tuesdays entirely — Fridays so she’s never stuck on a client call on a Friday night while traveling, and Tuesdays because that’s when she delivers her membership content and needs uninterrupted focus time.

Rachael’s approach: Based in Europe, she does her deep creative work in the morning — when most of her West Coast US clients aren’t even awake yet. By the time they log on, her inbox is already cleared and her creative brain has already been put to good use. Meetings happen in a block from around 4–8pm local time, which slots neatly into clients’ mid-morning or early afternoon.

The takeaway: Stop trying to replicate your domestic schedule from abroad. Instead, map your energy and availability against where your clients actually are — and you may find the time difference gives you more protected focus time, not less.

2. Build Calendar Infrastructure Before You Leave

Neither Sam nor Rachael winged it. Their schedules work because they built the structure ahead of time.

Rachael keeps a full capacity tracker in ClickUp — a table that shows all active client projects alongside the dates she’ll be traveling or out of the office. “When I’m looking to book another project, I can look at that and go, okay, I’m not doing anything this week, so it would be the week after that we would start,” she explained.

She also blocks travel weeks intentionally, giving herself permission to take the first few days in a new city to settle in, explore, and get her bearings — before gradually layering meetings back in on a rolling schedule.

Sam flags travel days as no-meeting days without exception. “I try not to take calls on flight days, period,” she said. She also typically travels on Thursdays or Fridays so she has a full weekend to acclimate to the time zone before the workweek starts.

Rachael also schedules adventures the same way she schedules meetings: “We have gone into the calendar and I’ll say, okay, on this Friday we’re going to go see this thing, and we block it on the calendar and we treat it like an actual event.” She pointed out that the same principle that makes deadlines powerful applies here — when you have a fixed endpoint, you get more done in less time.

The takeaway: Before you travel, block out your travel days, your settling-in buffer, your meeting windows, and your exploration time. Treat them all as non-negotiable.

3. Communicate Your Availability — Early and Often

One of the biggest fears business owners have about traveling is that clients will feel abandoned or confused. Both Sam and Rachael handle this through proactive, layered communication.

Rachael bakes her availability into every client touchpoint: her email signature, her auto-responder, her contracts, her onboarding documents, and every kickoff call. “I find that it’s always nice to just remind people at every opportunity,” she said. Most clients are flexible once they know what to expect — it’s the surprise that creates friction.

Sam takes a slightly more selective approach. She doesn’t hide her location from existing clients — in fact, she often records Loom feedback videos with a casual mention of where she is — but she’s thoughtful about when she shares it publicly on social media. “People are like, oh, she’s busy, she’s not working right now,” she explained. She waits until she’s settled in before broadcasting a new location, so potential leads don’t self-select out of reaching out.

Both agreed that the anxiety clients have about reaching a traveling service provider is often about responsiveness, not presence. “Unless you’re working in crisis PR or you’re a doctor in a hospital,” Rachael pointed out, “it’s really hard to think of a situation where someone genuinely needs to reach you and get a response right away.”

The takeaway: Set clear response-time expectations in writing, communicate them at multiple touchpoints, and trust that clients care far more about consistent quality than whether you’re in Atlanta or Argentina.

4. Use Automation to Bridge the Gap

Rachael’s most practical piece of advice for anyone preparing to run their business remotely: get your client experience systems in place before you go.

“The last thing you want,” she explained, “is for a great lead to sign a contract, pay their invoice, and then hear crickets — because you’ve logged off and you won’t be back in front of your computer for hours or days.”

A simple automation sequence solves this entirely. An immediate confirmation email, an automated onboarding form, a welcome sequence — whatever fits your business — keeps the relationship warm and the momentum moving even when you’re asleep on the other side of the world.

Sam’s membership, Copy on Demand, is built with this in mind. Members submit copy by Monday at 8pm Pacific — no matter where Sam is in the world — and wake up Tuesday morning to find her feedback already in their inbox. The cutoff time is engineered around her location, not the other way around.

The takeaway: Map out every client touchpoint in your workflow and ask: does this require me to be physically present at my desk, or can it be automated? The more you systematize, the more location-independent your business actually is.

5. Right-Size Your Commitments for Travel Transitions

Rachael was refreshingly honest about this one: when she and her husband arrived in Spain two months prior, she overcommitted. She’d done the nomad thing before (a full year in Spain and Argentina in 2022), so she assumed the transition would be seamless. It wasn’t.

“I had too much that first week and it was a lot,” she said. “There was this feeling of pressure and guilt — I really gotta work, I really gotta get this done — and I also didn’t want to be inside all day.”

The fix? Go into a transition week with a lighter-than-usual workload. Give yourself the grace of a real arrival: time to figure out the grocery store, find your favorite coffee spot, adjust your body clock, and just exist somewhere new for a few days before you’re back in full client-delivery mode.

Sam does this by traveling on Thursdays or Fridays and spending the first few days seeing friends, getting settled, and acclimating — before the Monday calendar opens back up.

The takeaway: Your first week in a new location is not a normal work week. Plan for that. Your future self will be grateful.

6. Embrace the Mindset Shift (And Let Other Cultures Teach You)

Perhaps the most underrated part of running a business remotely? The way it rewires how you think about productivity.

Rachael talked about experiencing siesta culture in Spain — where businesses close from roughly 2–5pm for a midday break — and the effect it had on her relationship with work. “I love that people work hard, but they don’t live to work. They’re working to then live their life,” she said. “It’s been very helpful for my brain to be around cultures that take it slower.”

Sam echoed this from a different angle: she’s found that when she travels solo, she can work 14-hour days just because she wants to — but that’s not the point. The point is that the business was built to support a life, not replace one. “We created businesses for freedom,” she said. “Follow your joy.”

Ready to Run Your Business From Anywhere?

You don’t have to overhaul your entire business or quit your lease tomorrow. Both Sam and Rachael suggest starting small: block a Friday, test a month-long trip, track your capacity before you go, and see how it feels.

Resources Sam recommends for getting started:

• Wi-Fi Tribe (wifitribe.co) — group travel for location-independent workers
• Outsite — membership-based co-living spaces worldwide
• Nomadlist.com — city-by-city data on costs, internet speeds, and quality of life
• Co-living searches on Instagram (try “co-living + city name”) for community-focused housing options

And from a systems standpoint, Rachael’s advice: “Work on those client experience checkpoints before you get on the plane.” Set up your automations. Map your onboarding. Build your capacity tracker. Then go.

Because the whole point of building a business on your own terms is that “your terms” gets to include wherever in the world you want to be.

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