In today’s interview on Talent Hub Talk, we are joined by Alexander Lapa, Founder of Dryad Consulting and Salesforce Architect. Alex shares insight into what first attracted him to a flourishing career in IT, before taking two years out to travel the world.
We find out why Alex chose to focus on Salesforce and not-for-profits on his return to Canada and how he structured his business as a successful solo Salesforce Consultant.
Alex talks about how he splits his time in Canada and Spain living the digital nomad life, and how he shares with customers his ways of working.
He also provides advice for anyone who may be interested in running a similar business, how he had to change his pricing model, and the importance of having a specialism.
You can find out more from Alexander if you follow his LinkedIn page.
We really hope you enjoy reading the interview, and we also recommend checking out Alex’s podcast- Agents of Nonprofit, as well as his newsletter!
Ben:
Alex, welcome to the show.
Alex:
Thank you for having me.
Ben:
It’s good to be on the other side of the camera today. We recorded a podcast episode for your podcast recently. And through that conversation, I uncovered some really interesting things. Or we explored a few interesting things about your business and what you do. And I was really keen to explore that further. So thank you for joining me on my show.
Alex:
It’s my pleasure. It’s odd to be in someone else’s home turf. It’s odd to be on video, but I will do my best.
Ben:
I’m sure it’ll be great. Well, look, I always like to start way back at the beginning and we’ll get to the current day as we go, but what was it that first interested you about a career in IT?
Alex:
It was my dad. He brought home one of the first personal computers you could ever buy. It was called the Timex Sinclair. It had like 2K memory, had a cassette tape you had to play. And if you wanted to watch or play the third game on the cassette tape, you actually had to play through the first two games. The cassette tape had to play game one, game two, and then you could actually play game three. But I loved it. From the very moment that I laid my eyes on it, I said, this is going to be my career. So I was heavily influenced from my father who was also an electrical engineer.
Ben:
Yeah, nice. So from there, did that kind of shape your education journey as well?
Alex:
Yeah, it was a pretty straight path for me. I chose, well, high school is obviously high school. In the province of Quebec, where I am from in Canada, we have a program called CEEGEP. It’s kind of like a college in between high school and university that allows you basically to start filtering down your career choices or your education choices. And I started going toward the science department and then university was Computer Engineering. It was only one clear choice for me. I knew pretty much where I wanted to go. So after Engineering… I went straight into my first job as a Software Developer. So all the way through, I never had like a big job. It was always either a part-time or full-time as a Software Developer.
Ben:
And when you moved into the workforce then, what did that look like? What were you programming? What kind of languages and what were you working on?
Alex:
It started off, it was C language, and I was doing 16-bit microprocessors for radios, point-to-point radios. I spent about three years doing that here in Montreal, and then moved down to the States, into Boston, for another three years, doing more voiceover IP type stuff, which was very novel at the time, working for various startups. I was even in San Francisco for a few months as well. So like really hardcore in development work, which surprisingly I still enjoy today, even though I don’t do very much these days, especially when it comes to, for example, Apex and Salesforce. There are people who are much more talented than I am at this point, but there are certain pet projects I enjoy doing on the side for my own amusement. And there’s still that satisfaction, that enjoyment where you program something and it works and you see it working, you get that little thrill. That still happens for me today.
Ben:
Yeah, nice. And I know having looked back through your career on LinkedIn, at one point, you obviously you referred to yourself as like a hardcore programmer at that stage, but then you moved into a Systems Analyst role. If you look at your career progression and the kind of work you do now, how important was that transition into a Systems Analyst role?
Alex:
I think development experience really helped a lot because I was able to not only challenge but understand the underlying technology. It wasn’t just a concept to me. I knew exactly what they were doing and how they were doing it. And it was actually one of my positions that they recognised my ability to actually have some soft skills to be able to talk to the client, understand the client, to negotiate with the client. And that’s kind of how I was promoted from a Developer to an Analyst. And then from there I just started. you know, enjoying that process and enjoying talking to people and enjoying the crossroads of having the technology in one side and the people in another and being able to pivot between the two audiences, adapt language as necessary and fully understand, you know, what each party is looking for and what their interests are, what their challenges are.
Ben:
Is that something you would encourage more developers to do, kind of to broaden their skill set and pick up some more of that kind of analysis, business engagement, the soft skills that you mentioned?
Alex:
You can be the best software developer in the world, but if you’re in a closet, nobody knows about you, you can’t communicate how you do things, you’re not gonna be found. So soft skills, presentation skills, speaking skills, negotiation skills, these are invaluable, regardless of what kind of profession you have. And it can only improve and augment your portfolio as a developer, so yeah, 100% do it.
Ben:
So when did Salesforce become a platform that was getting your attention?
Alex:
So we’re going back now pre-sabbatical. So I was working at a media company here in Montreal. They were on Siebel CRM, which is a CRM I was first introduced to. And after a period of time, they decided to switch to Salesforce because that was becoming the hot new CRM at the time. And we’re going back more than 10 years now, or just about 10 years now. And so as they were transitioning, I was following them with that path, that evolution. And at the same time, I was asked by a local nonprofit organisation to help them build their CRM. And they were considering some off-the-shelf type software. And I said, listen, I’m learning Salesforce here. It seems to be really cool even for nonprofit organisations. Let’s take a chance on that. And they accepted.
Ben:
Yeah, nice. And then this is where I think your story, there’s kind of like a crossroads, right? And you’d been employed, you’d been working on some contracts, but your career up until that point was fairly kind of standard in that, you know, you had one job after the other, you were progressing, you’d got to quite a senior level, you’d been sharpening your skills with different technologies, but then you decided to take some time out, which I think a lot of people have wanted to do in their career, but a lot of people kind of lack that, the confidence to go and do it and to travel and take on new experiences away from the workplace through fear of kind of maybe missing that next step in their career or there’s lots of fears that surround that. So can you tell me a bit about what gave you the confidence to take, it was a couple of years I believe, and what you did during that time?
Alex:
Yeah, before I get to that question, just to make sure it’s clear, so the first six years I was a full-time employee, regular benefits, regular schedule and whatnot. When I started working with Siebel CRM, that’s when I had switched to a consulting position. So for the first five years I was working with Siebel, first 10 years, I’m sorry, working with Siebel, then switched to Salesforce. So from that moment onward, it’s been contract all the way. So yeah, after five years of Yellow Pages, things were going pretty well, but I felt like I was in a kind of a wheel that wasn’t going anywhere. It was just the same routine day over day, day in, day out. And I felt I needed to change. And I looked around at my life and I realised I have an opportunity to get away, to get out. I didn’t have any kids. I still don’t, but no kids. I had recently broken up with my girlfriend at the time. I was renting my apartment. So very little keeping me basically in one place. And it was more of a realisation that I actually, not only can I travel, but I want to travel. Travel has been a big passion of my life for many, many years. And it was almost like a why not, why aren’t I traveling kind of a question to be answered. It was a conversation with a friend of mine who had done it previous to me. She left for about a year to travel the world. And just talking to her and seeing the sparks in her eyes and the enthusiasm and the energy and just the whole sense of calmness, of reassurance, of like, everything is going to be okay, these are just different challenges in life, you’ll get through all of it. It was like halfway through that conversation where I said, okay, this is something I have to do, it’s not even a question anymore, I’m going to take the leap. But to answer your question, definitely, there was a struggle because, especially as a consultant, whenever you take a vacation, whether it’s for a week or for longer, not only are you spending money on the vacation, but you’re also losing that income that you’re away for that week or whatnot. So to do that for a period of two years, which is what I did, was quite challenging. But at a certain point, this was the time. I mean, the opportunity to do this more than once in your life, it’s almost like a mini retirement, as Tim Ferriss once said, it doesn’t come by very often and it was about seizing that opportunity. So I sold everything that I could sell, bought the backpack, bought the laptop, and around the world. I was off work for a total of two years.
Ben:
So you didn’t pick up the laptop to do any actual work in that time. It was booking flights and things on the laptop, but nothing more heavy lifting than that?
Alex:
There is a longer story here and I could talk about it for quite a while. I actually had a VA helping me doing certain booking of appointments. The money, just to answer that question, is I had sold a house recently. It did very well on the market. So I had a lot of revenue from that. And that’s what I used to spend. And my mentality going through this whole thing was I would rather do the trip and come back early because I ran out of money, then finish the trip and have more money left over and tell myself, oh, I could have done this. I could have done that. And I could have done this. So I was all about living in the moment, not caring to a certain extent what the budget looked like. I mean, I was staying at hostels for the most part. I wasn’t staying in hotels or what. But if I wanted to stay in a hotel, I would kind of thing. And I had a VA to help me book appointments so that I could go to a place, like Cape Town, South Africa, for example, which I spent a month in. And I said, I would send her an email saying, I wanna do this, I wanna see a township, I wanna go on this excursion, I wanna do some hiking. and then I would lean back and watch my calendar be filled up with all these kinds of activities. So I really splurged in that effect. But I also did take the laptop toward the end of that, of those two years to be able to do a bit of consulting work on the side, just to help keep the funds going for a bit longer.
Ben:
And then when you came back, you were kind of, from what I can tell, 100% into Salesforce. So was that, like after two years, after a two year break, was that hard to pick up again? And what was it about Salesforce that made you want to do that full-time, as in this is what I’m working on now?
Alex:
Yeah, so previous to the trip, I was only working with Salesforce part-time, and I noticed toward the end of my trip, that’s when the opportunities started presenting themselves. And I got really excited about it. I enjoyed Salesforce. It was obviously evolving over the time that I was away. I want to learn more, understand more of the platform and the architecture. And it was really based on not the opportunities, more than a conscious decision to go in that direction. If something else had passed my way, I might’ve gone in that direction, but Salesforce seemed to be a growing ecosystem that I could easily sink my teeth into.
Ben:
And would this have been before Trailhead?
Alex:
It was, yes. So at the time they were doing mostly courses, on-site courses, training. Yeah, a lot of it was self-learned until Trailhead came along. I got some documents and manuals from various courses that I was able to attend previous to the sabbatical. But it was a lot of hit and miss and trial and error type of learning.
Ben:
So has your passion for not-for-profits always been there or did that kind of come by chance?
Alex:
Well, like I mentioned, the first client I had was both a nonprofit and a media company. And I just noticed that my level of satisfaction and feeling of like my reward system was triggering more when I was working with nonprofits. They tend to be more grateful for the things you do. You’re impacting the community and having, you know, impacts on the environment versus how much money can we make for shareholders? So that concept. really resonated with me, the whole idea that I could go out and plant a tree today or a bunch of trees today and that would have some impact in the community or I could help a non-profit organisation that plants trees and make them better, faster, stronger. And I found that was a really awesome way to be able to leverage my knowledge and amplify their impacts.
Ben:
Yeah, 100%. And I think it’s definitely true when you speak to someone that works in not-for-profit, that they tend to have a much greater connection to what they’re doing than someone that works selling widgets, as an example. And the complexity is still there, as I understand. There’s still lots of challenges in the not-for-profit space.
Alex:
It attracts a different kind of person, right? We’re not so focused on our egos and our, it’s about the mission. It’s how much, how can we contribute? So we all have a more aligned common goal, I’ll put it that way. And yeah, I mean, the bigger the nonprofit, I mean, you have the same kind of challenges as an enterprise level client, multiple clouds, multiple integrations. So yeah, all that experience that I was able to achieve and gather from the various different clouds and various different industries. can be applied and has been applied to the nonprofit industry.
Ben:
And the next question is around how you structure work now because you’re 100% focused on Salesforce and predominantly focused on not-for-profits. But this I think is an interesting topic for our listeners because you’ve come back into the ecosystem and you’ve structured your business in a certain way that gives you flexibility, a degree of freedom compared to being in a permanent role where you have a set amount of annual leave and things like that looks like.
Alex:
There’s a paid business and then the non-revenue business and non-revenue business. So I still am doing Salesforce projects and I’m doing mostly implementation projects either as an advisor or consulting. I do hands-on once in a while but it’s less and it tends to be with the smaller nonprofits. Then I also do some certain coaching for Salesforce consultants. So I have a newsletter for example that I help junior Salesforce consultants try to be better and learn from my experience. I have a podcast as well, as you were kindly a guest on mine as well. And I have an app that I built on the Salesforce platform, which is made for Canadian nonprofits using Salesforce and it’s for tax-receiving purposes.
Ben:
So your consulting business then, your goal isn’t to dominate the world in terms of having the biggest consulting business and you operate in a way that’s I guess different to someone that’s all about growing and bringing in new employees and scaling the business. What was the vision behind the consulting firm when you started it?
Alex:
I thought that I needed employees to get to a certain size because I had certain objectives that I wanted to, lifestyles, let’s say I wanted to achieve. And I thought the only way to do that was to have employees and then make a profit off their margins, off their work. And I discovered another way of pricing so that as a soloist, I am only a single person, I only tend to be a single person, I was able to achieve those goals actually, which was a completely transformative way for me to do my business. And now even though I do have certain subcontractors that I do, you know, certain work, especially now the development, like I mentioned earlier, they’re developers that are far better than I am at this point. But aside from those specific cases, I do everything by myself at a more of a street advising level, guidance level. And I’m no longer pricing by the hour, I’m doing fixed prices. And that gives me that breathing room so that when I do take vacations, it doesn’t feel like I’m losing revenue.
Ben:
So how does that work? Like, do you have consistent customers that will give you pieces of work and you say, right, this is how much this is going to cost or is it like constantly working with lots of different companies at once?
Alex:
Yeah, I tend to work with about, from anywhere between two to five clients at one time at various levels of engagement. So for a smaller project, maybe I’m doing certain hands-on work, maybe a Salesforce assessment or an audit, for example. For larger ones, I’m doing more of a guidance, project oversight type of work, where someone, either internal team or an external team is doing the actual implementation, and I’m just guiding them, making sure that they’re following best practices and following certain standards.
Ben:
I guess you’re right in terms of scalability of like if it’s per hour, then as an individual, there’s only so many hours you can work in a day. But if you’re delivering an outcome for a fee, like it’s a fee for a service rather than an hourly rate, that’s how you then can have a bit more flexibility in how you work when you work the hours you do and things like that.
Alex:
So I price my projects in one of two ways. The first one is a project-based, which is to your point, yeah, goal-based. So we determine what the business goals are, and then I price based on those goals. And it’s fixed. There’s no change orders, no change requests. The price is the price, and I honour it. And there’s been a couple times where once we get under the hood, we notice that there was more issues than we initially thought, but that’s the price of the game. The idea is that I’m taking the risk and it’s certainty for the client. And especially in the realm of nonprofits, a guaranteed price is very attractive. These are not estimates. It’s not like, I believe it’ll cost this much. And then if we go over, oops, now it’s your problem, Mr. Client or Miss Client, because I badly estimated, which of course is a really bad thing to do at the beginning of a project anyway, because you know as little as possible at that point. It’s only through time that you learn more. So by structuring the projects at a fixed bid, you know exactly, or they know exactly what they’re getting themselves into, and there is certainty. The other way of pricing projects is more at a monthly basis. So that’s more of like a support package, or when I am like a cog in the wheel, like for the project oversight project I mentioned earlier, because there’s so many moving parts, because it’s such a long engagement, and I’m not actually delivering the same kind of outcome, or I’m not responsible or able to deliver the project myself. I am now charging a fee from access to my expertise. And that’s part of the key is that they’re paying for my experience. It’s not for paying for how much time I spend in front of a keyboard touching keys. It’s what is the output that I’m producing? How am I contributing? What is the value that I’m bringing to the project?
Ben:
Yeah. And you don’t spend all of your time in Canada. I understand you kind of follow a bit of a digital nomad life, which has probably stemmed from the time out traveling, right? You opened your eyes to what else was out in the world and didn’t want to be stuck in one place doing the same thing over and over every day. So. How did that come about, the concept of being a digital nomad? And was it difficult to implement or to enter that world? Was it difficult to, again, have the confidence but make it work?
Alex:
Yeah, that was a long time in the making, but it will also, I don’t know, maybe 10 years ago. A long time ago, I realised that winters in Montreal really suck and I’d rather not be here for the winters. They’re just cold and gray and dark and very cold. So part of my travels, part of the reasons why I was traveling was to have an eye on a second home, to be able to find a place where I could call home during the winters. And it was actually my wife who, when I met on my sabbatical, we met in Poland. who convinced me that Spain was a beautiful country worthy of exploring for a second time. I had been there previously, wasn’t a very good experience, but the second time, the parts that she had shown me in the south of Spain were absolutely magnificent. And I did fall in love with it very quickly. So I already had certain mechanisms in place to be able to do that. I have a Canadian passport, of course, because I was born in Canada, but luckily through my heritage, I also had an EU passport. So very easy to get property to buy property there. And then it was just a matter of doing the math, making sure that the place that we were looking at, I could rent out when we’re not there for six months, and that those six months could cover the entire mortgage for the year, so that if everything goes well, and the numbers were quite conservative when I did them, the place would not cost me anything, and it would only appreciate in value. So definitely a bit of a risk, because buying property in a different country, especially across the pond, like the Atlantic Ocean, can be challenging. But again, I’m not one to ever shy away from a challenge and usually when I have a fear, I’d rather jump into the fear than away from it.
Ben:
Yeah, nice. Yeah, I don’t blame you. I’ve spent some time in Spain in the last couple of years and yeah, definitely an awesome place to be.
Alex:
I mean, warm, warm temperature, warm people, fantastic food. And I actually prefer working in Spain to a certain extent because of the time zone difference, because most of my clients are in the East Coast Canadian time zone, which is six hours behind Spain, which basically allows me to wake up later. I never set an alarm when I’m there. I only start work around 3pm. And by the time I finish work, which is around 10. 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock local time in Spain. If I want to go out for dinner, that’s when Spaniards normally eat dinner. So I feel like I’m still part of the groove of the lifestyle locally, and yet I’m able to enjoy the mornings by myself and with my wife, enjoy the weather up until mid-afternoon. So yeah, I love it. To a certain extent, I prefer it.
Ben:
I can imagine, yeah, for sure. So how do you explain that to a new customer then? Because obviously they might hear of you, you might reach out to them, you’re in Canada at the time, and then all of a sudden you’re going to be taking off to Spain. Is that something you need to be transparent about? And how do you kind of deal with any concerns that someone has about you being in a different time zone, data, all of these things?
Alex:
It’s never really been a concern. There’s only been a couple of clients that haven’t been able to sign on the dotted line because I am not physically in Canada. And for certain regulation purposes, government type agencies, they want you physically in Canada because most of my clients are in Canada or the US. But aside from that, I basically just say at the beginning, I’m remote, and thus there’s a specific need for me to come into the office or to the client because sometimes I work through agencies as well. I’m gonna be fully remote. And I guess… one of the benefits of COVID is that that’s become more standard, more acceptable. And I was doing this even before COVID started, just as a luck, actually, to be able to start working remotely for quite a while. So as long as I’m transparent about it from the very beginning, saying, look, I’m going to be remote, I tell them that I will be away in Spain. I don’t think it’s, aside from those agencies I mentioned earlier, it’s never been a real issue. And I’m still providing the same level of service. I’m still responsive as ever. So it’s never been a real big concern.
Ben:
Yeah, I mean, it shouldn’t be right, because if you’re not working from their office anyway, and I understand there’s some data challenges, but if the requirement isn’t that you’re unsure, then it doesn’t really matter where you’re doing. the work from. Are there any tasks you find more difficult? Because there is a big push, especially now we’re seeing in Australia companies looking for people to come back into the office a couple of days a week, which you know is a shame because people have proven for you know a role like a Salesforce professional, it can be done remotely, but are there particular tasks that you would you would find easier if you were in front of the customer?
Alex:
Not really, no. And I do go on site from time to time, especially at the beginning of a project or at the end during the user acceptance testing period, for example, rollout training, documentation type of phases. And I don’t mind doing the flight if I have to. That’s part of the consequence of having this kind of lifestyle. Hasn’t happened yet, but I’m totally open to it. So no, it’s never really been a concern. It’s, and if there is a project that they do want me on site, I just say, thank you, I’m not, this is not the right fit for me, and I just say no.
Ben:
Yeah. And that leads me then nicely into the next question around like finding projects and having that kind of sales side because there’ll be lots of people that are listening to this and you know, especially in Australia and New Zealand because a large percentage of the candidates that I work with in the market weren’t necessarily born in Australia or New Zealand. They may have families and homes somewhere else in the world and they’re thinking to themselves, this sounds amazing, like I could spend six months back home and then six months back in Australia. And the only thing that might be stopping them is worrying that, well, I’ve never been a business development person, I’ve never had to network and find my own projects. My company has always done that for me. So how do you go about that? And how would you recommend people approach that?
Alex:
You need to have some kind of marketing approach, and it could be a combination of things. I don’t do marketing that well, I’m not really a marketing type of person, but between various words of mouth, LinkedIn, for example, I publish content through my newsletter, various seminars and conferences that you attend, you have to basically spread the word. And one thing I do find that helps is I have specialised. Because I’ve specialised in nonprofits for Salesforce, it’s easier for people to have a Rolodex moment. If anybody hear the keywords, especially if it’s Canada, Canadian nonprofit sales force, I’m hoping that my name is triggered versus if I say I’m just a Salesforce consultant, it’s a very generalist type of approach and someone who hears these kinds of terms may not think about you. So trying to be more specific and more intentional with what you do and who you work with will help other people refer business to you.
Ben:
And what about things like, so you built an app for Canadian not-for-profits, was that just a gap in the market you saw or was that also an opportunity to market yourself?
Alex:
It was the former. So the idea is that there are a couple of apps available out there, but they’re not really easy to use. Part of what I do also is I’m Salesforce certified, but I’m also UX certified. So I realised that the two existing apps were not really well done, well organised, easy to use, and I thought I could do something better. And so I built it. And at this point, we’re just about to submit it for the Salesforce security review, and I’m still promoting it as much as I can, it’s a work in progress. but it also helped me learn a whole bunch more about the Salesforce platform from an ISV perspective. So super exciting about that.
Ben:
Yeah, awesome. Well, I know a lot of people again want to build products, right? So is there anything that you’ve learned from that experience that you’d share?
Alex:
How much time do we have? It’s obviously very different to build an app for one client than it is for all clients. And so certain choices have to be made where, yes, one particular client might want a particular feature, but it doesn’t make sense for anything else. So it’s about finding ways to bridge those kinds of gaps for that client. And sometimes it’s not going to work. It’s more of an 80-20 rule or 90-10 rule where you try to achieve the most important pieces of functionality and then. try to find ways to fill in the gaps. But it’s never going to be perfect. It can’t be perfect because then it would be fully custom for that client. But having that mindset of knowing that, you know, this makes sense to do at a global level versus at a, well, at a global level is something you have to go through every choice you make as you’re adding features, as you’re customising and making business choices.
Ben:
And I guess again that comes back to having a specialism or a niche focus, right? So you’ve built it for Canadian not-for-profits rather than building it for not-for-profits globally.
Alex:
That’s right, I hope to one day, once I conquer the Canadian market, I hope to expand to the US, and we’ll see what happens after that, depending on the demand. But I’m open to it. The idea is that, yeah, of course, it would only be a tax-receiving application, and we’ll see where it goes.
Ben:
And have you ever looked into the Spanish Salesforce market while you were there?
Alex:
I went to my first Spanish Salesforce conference, dreamOle, which was really cool. It’s a whole different world. And that’s why when we spoke too, I was curious to know how things are, because they see Salesforce, at least to my perspective, up until now, it seems to be categorised or grouped by certain regions. You’ve got the North American region, Canada and the US are brother and sister type of situation. EU seems to be another and Oceania seems to be another. So, crossing that pond and trying to make a reputation over an EU is difficult because you’re pretty much starting from scratch. Even though there is some crossover, there are some people that go from one to the other that have this kind of a groupie mentality that love going to all conferences regardless of where they are in the world. But I’m starting to crack that nut and see and grow. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll have some EU clients, but for now I’m focusing on the North American market.
Ben:
Yeah, for sure. So what for just, I guess, to sign off, what’s the best thing about being your own boss, setting your own rules, you know, choosing the kind of customers you want to work with and also having this way of working where you have complete flexibility?
Alex:
I think it’s everything you just said, it’s control. It’s being able to manage your own lifestyle. It’s not having a boss telling you what to do, when to do it, it’s you deciding. And there might be some days and some weeks I’ll be working a tremendous amount of hours and some days less, but the idea is that I control when I work and where I work and that’s extremely important to me. Just that flexibility and deciding. If I wanna go to Chicago for a week, I just pick up the laptop and I go. I don’t need to ask permission. I don’t need to change anything about my lifestyle. It’s just making sure I have high speed internet and that’s pretty much the only requirement.
Ben:
Yeah, that really is the crazy thing, right? That is all you need to be effective. So you mentioned Tim Ferriss earlier. I’m wondering, are there any books or, you know, blogs or anything like that you’ve read that have encouraged you or helped you kind of live this life?
Alex:
So for the digital nomad life, Tim Ferriss was definitely a big influence. The Four Hour Workweek is the book that I would recommend because he talks about these mini retirements rather than waiting until you’re 65, let’s say, and then go on retirement. And at that point you might have some money but you might not have health versus these mini retirements, which could be for six months, could be six weeks even throughout the year, throughout your life rather, which is what something he advocates for. I thought that was a great idea so that you can. Enjoy having a bit of money and having a bit of health as opposed to waiting to the end. And then outsourcing. That’s another thing he talks about often is outsourcing as much as you can, using leverage as much as you can. Which is another benefit of actually doing fixed price work is that you actually incentivise to work as fast as possible, to use tools and leverage at your disposal so you can deliver the project faster. So not only is the client happy, but you’re happier as well versus time and material. You don’t care how long it takes because the more time it takes, the more money you get. So that’s one book. And the second book or blog is Jonathan Stark that talks about how hourly building is nuts. That’s how I transform my business in terms of going from hourly to fixed prices.
Ben:
Awesome. Well, that’s really useful. I did think when you mentioned about outsourcing your travel planning to a VA that was something you may have picked up in the four-hour working week. I’ve read bits. I have a friend that was a recruiter who read that and he now lives in Spain full-time and is a life coach and follows a lot of the principles in that book. So yeah, I think that’s had a massive impact on a lot of lives around the world.
Alex:
Absolutely. The other inspiring person I say would be Seth Godin as a creative thinker. He’s brilliant as well. Really opens up your mind. That’s the top of my head. Those would be the three that I could think of off the top of my head.
Ben:
And for some other amazing reading, I believe you have a newsletter and so for anyone that is interested in picking your brains or finding out more, where can they find you, where can they read what you’re putting out and what’s the best place to hang out to find time with you?
Alex:
Yeah, so the two ways to contact me, the first is my website, Dryad Consulting. And the second one would be my newsletter, which is called The Good Enough Consultant. So thegoodenoughconsultant.com, and it’s basically just like I said for Salesforce consultants, that I’m able to teach a little bit what I know, and hopefully make their, I talk about Salesforce, and I talk about being a digital nomad as well. So it’s two facets of that, of my personality.
Ben:
Brilliant, well thank you so much for sharing your journey. Very, very interesting for me, but also lots of people out there that want a bit more freedom. So thank you so much.
Alex:
My pleasure, Ben. Thank you for having me.
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