If you should learn any skill which one would it be?

If to select the most important skill - that would be always one extending my communication possibilities. So I would select one more human language I guess. English and German, that is what I already have in my skills set (in addition to my mother tongue Russian) and I would add Chinese, Spanish and French. Communication covers 50% of deal, the rest 50% are related to professional skills like software development (in my case).

If I could master any one skill it would be selling.

Being an entrepreneur means you have to learn many skills, but you wont succeed if you can’t get sales. Sales is a vital component of all businesses and many companies would kill to have a hero salesman on-board.

Not to mention, it’s the perfect location independent gig. The web is full of affiliate and partnership programs for independent sellers. Many have high and even recurring commissions.

I’m in marketing, and marketing is great but it’s only the first step in the process. It’s all about closing the deal and getting that contract that makes the real difference and puts money in your pocket.

Just my thoughts.

I will check it! thanks!!

Hi Marta,

I would recommend getting the free Inbound Marketing Certification from Hubspot:

It covers a solid foundation for making money with social media and digital marketing practices. I started by building my first ecommerce website with no experience, just a burning desire to make it a reality. You can easily get experience remotely on Elance and Odesk.

Cheers,
Kyle

Thank you guys to make more interesting this post!!
@eduardocruz thank you! I did some jobs in Odesk, but I will check Elance, I just read in other post that is better than Odesk.
@sergi gràcies! defenitely there are a lot of options! I love so many things that so It’s very difficult for me to choose! and of course, there is always insecurities, about thinking that there are people who knows more than you!!..

If you’re learning just - - - a skill, you’re in trouble.

Multi-disciplinary thinkers and practitioners will rule the future.

Not those with siloed thinking or skills.

Whatever skill you push on, at a bare minimum think in terms of the trifecta. Though, you’ll need much more (domain wise) to stay competitive.

Craft (engineering, design, copywriting, etc.,) + Business + Psychology.

That’s the minimum for participation and earning competitively in your craft/ skill. You have to be able to tee up your craft to understanding of context (business and user) motivations in context - and quantify how your craft shapes those situations.

Otherwise, you’re just pixel, code and copy janitors in the background.

All these answers are great. Another skill that you will need regardless of which specific field you choose is being able to write copy that sells. Whatever you choose to do (if you are freelancing or building your own business anyway) you will have to convince people to give you money. If I had to choose any one skill that would have the most leverage, I would go with sales (and psychology and all that goes with it. “Influence” by Cialdini is a great book for this). You may even have a headstart in this through your advertising and service experience.
Good luck in your endeavors!

Hi Marta!
If you don’t have technical skills the best way to start from zero is create a Wordpress blog and share your passion. Write about anything you really like and built a community around it. Then, find their needs and create a product that can provide value to your community.
Other options are already mentioned: copywriting, social media, advertising campaigns… actually, there are plenty of options out there to become a digital nomad and travel the world. You just need to find the one it’s for you.
I’m in Barcelona so let me know if you need help.
Cheers.

Here you can see that the second biggest category is Writing. https://www.elance.com/trends/skills_central

And here is a job paying US$ 42/hour for voice recording in spanish. https://www.elance.com/j/spanish-voice-recording/70805265

Other spanish related jobs
https://www.elance.com/r/jobs/hry-true/tls-1/cat-writing-translation/q-spanish

Thank you girls!
@shayna I read the link, very interesting. Yes, maybe copywriting it would be easier for me or social media. However I’m very interesting in wordpress!
@wanderingdev Thank you so much, I was reading about Ruby and I found it Codeacademy and the courses are in spanish, so it’s great! I will check the other two that you have been told. Also I foudn www.railsgirls.com the do workshops aroudn the world to teach Ruby!

Well, I also though that run Google or facebook advertising campaings will be a good idea, but I guess is not such well paid like copywriting or development.

Thank you for the info!

If you have a background in advertising, you might find it easier to get into copywriting (writing to persuade people to buy a product or service) - this is used on sales pages, in e-mails, etc. and businesses are willing to invest in getting text produced that will win them more customers.

This skill would require you to be more of a freelancer, seeking out your own clients - but here’s a story of how a non-native English speaker went from zero to 28K in six months offering copywriting services. She was very proactive in contacting potential clients and offering a high-quality service: http://www.thepersuasionrevolution.com/nonnative-english-speaker-no-online-connections-went-zero-20k-4-months-ztl-review/ (she also talks about a course she took; I don’t think it’s necessary to take the course, but you can learn from the principles of what she actually did to get the clients and build her copywriting business).

I’ve had a degree in Web Development and MSc in Business IT. But I did linux/mobile development, then i went freelance/nomad i took the road of web development.

Selling yourself properly and working with client was a totally new thing for me. Before that I was a geek who never seen client in eyes. It was very scary for me and very fulfilling experience.

Thank you to all of you for the comments! I see, the best opportunities are in website development or similars… but I don’t have any knowledge and I guess I will need some years to learn it! but well, everything is possible!!

I’ve been pretty good with web development, but didn’t really start from zero. I used to work for a local company for 1 year then realised it was too boring in the office everyday so I quit and worked remotely for a Polish company for almost 2 years as a customer support working in their forum and ticket system, and I started my nomad life since that. Now I’m a freelancer working for some regular clients to fuel my living & travelling while trying to build a startup.

website/software development is the route I went and it worked well.

Thanks! I will check it!

Here’s the highest paid remote jobs right now http://remoteok.io/tags?sort=salary