Bio
Julia is a speech pathologist, social media strategist, and owner of The Traveling Traveler LLC and CreatorPro LLC. Her work centers around helping therapists take travel therapy jobs and providing strategy and consulting to companies looking to enhance their social media presence.
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Q&A with Julia Kuhn
What are some personal struggles you went through while finding & then transitioning to an alternative career (or your business)? How did you overcome them?
Instability of money flow – I’ve compensated by continuing to work clinically by picking up travel contracts or PRN work.
What was at stake if you didn’t take the risk of pursuing your alternative career?
Emotional burnout from clinical care
What is your desired transformation(s) from this alternative journey?
I would like to be a business owner who has a staff of employees who are well compensated and enjoy the work that we do.
How long did you do travel therapy and when did the online blog start?
So the media started heavily between 2014 and 2015. I was five years into doing travel therapy, working for a couple of months, and then traveling for a couple of months, so I was gaining some momentum and online followers as well. Then that’s when travel blogging came in but instead of using those months traveling the world freely for fun, I was staring at my computer, working for free. So I traded traveling for fun to expand my digital skills.
How long until The Traveling Traveler generates some income?
I guess it depends on what you consider income. So anybody out there can refer another traveler to their agency and if that traveler takes the job, they can get a referral bonus. So I am going to put that aside because that’s something anybody can do, with or without a website. I would say my first official year in business I made $35 in affiliates off of the website from different places.
I do think you could be an overnight success, or maybe it’s not so much overnight, but within a year. I think you could be successful.
It can easily take two to three years for a lot of brands to see some revenue come in. Then, on the flip side, there are people who can never make any income. In the end, I think a lot of it comes down to what I said in the beginning, which is the brand, the branding, and what they’re selling.
What does it take for someone to be an online entrepreneur?
You also need to create your skills, which I think any of us can create freelancer skills in some area, whether it’s writing, copywriting, editing, or graphic designing. I think there are skills that we could all learn online or through other places, so you need to learn the skills.
Then you need to have patience and a hard work ethic because getting customers or clients is going to be the hard thing. That’s why I think it’s so important to do that work on the side as you’re working as a therapist, whether it’s a travel therapist or a full-time therapist. Because the fluctuations of money are a really hard part of freelancing.
What would you say to the overwhelmed therapist?
First of all, start networking, talking to everybody you know in any way you can, and seeing where they work, and what they do. Sometimes you don’t even know what your neighbors do. I meet so many people all the time who get jobs just by networking and telling people.
Also, just look at Indeed or other job boards online for my local community. See who’s hiring, what the jobs are, and what the skills are for those jobs. So I’ve never applied for any in-person jobs in my community but I’ve always looked at what they’ve listed as the recommended skills and if I didn’t have those skills, I worked on getting them. And that is how I ended up building my own business.
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