So…here’s something that I’ve been reflecting on in recent weeks (more so in recent days). I have been thinking about something that was said to me by someone that I respected a lot. He said something to the tune of, “Don’t just focus on Singapore. That is too small. Think international.”
While his statement/response is in response to something else that I was talking about, and totally unrelated to what I want to share today, it has a lot of relevance now that I have been thinking a lot about it.
I’ve always been [professionally] international
Yeah, well, that statement for a header might not make a lot of sense to some folks, so allow me to further explain myself. This has been more of a self-realization and an observation that I have made in recent years. It’s perhaps more true during the early years of pursuing my passions after 2014.
Every time I took a moment to reflect and look back upon the times when I had both succeeded and failed (to figure out what went wrong and what went right), one commonality comes into mind on my string of successes – I was focusing my attention and energy on clients that are, more or less at the international level.
As a consultant, I’ve considered myself really blessed that I’ve had the privilege of working with clients from overseas markets. And yes, I will mention United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP, for short) among those organizations. In my experiences of working with these international clients, I’ve discovered one really stark difference between my international clients and the more local/regional ones. They tend to respect my recommendations and proposed fees. Let me put it another way for you, unlike local (Singaporean) clients, they won’t try to negotiate/bargain that you lower the price just so that it would fit their budgets.
For these international clients, they understood that in order to receive premium, high-quality outputs, they have to be willing to pay more for it and not less. So instead of telling me to lower my fees, they adjusted their budgets to accommodate for my proposals and quotes. In fact, when I asked them later about their experiences, they would often describe it as a long-term investment because I could inject my foresight into the solutions that I’m offering at that time.
I’ll be Prioritizing International Clients from Now On
This then leads me to this very point that I want to make. For a very long time, I have been focusing my attention on the local & regional markets. I’ve been trying to target business in and around the region, but the opportunities seemed limited for what I am offering.
Let me put it this way for you, most of them understand why I charge those fees. It’s like trying to pay for the most expensive mobile phone. Most local/regional companies see what I can offer as something that’s “nice-to-have”, whereas international organizations see it as a long-term investment.
And ofcourse, I’ve been quite exhausted dealing with these local dudes (and companies) who would attempt to negotiate/bargain the pricing with me. Seriously, if you can’t afford it, just find someone who can provide you the level of service you can afford. I’m done compromising! I’M DONE!! PERIOD.
becoming a traveling ux trainer/educator
I Got My Inspiration from the Traveling Nurses
So I actually caught this inspiration and idea from something we have witnessed during the pandemic – travel nurses. Yes, it is actually an occupation. These nurses (thank God for them during the pandemic), were in such high demand during the early months of the pandemic that hospitals everywhere (including New York) was offering them triple, sometimes quadruple the standard per hour rates.
As much as the pandemic virus was a real danger and risk. They accepted the opportunity to travel to wherever it is that they were needed. The demand was high, and their skills were in high relevance/demand. Plus, many would admit that after this pandemic, they won’t see such rates ever again. It was [probably] a window of opportunity to earn this much as a traveling nurse.
While my professional plans do not involve working in any hospitals anytime soon, I did catch onto the “travel” part of the profession. Seeing that now, I should most probably prioritize most of my attention on international clients (I will consider regional/local clients IF they can respect my fees and recommendations), I want to make myself available for the occasional engagements at an international level.
My Ideas as a Traveling UX Trainer
Now that I’ve decided on a professional specialization (i.e., Agile-UX), I want to focus on a very specific area where most of my gifts/talents and skills can really be purposeful. And that area is training & education. It’s the one area where I am most naturally great at; I know with time and practice, I could potentially be one of the best.
So the idea behind being a traveling UX trainer is that I would engage in bi-monthly trips overseas. This is assuming that I have some kind of full-time career back here at home.
[Allow me to be clear on one thing – as much as practically possible, I would prefer to have a stable income. Having a day job would certainly help to provide that. That would be a bonus for me. But ofcourse, it won’t be as lucrative as being a traveling UX trainer.]
still under-valued in the local community/market
Here’s another self-realization and observation that I’ve made throughout my career as a tech professional – we, as employees are most of the time undervalued by our employers. Rarely would you find an employee that is paid what they are really worth on the market.
The company might attempt to argue that there’s employee benefits, medical benefits, child care, and so on, involved in the onboarding package; involved in the employment contract. But nothing is further from the truth, you and I, are not being paid fairly for what they are really charging their customers in the end.
Here’s the reality guys, no matter what your company is offering you now for your salary, they will eventually have to mark up the price on a contract/project for their customers. It’s the only way they can cover the costs of paying their own employees while making sure that they also can cover their overheads and still make some profits in the end. That’s just the reality.
So, if you were to take yourself out of that picture for a moment and consider what you will be able to really make for your talents and skills, you’re actually worth much more than you realized.
I won’t lie; trying to do everything yourself (being self-employed) has its risks. And yes, it can be scary too. I’ve experienced it, I know. But I also find it really worthwhile. As challenging as the idea about being self-employed is, I find it extremely rewarding at times. I feel valued in a way that no other previous employers have ever made me feel. Honestly, that feeling never goes away. Perhaps that might be the subconscious reason why I struggle to get back into a full-time workforce. I know that my employers will never value me as much as I am truly worth out on the open-market.
professional ux training & training curriculums
So here’s where I want to start diving into the details of what I could be offering as a traveling UX trainer/educator. There is no surprise that UX is one of the hottest fields of work currently. In my current assessment (as a thought-leader within the field), this trend will likely continue for the next decade at least. I can stretch my predictions for 15 years, but a decade should be accurate enough (for now).
I’m envisioning myself traveling overseas every two months or so to help conduct some kind of weekly training sessions. It is also possible that it’s just a 1-day workshop. Now, assuming I have a full-time career, this would mean that I can only do it occasionally. Besides, I’ve learned from past experience that traveling once a month can be exhausting. I used to travel around the Asia Pacific quite intensely for a period of time. Yeah, mostly speaking engagements, conducting training, and workshops too.
But if I don’t end up with a full-time career, then the next best thing would be to make myself available to conduct trainings full-time. The good news about what I am currently able to offer is that I don’t have to take on too much all at once. One training engagement could be quite lucrative as it is. Meaning I should be pretty well compensated for each training opportunity. It should be able to supplement me financially for at least a month or so (as long as I strictly manage my own finances).
I’m thinking like a traveling nurse right now
So, like many of the traveling nurses during the early months of the pandemic, I did realize one thing in common, the demand and potential fees I can quote/earn right now won’t last forever. It does appear to me that this is my window of opportunity. Right here, right now, is where my talents and skills are truly relevant and in such high demand. And this huge demand, it’s not going to be there forever.
When I think about my fees, it usually would include the training time involved (obviously covering the billable hours), and then there’s the travel expenses, flight, any sort of insurance, local accommodations (most probably an AirBnB because it’s usually more affordable), training curriculums (if the company/client is a training facility and requests that I help them design one that is tailored to their local culture/societal norms). So yeah, the overall trainer’s fee can be different from one international client to the next.
No, it doesn’t mean that I will abuse my pricing. I still believe in one thing called, “being fair”. I will still charge my services at my market rates, and I’ll leave the rest up to the clients and how they want to pay for it. It’s not my job to tell them how to manage their training/upskilling budgets, and it’s certainly not their place to tell me how I should be pricing my services.
But I think, right now in particular (especially during this season), most international companies are flushed with cash (so to speak), so budget really should not be an issue for them. So, internationally speaking, I think my potential possibilities has just opened up by ten-folds.
And like I mentioned in an earlier section of this journal entry, I may still occasionally give due consideration to local clients/companies/tertiary education institutions that are willing to consider my services as a UX trainer & curriculum designer/developer. But that is going to be a much smaller portion of my time and energy because I genuinely think that local businesses & organizations haven’t quite reached the same level of understanding/attitude as international organizations. Our local businesses/organizations are still thinking too…, “local”, if you know what I mean.
just some closing thoughts
So yeah, that’s what I’m here to discuss and share with you guys. I’m going international (officially). I think that by allowing myself to focus all of my attention and energy on the local & regional markets is too small a thinking. What that guy said to me was right, thinking just about Singapore is too little. Singapore might be becoming an international hub for a lot of things, but the possibilities here are still limited (when you try to compare that to the rest of the world). There are way too many opportunities out there in the world today, and it’s time that I allow myself to be more exposed out there.
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