Asking the Right Questions

As a member of several expat groups on Facebook, I see versions of this question all the time: “how does a US citizen get sponsorship to relocate to live and work in other countries these days?”

There are, ahem, obvious reasons why someone might want to do this, but the problem is that this is the wrong question. The vast majority of countries where you might want to live aren’t going to have any company that will sponsor you for a staff job.

Every developed country that I know of protects their own citizens by making it clear that work visas will only be granted for immigrants who are doing jobs that employers can’t find enough citizens to do. These are usually either very highly specialized, niche jobs (certain kinds of technology) or they are manual labor, such as agriculture jobs.

If you’re like the vast majority of workers in the US, you’re never going to be able to get sponsorship for a staff job in another country because there is almost certainly a candidate in that country who can do that job.

The right question is: “how can I legally live and work in another country?” That question has several possible answers. For example, if your company has branches in other countries, you may be able to arrange for a transfer. Or if you can do your work remotely, you may be able to arrange for a visa since you won’t be taking a job from a citizen. Or if you’re a freelancer for clients outside your host country, you may be eligible for a visa (again because you won’t be taking a job from a citizen). Some countries have visas for people starting their own businesses or investing in existing businesses.

I’m not an expert on anything but freelancing, so don’t ask me your visa questions. This is just a reminder that if you’re trying to solve a problem, you have to ask the right question.

For example, newer editors often ask things like, “How do I get faster at editing so I can make more money?”

But there’s a limit to how fast you can edit and still do good work. Editing is not making widgets. It’s knowledge work and it takes time and reflection to do well. So going faster will tend to result in less effective work, which will eventually lead to a business decline – no repeat clients, no referrals, and the only word-of-mouth is the bad kind.

The better question is, “How can I make more money as an editor?” That question has lots of possible answers:

• Raise your fees
• Book more clients (work more hours)
• Streamline non-editorial processes (such as marketing and business operations) to create more time for editing
• Subcontract work to other editors and take a percentage
• Do less labor intensive types of editing, such as manuscript evaluation to earn more money per hour
• Offer new services that you can charge more for, like coaching

And I’m sure there are more that I’m not thinking of right this second. But as you can see, the key to finding a good answer is to ask the right question!