Costa Rica Business - Managing a Million Dollar US Business from Costa Rica
Scott Oliver
Glen's directions were absolutely perfect. But, I made the mistake of asking a couple of Ticos (Costa Ricans) who confirmed that...
I was moving in the right direction, that I was walking South from the church (La Iglesia de la Agonia), when in fact I was actually walking South of the beautiful Alajuela cathedral which was only five blocks away. The walk was pleasant and as usual the weather was picture perfect so I didn't mind an extra ten-minute walk. Eventually I tracked down Glen Roberts in a Mexican restaurant called 'Adolpho's Sur'. We sat in the sunny, tree filled garden area and enjoyed a pleasant, typical Mexican type lunch together with coffee afterwards for exactly $5 each including tip. You could say it was a 'power' lunch for a price even a 'pauper' could pay.
Glen moved to Costa Rica only about five months ago. He is a young 40 'something' American who was previously living and working in Oil City, Pennsylvania. As the name suggests, until the big oil companies moved elsewhere, 'Oil City' was a thriving centre for a variety of oil companies.
Glen is a real life example of an increasing number of professionals who are moving to Costa Rica because although he is living here, he is actually running a successful business based in the USA. Is that something that you might be able to do too?
www.office1000.com sells thousands of office products over the internet. All of his clients are located within the US, his operations and support staff are in Oil City, Pennsylvania but he lives and works in Alajuela, Costa Rica.
One of the major problems that Glen faced in working alongside his employees in Oil City was that he was always there, his employees would always be asking him questions when they already knew the answers.
His staff were forcing more responsibility on him when he was in fact trying to delegate more to them. Glen found that he was working 'in' his business, rather than working 'on' his business. He was too much involved with the 'running' of the business instead of the 'building' of the business.
In working from Costa Rica, Glen has discovered that his energies are very much more focused, his 'creativity' has returned and he now manages to get more than ever done in the time that he devotes to his business.
Because of this he has enjoyed seeing a dramatic improvement in his company's sales figures.
This type of scenario obviously cannot work for every kind of business but as far as Central America goes, Costa Rica has good telecommunications that will allow anybody that's currently working as a telecommuter to do so from the tropical paradise we call Costa Rica There are hundreds of thousands of people in the USA working out of offices in their homes.
These 'telecommuters' have now discovered that if they are legal residents of Costa Rica and work in Costa Rica instead of the USA, they get to earn the first $80,000 per annum completely free of all income taxes.
If both you and your spouse are telecommuting, that would mean US$160,000 per annum coming into your family's bank account - tax free!
Needless to say in a country like Costa Rica where the average annual income is less than $5,000 per year - You can live well on that kind of money!
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