Don’t ‘Dumb Down’ Your Location Independent Business

I conducted a little test recently. (The beard was shaved off by then)

I was doing a simple job for one of my sales clients and measuring how long it took me to gather information on leads I would reach out to later that week.

The test took place over a two-day period. The first day I worked in a location that was convenient to get to (right downstairs from my room) but with relatively slow WiFi. The second day I hiked across town to get to another WiFi spot where the connection was reliably faster.

All of the work was online, so I knew that faster internet would help me improve my productivity. The difference in page-loading speeds was noticeable, and I thought my productivity would increase by about 25% at the faster location.

The real numbers blew me away.

When I worked on faster WiFi I got 4 times as much work done in 1 hour. I had no idea that the difference in internet speed was having such a powerful effect! I certainly hadn’t observed that page-load speed was 4 times faster at the new location.

I was in disbelief but the results were staring me in the face. I had improved my productivity fourfold simply by stepping into a faster WiFi signal. (The difference wasn’t obvious when I didn’t track the numbers!)

Extrapolating this test, one day of work on fast WiFi is worth nearly a week with a slower connection.

The Takeaway

There is solid ROI for finding a work location with faster WiFi. If you value your time highly, as all location independent entrepreneurs should, paying extra for fast WiFi makes a lot of sense.

What effect would finishing a months worth of work in a week have on your business?

If you’re thinking of accepting slower WiFi in order to save money on rent or an expensive internet plan, think twice about how this may effect your company.

Almost all of your business is managed through an internet browser so this decision could retard your business operations and greatly hinder your progress and growth.