Before We Hit Record With Nomad Copy Agency Founder Samantha Burmeister

And so we connected inside of the DMs and I thought , well , I still think you're living kind of the life that I wanted to live , which spurred me to start my first online business , which is traveling the world , and I got the impression that you weren't like just spending a week here and a week there , but you're actually spending like really quality time in the

places that you're at , and so I thought we could just kind of talk about that and how your business allows you to do that , and I just wanted to get to know you some . And so , like you , the listener , listening to this episode , this is like the prequel .

Pam will be back and on the next episode she'll be sharing about copy and some pretty marvelous things . So make sure to go down to the description below and click on the link , after you listen to this episode , to that episode . And let's , let's just continue on , because I like this kind of format so . Sam , where are you at right now ?

And I know that it's kind of loud .

So on one hand , it's wild that it took this long . On the other hand , it's wild to be here and finally be here . It feels really cliche , but it also feels like exactly the reason that I quit my job to take on this lifestyle was .

Like you know , I look around and I'm next to a pool and until an hour ago there were people in the room from several different countries and I'm just hanging out in shorts and a tank top in early March and really living exactly what I had pictured for myself when I quit my job to start my business .

There's hippie dippy come to find yourself , eat , pray , love Bali . There's digital nomad Bali . There's surfing Bali . There's Denpasar , which is just an awful huge traffic riddled city . So there's city Bali as well . So there's a lot of different Balis . There's a Bali out there for everyone . But yes , bali , we're relatively close to the equator .

We're on an island . It has all of the beautiful things that islands have to offer .

beaches and the super low cost of living and like people in villas with nice pool , you know , like in their backyard , and just gorgeous views , like places that would easily cost a couple million , you know , or even higher , if you're like in Hawaii , for example , or some other place along the coast , like what's it ?

You want to give us like a snapshot of what ? Like a I don't know , a three bedroom , four bedroom villa with a swimming pool in the backyard and and maid service cost a month , like .

But the people who live here long-term and I would call them either expats , immigrants or slowmads , depending on how long they stay . So in the nomad community there's slowmads , and slowmads tend to stay somewhere for like three to six months at a time , if the visa allows .

I am not quite one of them , because I tend to stay somewhere for one to three months at a time . So I have a little bit less leverage . But for me to have my one bedroom that gets fully cleaned every day , I share a pool with the other three apartments in my villa . Breakfast is included , utilities , wi-fi , co-working space everything is here .

I am paying about 350 for the month total us yes yep , total us dollars . I rented my motorbike for $100 a month . My gym is really expensive but it's really nice . There's a cafe and a pool and a cold plunge , hot plunge recovery area . It's a community . My gym is about $200 for the month and , like I said , that's expensive .

But I get to meet people and that's hard to do when you're moving all the time . So the gym is more than just a treadmill , you know .

I'm from Iowa originally , okay , and every year the route changes , but it goes from west to east . It's seven days of road cycling and it's another one of those things that you can do however you want . You can have a sag wagon that you know carries all your stuff .

Some people get extreme and bring their stuff with them , but yeah , I used to be a road cyclist for fun and then I would do that every summer yeah , yeah but then my very fancy bike got stolen and I moved on to other hobbies .

Um , so basically when he was my roommate in college he was big into cycling and so naturally I got into cycling , though I used to only do like mountain biking , free riding in like urban is what we called it so like , think , jumping down scared stair gaps and doing like wall rides and this sort of thing on the university campus .

But he was big on cycling and so I didn't buy a bike but I bought a frame . And then he helped me like pick components for the frame . So it wasn't like a super high-end build but it did look pretty sweet because it was white , the frame was . But it did look pretty sweet because it was white , the frame was .

And then I took Sharpies and started like in an artful way like writing Chinese characters , like some big , some small , but like almost like a custom wrap for your frame , right , but I did it in Sharpies and the low budget wrap was I went and got ?

what's that thing that girls use on their nails to keep the nail polish on longer , like yeah , like a clear nail polish , nail polish yeah , I don't know yeah yeah , I was gonna say varnish but I was like , no , that sounds like I've never known any women in my life because they don't use varnish , right , but anyway the word for nail polish is varni , which is

basically varnish .

But yeah , so I , I put , I put varnish all over my bike to kind of seal in the highlighter , or just I painted layers over , not the highlighter , the Sharpie marker . And this bike was nice and it did get stolen too , like I used it to communicate , communicate , to commute , to work , work .

And even the stupid thing is is like I had clipless pedals and so I'll not for I guess the listener who's like listening . Now we're getting into bike stuff .

You know you have your pedals that you put your shoes on right and then , like for people on the road , maybe they want to be more efficient , so they instead of just a regular pedal that they put their shoe on , which isn't so efficient because you can't pull up on the pedal , you're only pushing down on the front , and each time you can get clipless shoes

which clip your foot into the pedal . And now you can have like a more efficient using force on your pillows in a circular way . And , yeah , efficiency , you can ride 100 miles and maybe not get as burnt out Anyway . So I had clipless pedals right , not get as burnt out anyway .

So I had clipless pedals right and I still forgot my bike on the front of the bus in a rush to get to work . So , like , I biked far to the bus and then took the bus another distance to work and then left it .

Yeah , and I'm , I was living in seattle at the time and so , like , the bus dropped me off downtown and then it continued into a not as good part of town and that's where the bike got stolen . The bus had a camera , like you know .

I'm like frantically at work , you know , supposed to be doing like the the I was a bus boy at the time and instead I'm like at the front desk , like calling the bus station . You know , because this is back before , it was super easy just to go online and do things , yeah .

And so finally we got footage and we could see somebody carrying away my bike that was not me and dang it . Yeah , that was a good bike anyway . Yeah , so I did use the cycle and did you ? Did you compete too , or ?

more of these long distance no , I just did it for the joy of it okay , cool me too yeah , I did like a couple of sprint triathlons , but like when I say a couple , I mean I think actually two and that was it yeah , yeah , I did it .

And I was a cardio athlete , I ran and swam competitively , so to get into biking was just the natural next step , I think because I have two left hands . Don't throw anything at me ever .

abroad . At the time I was in Vietnam . I had packed a backpack to go just sweat on some beaches with some friends , like no , nothing work-related .

I was chilling and I had checked my work email because I had accidentally sent a confirmation email to my work email and just saw a whole bunch of stuff going on and more or less had an anxiety attack , panic attack ? I'm not entirely sure . And my friends were like Sam , you've been putting this in front of you for so long .

You've been saying like when I pay off my student loans , I'm going to quit my job and travel the world . When I save this much money , I'm going to quit my job and travel the world . When I get to the end of this year , I'm going to quit my job . And I didn't have .

I was travel blogging at the time and it wasn't making any real income , like five bucks every here and there .

So I really was setting a foundation , even though I didn't realize it at the time . But that was another thing that I put in front of me of like , when my business is making this much , then I'll quit my job okay , and I because I was in sales .

I had had some major paychecks recently and my friend that I was with was like how much longer are you going to put this off ? Like what are you really doing here ? And so I put my two weeks in , while on a beach in Vietnam and I lived with a colleague and I said she'll bring my computer in and that that is how I quit my job .

So we were looking at remote options within the company or hoping that I could keep my job and go remote , but she knew that it was one or the other and that was really well communicated between her and I okay , cool .

But what I did do is say , hey , how about me and my wife are in a job share out of the same position , because we're exploring , like other things too , and like they were able to let me do that . So like I was intrigued by your situation , so you , you're on the beat .

Yeah , and you basically got some nice commission checks is what I understood from sales and your friend called you out , hopefully after your panic attack subsided which my geez . So you got your emails and then you had a panic attack Like I'm like what kind of emails were you checking ?

In the position I was in the last two weeks of any given quarter , so the first two weeks of July , first two weeks of January , a lot of people take their time off . So I was off , as was my boss and , I believe , my grand boss , so all of our emails were kicking back Like if you have any problems , go to this person .

If you have any problems , go to this person . So this person one created problems , go to this person . So this person one created a problem .

Like this client created a problem that didn't exist and used it to his advantage to then try and say that like I was neglecting the account and like he knew the right things to say to get attention , and by then it was already up at like the VP of whatever .

And it's like we're going to have a talk with Sam when she gets back and it was a whole thing that shouldn't have happened and if the higher leadership had had a little bit more faith in me , you know so like there was some clear cultural issues there . But yeah , it shouldn't have happened . And it did happen .

And there were some leadership struggles with just like the whole team moving across the country and getting reassigned and people kind of doing power grabs and stuff . So it shouldn't have happened . It did happen . I was thrown under the bus rather than defended by my leadership and it didn't .

burn .

But then what did that look like from when you actually put in your two-week notice and you were blogging and you said that it was right , and you said that basically you were collecting the skills let's call them transferable skills that every listener who's applied for a job that knows that word . And then then what happened ?

Because now you own nomad copy , now everything is going well , but on the way , what happened ?

forward look like ? So I was then without a computer because all I had was a backpack with some beachy dresses in it , you know , and I decided to stay . So I went to the airport when my flight was meant to leave Vietnam and , instead of getting on my flight , I flew to Thailand .

I and this is 2019 , like beach cafe or what's it called internet cafes were long gone by then . Those who worked remotely quote unquote through the early 2000s , maybe up till 2010, . Like , internet cafes were still a thing . They really haven't been for the last 10 years .

But I went to an internet cafe and logged into my email and sent emails to some mentors and I said , hey , I'm on a beach in Vietnam . I'm recently a free agent , you've seen , because I was . So I was publishing my blogs , you know , on not really LinkedIn , but on Facebook and what have you .

And so I sent emails to some mentors and I said I'm a free agent , I don't really know what skills are needed , but I know that you own a business and I would like to start replacing like I would like to be making money . You know I have some money to give me some runway , but I would like to be making some money . What do you know ?

And every single person that responded either said I'll let you know . I got plenty of those responses . But every single person that responded positively said can you write this for me ? And it came down to being like I need a new homepage , I need this , I need that . So I got introduced to a lot of people . I was thinking about finance .

My career before tech sales was financial sales , so I do speak finance and I was writing finance blogs I would . And then several people asked me to write their homepages and I had no idea how to charge for it . I was charging $25 an hour while I did that , which , looking back , is like bananas , because I just had no idea .

It was like a huge protest that the umbrellas right had a lot to do , had a lot to do with the Hong Kong Chinese politics but I was there , so it was yeah for that , and my mom was like trying to get me out and I was like , oh , I'm good , like what you see on tv is not what Hong Kong looks like right now .

So I was there and then I came back to the states and lived out the rest of my lease for that year in Dallas , got in my car and drove around the US for several months and camped and car camped and stayed with friends and did all the like , catching up with family and went , spent time with my grandma all the things that I , like , always wanted to do

but never really gave a lot of time to . So I did that in 2020 then . So my lease ended at the end of 19 . In 2020 , went to Morocco . My mom was living in Germany at the time . We all know what happened in 2020 . So I was very fortunate to land there and at that time , all of my travel .

So I had like built up my travel blogging a bit , but obviously the travel industry collapsed was that ? I then said , okay , all of these businesses are going online and I have a portfolio of all these businesses that I just wrote their homepages and sales pages .

So I put that out there and that's really where Nomad Copy was born , as a full year later was I transitioned from writing whatever to exclusively writing copy and helping people sell online , and that's .

I wanted to name my business Nomad Copy because I knew I wanted to be on the road and I never wanted it to be a surprise to people that I wasn't , you know , based in Philly or wherever they thought that they needed me to be . It was like always , like I am , like it's a lifestyle brand .

You know I am , I am a nomad and I write copy and that's nomad copy so yeah , that's kind of that's what happened after I quit my job in Vietnam how did you that ?

But I think I think we'll finish here , which is , you finished your job and you ended up leaving Southeast Asia and spent a good amount of time in the States . And you were writing sales pages for $25 an hour . You hadn't yet discovered the packaging , pricing , the getting charged , what you're worth and the value that you're delivering to these companies .

Now they have a good sales page . What would you tell your past self to have made that process , that transition from panic attack and quitting the job to nomad copy as it is now ? What would you tell your past self to make that whole process quicker ?

I think , you know , if there's one thing to do differently per se , it'd be to not be afraid to put myself in bigger rooms earlier .

When you said why it's copy before design , when you said why it's copy before design .

If you saw a beautiful sales page and all of a sudden all of the words were pulled off of it and you just had blocks and squiggles and stuff , which one would you eventually be able to decipher ? What they are selling from is gonna be the words left on the page . Now I will fervently argue that it's copy and design , not copy or design .

But I also firmly believe that copy needs to come before design .

But the copy was like on point and it worked , because I could see the numbers that these businesses were posting from , like their program , and I'm just like the thing is ugly but dang , they're selling lots , you know . So .

So that's an upcoming episode how ad copy can work for you and speak for you when you're not around , like you're doing other things , but your funnels are still selling on an ongoing basis and I can't wait to hear what you have to say about that . And thank you for being on this episode and just letting me in the audience get to know you a bit .

Until the next time that you see me or hear from me , be blessed and we'll talk soon . Bye .