The Truth About Digital Nomad Life for Marketers

Zach:
Benjamin, so good to have you on.

I’ve been really excited to talk to you. One of the questions people often ask me is about my time living as a digital nomad, and I thought it’d be great to have someone on who’s currently living the dream and doing this.

I know we have a shared affinity for van culture. We’ve promised not to talk about vans too much in this episode, but I appreciate you coming on.

Just to give people a little bit of context, give us a quick version of who you are and what you do.

Benjamin:
It’s an utter pleasure to be here, Zach. Thank you for having me on.

My name is Benjamin, and myself and my girlfriend and our dog have lived in a van full-time for coming up on three years now.

I specialize in marketing for businesses, focusing on clear, simple, effective strategies.

A big part of my job is that I love storytelling, be that through creating video and image content for organic or paid socials.

But I also do a little bit of SEO work and some mid-level website skills that I utilize.

Living and working from the van was simply a deliberate choice because this is where I do my best work.

Zach:
As I said, you’re living the dream, doing what I think a lot of people want to do with their lives.

I want to start in the middle of the story a little bit.

Something that people often don’t talk about, and I’m sure you did a whole lot of research before you jumped into this lifestyle, is the downsides of doing this.

Were there any things that stood out to you as unexpected downsides to working as a marketer while you’re living and working in a small space as a digital nomad, traveling around?

Benjamin:
Well, I guess it must be the marketer in me, but I’m going to frame it as a good thing.

It’s obviously a smaller space, so that kind of forces you to be a lot more organized, not only with your general lifestyle, but obviously it’s myself and my partner that live in this van, and we are both on meetings at some point throughout the day.

We have to make sure that our schedules accommodate that, or we have to work around those kinds of things.

So it really helps you to be organized in that respect.

The only other thing is that living in a van also has its own challenges, whether that’s because there’s a lot of upkeep that you have to do, putting water in the van, dropping the water out, making sure you’ve got power, Wi-Fi issues depending on where you are.

All of that is stuff that I’ve had to learn on the road to make sure that it doesn’t affect the work.

Zach:
So what does that look like for the Wi-Fi side of it?

I know we talked about this before where you’re having to make sure the day before, like the day before a big meeting or something, that you’ve got sufficient Wi-Fi there or you have to travel to get somewhere that does, right?

Benjamin:
Yeah.

It’s a mixture of things, but 99% of the time I’m just hotspotting off my phone.

It’s nothing special.

Most of the places that we go to around Europe, there is 5G, and 5G is more than enough.

We’re having a conversation now over 5G, for example, and it’s perfectly fine.

We have turned up to places, checked our phone signal and gone, “Actually, we probably can’t stay here,” despite how nice the view is.

I’ve had to move down the mountain or along to the next park-up just to see if we have better signal.

Some people have Starlink.

It’s not really been something that I’ve necessarily needed, but it is something I would look at if we ever did.

Then as a backup to all of that, if everything else fails, we can always go to a café, buy lunch or breakfast or whatever, hook up to their Wi-Fi, and conduct a meeting from there.

Zach:
I want to back up a little bit from there, just rewind a little bit.

What originally pushed you in this direction, toward living and working in this way, on the road and traveling?

Benjamin:
When I was young, I dreamed of living in a double-decker bus or a treehouse, depending on the day. I wasn’t picky in that respect, I guess.

The tipping point, though, was recognizing that traditional living, the high costs and rigid routines, just didn’t align with the life that I wanted.

Backing it up, before I lived in the van, I was an outdoor instructor.

I used to take people through high ropes courses, and then later I taught people how to ride ATVs and drive other off-road vehicles.

I was very good at my job, at least I think I was very good at my job.

I progressed to management roles quite quickly, but my life very much came about helping other people live their adventure and not my own.

So moving to a van was kind of like taking back that adventurous nature for myself in some respects.

The other thing was I couldn’t really rely on those vocations as a steady income while on the road.

You can go to adventure parks and rock up and say, “Hey, I’ve got this experience,” but it doesn’t really pay very well at the same time.

So before we hit the road in the van, I leaned into what I did as a hobby, which was drone videography.

Long story short, over time that progressed as I learned what clients wanted, and now I do what I do.

Zach:
I guess if you’re picking up work as you land in different places with your van, showing up somewhere and trying to go get a job that way is going to be pretty challenging.

Whereas if you’ve got a consistent group of clients that you’re working for remotely, or one employer even, that can be a more beneficial way to do that.

Benjamin:
Yeah, for sure.

The other thing is that realistically, in Europe, there are different languages that everyone speaks, and I really only speak one, not so well.

So having to rock up to a place and say, “I can do this,” was never really going to work.

So I leaned into my hobby, essentially.

Zach:
You already had that skill set and you were able to leverage that to turn it into paid income and paid work.

Before you made the decision to do this, you probably had a picture in your head of what it would be like.

What did you imagine the lifestyle to be, and what surprised you most about this life once you were actually living it?

Benjamin:
I think I probably had a more romantic version in my head of what it’s like.

I think most people do about living in a van, how it’s maybe a constant adventure.

There is an element where I can spend my free time in places that I enjoy, but essentially I have basically a nine-to-five Monday-to-Friday job anyway.

The only difference is the scenery outside my window changes from week to week.

I think the biggest challenge really was to lose all your stuff.

There’s only so much you can take with you in the van, as I’m sure you know.

There’s a saying when you go walking that you pack your fears.

So we always ended up packing way too much stuff anyway and trying to squeeze it into the van.

But we’ve now got it to a point where we’ve done this long enough that we know what we need, and we’ve offloaded a lot of stuff over the years.

Zach:
I’m guessing as a run-up to making that move and downsizing and getting rid of things, a big part of that was doing research and trying to understand online, looking at other people who were doing this and understanding what this life is going to be like.

What was one thing that you heard online that sounded great about this life but just completely fell apart?

Was there anything like that?

Benjamin:
You see a lot of these courses you can buy.

It’s like, “Buy my course to see how you can live nomadically.”

You don’t need the course. I can tell you that.

I’ve never bought one, but I can tell you that you don’t need the course.

Most of the things I saw online were everyone displaying, again, the romantic version of van life where it is just a constant adventure.

It’s not like that.

It is a case of, like I said, I work normal hours.

It’s just that my scenery changes, so I can do things that are a bit more me, I guess.

For example, at the moment I’m parked in a ski resort.

I can put down my laptop whenever I want, go do a couple of runs, and then come back and carry on.

It’s a good way of blowing off steam in that respect.

It’s just having whatever you want to do as a hobby on your doorstep.

Zach:
I think that freedom piece is a huge misconception, right?

When I went into it, that’s what I thought. I’m free, I don’t have to work, I’m good.

And I thought, I’ll be working for all these different clients.

That was true, but you end up spending a lot more time working.

It is still a nine-to-five, right?

Even more so sometimes, it’s hard to switch work off and enjoy the setting that you’re in.

When I was in New Zealand, this was a long time ago, before everybody had Wi-Fi, so I was in an internet café.

I intentionally went to this place because it had internet, and I was working for a client in the States from New Zealand.

Then that afternoon I was out trout fishing in the trout fishing mecca of the world.

So you are free in that sense, but you also still have responsibility.

You still have clients, a boss, and that boss can be one client or multiple clients.

You still have people to answer to, and you’re not just totally free to go do whatever.

I think that helps transition into this idea of perception versus reality.

Are there other big misconceptions that you think people have about digital nomad life or living and working out of a van specifically?

A lot of people do this and don’t live out of a van. They’re just digital nomads moving around.

But are there misconceptions beyond that freedom piece?

Benjamin:
Yeah.

I think most people think it’s chaotic, but I’ve leaned into it, and that’s actually helped me.

You’re forced to be very organized in that respect.

I’ve never actually had to deal with this, but I do always wonder if people are going to think that I’m professional.

You think of a person living in a van and it kind of evokes that image of a bum down by the river almost.

So making sure that clients especially are taking me seriously was a concern.

But I don’t really find that being an issue.

I think part of that is because of the type of clients I work with.

Zach:
Are there practical things that you have done to manage those expectations or reinforce that you are professional, or has it just not been an issue for you?

Benjamin:
It’s not been an issue, but again, it’s kind of the clients that I tend to seek out.

I tend to work with smaller businesses rather than large companies.

Everyone has a niche, right?

Mine just happens to line up perfectly with how I live.

That kind of adventurous nature, the travel, all that kind of stuff.

That doesn’t mean I only work with people who are in the van community.

It can be way broader than that, like adventure travel, skiing, remote-first companies.

There’s a saying in writing, “Write what you know,” and I take that in a much broader sense and apply it to the fields I work in, which includes marketing.

At the end of the day, if you really know an industry that you’re marketing to, or even more than that, if you’re actually a customer in that industry, there’s honestly no better position than you can be in because it comes with a certain knowledge base.

In those cases, I’m not just bringing my marketing skill set to the table.

I’m also bringing real-world insight, my own personal experience as a customer, or maybe being surrounded by people in those communities.

I think that really gives me an edge in that respect.

All the clients I seem to have worked for have seen me living in a van as an asset rather than being off-putting.

Marketing is also a pretty ubiquitous industry.

Everyone needs it.

No matter what kind of company they run, everyone needs marketing.

Zach:
This is one of the things I often tell people who are thinking about getting into marketing.

Marketing is the job, but you can do it for all kinds of businesses.

What is your passion? You can work in marketing in that field.

That’s true of other jobs too, but marketing is where you get to really demonstrate and show and communicate to other people your excitement for that industry.

For you, that could be the adventure side of things. It could be the travel side of things.

So you’re naturally working for clients and for businesses that are in those spaces.

It could be travel, vans, motorcycles, tennis shoes or trainers, whatever the product is.

Marketing is just a great field because you get to be excited about it and demonstrate that to other people.

All right, one last slightly negative question.

What’s the most overrated part of being a digital nomad and living in a van?

Benjamin:
With digital nomad life and van life, there are two different things there, I’d say.

With digital nomad life, you have to make sure that there’s always a next client if your contract is running out with someone.

So even when you are not working, you’re working because you need to find your next paycheck, as it were.

If you’re lucky and you’re able to secure a gig that’s permanent, then great.

But that’s not always the case in this kind of world or even in this industry.

So even when you’re not working, you can be working just as hard, but for no money.

That’s a drawback with being self-employed or freelance.

The biggest downside of being in a van is that, at least here in Europe, not everywhere is free to park.

Living in a van doesn’t just make all your bills zero.

There are times where you do have quite expensive months depending on where you’re parked.

So it’s that balancing act between having a good month and where you can go versus maybe we’re running a bit leaner this month, so we should go find a place that we can hole up for cheap for longer.

Zach:
On the practical side of that, in terms of finances, are you able to save more when you’re living in a van than you are paying for a flat or apartment?

Benjamin:
I would say so over the three years that we’ve lived here.

It’s ebbed and flowed depending on our work schedules, I guess.

But overall, yeah, we’ve been able to save money.

The goal here is that we are going to live in a van for as long as we can.

We have no rush to leave, but we do want to eventually buy a ski chalet.

That’s basically the goal that we’ve set for ourselves at the moment.

Who knows after that?

Maybe in 10 years’ time we’ll have a yacht.

Instead of living nomadically on the road, we’ll be living nomadically by the sea.

Zach:
Amazing, man.

You’ve really embraced this adventurous lifestyle and just carving out the life that you want.

It’s just so amazing to see.

One of the things that you’ve mentioned, and I’ve heard you talk about before, is the need to be a jack of all trades.

I’ve heard you describe yourself as that.

How important is having that wide marketing skill set to being able to sustain the lifestyle that you have?

Benjamin:
Really important, I would say.

I like to work closely and personally with my clients, which is why I tend to work with smaller businesses rather than large companies.

From that, they are facing new challenges every day.

Most of the time, they enter something with an idea, but the reality on the ground is maybe they’re not quite ready to go into that yet.

For example, you could go into something saying, “I’ve thought of this marketing budget.”

But what is that information based on?

Have you looked at what kind of profit margin you have already, et cetera?

Having a wide skill set matters a lot because you don’t want to just box yourself into one area.

You want to be as marketable to your client as possible, whether that means you’ve been brought in to do A, but you can also do X, Y, and Z as well.

Zach:
What was the sequence of offerings that you provide for businesses?

You said you did the drone footage. That was sort of a hobby, and you turned it into a business for yourself.

Was that the first skill or offering that you had for clients?

Then you moved because you do website stuff too.

What was the sequence there?

Benjamin:
In my last role, my last full-time permanent role where I was on the payroll, as it were, I did a little bit of marketing for the company.

I self-taught a little bit of Meta Ads, and I did a lot of the videography.

That’s kind of where it really first started for me.

When I walked away from that, I leaned into the drone videography because I really enjoyed flying drones anyway.

I already had a passion for video editing, so that naturally worked together.

When I got on the road, I realized that it was a bit more challenging to approach clients with this product that I was essentially selling, which was myself being like, “I can come to your site, I can film stuff, I can go away, I can edit this stuff, and then give it back to you.”

Most of the people that I was approaching were actually like, “Well, we’ve also got this kind of footage as well. Could you include this in the advert that you’re going to make for us?”

Which is great.

Then it snowballed from that and I moved away more from the drone aspect and leaned more into video editing.

Then off the back of that, I got lucky with one of the larger clients that I’ve worked for, who let me do a bit more image stuff.

I learned a bit more about the Meta side of things and SEO and Google Ads and all that kind of stuff.

That really helped when it came to approaching other clients in the future where I was like, “Well, I can also do this for you, and this for you, and this for you.”

I present myself as a visual storyteller.

I will approach people and say, “I can make these kinds of assets for you to market as you will, or I can also help you move into making those ads for you and run them for you.”

That’s kind of where I’m at today.

Zach:
So you’ve got the visual side with the drone footage and videography more generally.

You’ve also got paid social with Meta Ads that you offer.

Then is there website work that you mentioned as well?

Benjamin:
Yeah.

Again, it’s kind of just ended up that way.

That really started when I was a teenager with MySpace.

Blast from the past. I’m really showing my age there.

But you could create special custom profiles on MySpace, and I learned a lot of HTML coding from that.

It’s this thing I always had dormant in me, and it’s just become useful when helping clients with website stuff.

I find that clients really appreciate it if, instead of just communicating with the web developer, you can just log in on WordPress or whatever and make those changes, obviously with permission.

It really streamlines that process.

I know what the business wants.

The business wants results.

They don’t want this kind of back-and-forth and fluff before you can see the results.

They just want to get to the end game.

Wherever I can streamline the process, I try and leverage what skills I have to help.

Zach:
With all those different skills that you’ve mentioned, what skills have turned out to be the non-negotiables?

Benjamin:
Organization being the main one.

You need to make sure that when juggling multiple clients, you’ve got all your ducks in a row and you’re not missing deadlines for any of those clients.

Otherwise, it’s not sustainable at that point.

Organization is paramount for anything that I would do.

The most useful ones that I use day-to-day are really your social media, be that organic or paid, and being able to read the data and present it in a way that your client’s going to understand.

They need to understand that the work you’re doing is moving the needle.

As long as you’ve got those three, that organization, your main meat of it, which in my case is your organic social and stuff, and being able to report on that, you’re most of the way there.

SEO has become a big feather in my cap recently.

I’m going to try and lean more into that as I go on.

Zach:
Were there skills that you thought going into this, “These are going to be non-negotiables, I’m going to need these,” but they’ve actually turned out to matter a lot less than you expected?

Benjamin:
Yeah.

I thought I would be doing a lot more video editing for clients.

I do a lot of video editing, but maybe not as much as I first thought I would be doing.

I would say I spend about 20% or 25% of my time video editing, where before that was what I thought my whole schtick would be.

It’s now leaning much more into social media.

Images are what I’ve found have become very prominent.

I find myself in Canva a lot nowadays, which is something I didn’t expect.

I thought I would be much more in Adobe Premiere, but it’s just kind of the way the clients wanted it to go.

So that’s the way it’s gone.

Zach:
That’s the thing, right?

You think if I’m going to be freelance or if I’m going to be working for one client and not on the payroll, essentially I’m my own boss.

But in reality, you still have a boss and sometimes multiple bosses if you’re doing multiple clients.

You talked about how your services and your offering have had to evolve over time.

How do you approach upskilling and cross-skilling and identifying new things that you need to learn?

What’s your general approach to that?

Benjamin:
I see where the gaps in the market are.

Like I said, I work with smaller companies, so there’s always, for lack of a better word, sometimes a lack of knowledge in some of those companies.

You are being looked at as the arbiter of all the marketing knowledge.

You know what magic levers to push, et cetera.

Sometimes you need to learn which lever to pull.

So it’s really a case-by-case basis.

If a client asks me to do something and I don’t know it, I’m excited to learn what that is, and I can go away.

There are loads of resources online to learn whatever you don’t know.

I already have a foundational knowledge where I can understand most things and pick it up pretty quickly.

There are great resources out there.

I taught myself how to use GA4, for example, using the free Google training.

There’s loads of skills and workshops out there that can help you learn new stuff.

One thing I’m learning at the moment is optimizing for ChatGPT and all that kind of stuff.

That’s where the next big step is.

You need to be aggregating the data on the website so ChatGPT can read it because most people are searching that way nowadays.

So it’s constantly learning new things, looking for the way the market’s going, the way the wind’s blowing.

Zach:
Have you got any more specifics on how you’re using GenAI tools like ChatGPT?

How is that changing your workflow or your offering in any way?

Benjamin:
Really, I think the main driver at the moment for me is leaning into FAQs.

That’s a big place where ChatGPT is looking into the data.

Obviously keywords are a big deal.

But mainly, you’re finding a lot of clients aren’t really aware or are a bit hesitant to put FAQs on their web pages.

It’s a really great place to start to get picked up by those large language models.

Really, that’s where the surface is at the moment.

Other than that, it’s using tools like Semrush to see how you’re appearing to AI chatbots and all that kind of stuff.

That’s kind of where my level is at the moment.

Like I said, I’m learning, but that’s not a bad thing.

Zach:
Absolutely.

All of us are learning AI right now and probably all feel behind the eight ball, like we’re behind schedule.

But I think everybody feels that way.

You talk to AI trainers, people who train people in AI tools, and they still say, “Yeah, I do too.”

It’s just so fast and it’s hard to keep on top of it all.

Benjamin:
But the important thing is, as a marketer, you’ve got to evolve with technology.

As long as you start trying to stay on top of that ball, you’re halfway there, right?

Zach:
Yeah.

So if you’ve got that general attitude that, “I’m not just going to learn something and then that’s it, but I’ve got continuous learning for the rest of my life as a marketer,” I think that’s the general attitude people need to approach it with, right?

To keep growing.

Benjamin:
Absolutely.

Zach:
You’ve talked about keeping things simple.

It really stood out to me when we talked before.

I wonder how that mindset for you shows up in the way that you approach the marketing work that you do, the offerings that you provide for clients, your relationships with clients.

How does that “keep it simple” strategy play out in your everyday life?

Benjamin:
When approaching any task, I personally cut the fluff because there’s no point in making things overcomplicated if the simple way of doing it is going to yield the same results.

I try and make sure that any ad campaign that I run, I already know where the goal is going to be.

Then you try and make the moves to hit that goal.

If something’s not working, there’s no harm in changing it.

I do that by running a lot of A/B testing and seeing what is working out of those two things.

Clear messaging is really where people fight.

That’s where audiences are most receptive.

If the message is clear straight away and upfront, I find that tends to be more engaging.

If you overcomplicate it, you’re going to lose interest in this world where people have a finite amount of interest anyway.

You want to make sure that the point you’re driving is simple and clear.

Zach:
Are there things that you’ve stopped doing that have made a big difference in that way?

As you’ve tried to simplify and keep things simple, are there things that you’ve stopped doing that have made a big change?

Benjamin:
Yeah.

Wordy adverts.

I have been a victim of making copy maybe a bit too long in the past just because I’m trying to get as much information in as possible.

Really, I don’t think that’s necessarily the point of the advert.

You want to put the key points there and get them to the site where they will then find more information about the product if it’s something that interests them.

Also putting too much copy in the actual creative of the advert itself.

Again, we live in an age where people’s attention is finite.

So you want to make sure that you grab them there and then get them over.

Then let the website do the talking, essentially.

You can see from analytics that people’s attention span, especially at the top of the funnel, is very limited.

So you really want to grab that attention where you can.

Zach:
So simplifying the hook, getting them to the website, and then that’s where you can provide them with more information once they’ve clicked through.

That’s a really good insight there.

So not overly wordy copy in your initial ad.

Top-of-the-funnel advertising, reduce the word count there essentially.

Still related to simplicity and at a very practical level now in terms of your life and working and living in the same space, how do you organize that?

How do you organize your time?

How do you stay focused, just living in a tight space like that, working and living in the same space?

Benjamin:
Essentially, I do live in a six-by-12-foot box, which sounds like it could be pretty cabin-fever-inducing sometimes.

But we have ways of managing it.

Our living area converts into an office space when we need it to.

We have a desk that folds out of our sofa that me and my girlfriend can both sit by.

That changes the space enough that we feel like it’s different when we’re in work mode, as we call it, compared to weekend mode.

Then further than that, just taking breaks every now and again.

We’re so lucky that we have this opportunity to have the world on our doorstep.

We regularly just put the laptop down for five minutes and go take the dog for a walk through whatever meadow we’re parked up in or along the river.

That can really help.

It can really help refresh what you’re doing at the desk at that time or re-energize those creative juices.

I feel like I would get cabin fever in a mansion if I didn’t do those things.

The size of the space doesn’t really matter.

Zach:
That’s such a good insight too.

It doesn’t really matter the size of the space.

If you’re not getting out and touching grass, as the kids say these days, then you’re going to get cabin fever even in a big house.

Really interesting.

Benjamin:
The thing is, I obviously used to live in a house.

It’s not as if I’ve always done this.

I would say that the van is far more comfortable than any house I’ve ever owned or rented.

That helps as well.

Zach:
I guess being able to design it yourself, whereas a home would have been designed by somebody else, you can design this space for exactly what you need.

As you said, it converts from living space to weekend mode versus workspace.

Benjamin:
Weekend mode, yeah.

I do enjoy weekend mode.

It makes our sofa like three times the size, which is fantastic.

Also, maybe it’s just English houses, but they’re always cold or expensive to heat.

The water pressure was never good, whereas I have a shower here that’s the hottest shower I’ve ever used, and it’s got the best pressure of any shower I’ve ever owned.

It’s almost like I’ve upgraded living in a van, not downgraded at all.

Zach:
When we spoke before, you said that you guys started the van while you were still in a house, but then you were finishing it, still converting it, did it all yourselves, and you were converting it while you were on the road.

Were there systems that you designed or parts of the van that you designed for work and weekend mode that didn’t work, that you then changed until you found something that worked for you?

Benjamin:
Yeah, there were quite a few design iterations, should we say.

The way the van is set out at the moment is our V2.

Originally, we had a sideboard along the front of our van, which only really one of us could use.

We had to swap depending on who was on the meeting.

So we quickly realized that didn’t work and we really needed a table.

That’s where our V2 has come in with the table.

Then just little things along the way.

We used to have what we affectionately called a wine cellar, which was basically a trapdoor on the floor of the van where we used to keep our contraband.

But that’s gone by the wayside now, and we’ve decided instead that it’s much better for storage in general.

Just like what I’m doing with marketing, it’s ever-evolving.

Eventually, you kind of land on a way that works.

There’s no shame in changing things, even though you think at the time it’s right.

Sometimes real world hits and maybe that’s not the way it has to go.

Zach:
You touched on something there.

You mentioned it earlier too, the challenge of having two people.

You and your partner are both working, so you’re on calls, she’s on calls.

How do you manage that?

Do you try to schedule calls at different times?

You’re doing client work, so how do you manage that challenge?

Benjamin:
It’s not always possible to schedule calls to happen at different times just because of our various clients’ demands.

They may happen to cross over and they do want a call at the same time.

So there are two different ways that we can combat this.

One of us will potentially sit in the actual cab of the van and the other will take the call in the living side, as we call it.

With how Google Meet does stuff nowadays, you can put a background on so no one would know that you’re in a van, let alone in the cab of a van.

Alternatively, if we don’t think that’s going to work for whatever reason, one of us can always take a walk to a café and conduct our calls from there.

So it’s just a case of communicating.

We obviously live in such a small space that we’re always talking to each other, always making sure that we’re not getting on top of each other.

Having that communication there is paramount as well to living in a van.

Zach:
When you gave me the tour of your van previously, I noticed that you kept the bulkhead or put one in to separate the cab from the living space.

I’ve always heard people talk about wanting that open so you can quickly get out of where you are if you need to for security reasons.

But I guess there are security benefits for keeping that bulkhead too.

That’s another benefit for keeping that bulkhead, so you can have multiple meetings if you’ve got two people or more.

Benjamin:
The bulkhead thing really splits people down the middle, whether or not you should have it or not.

I say down the middle, but I think a majority of people don’t have it.

We decided to keep it because we do a lot of skiing and the cab windows are the biggest loss of thermal heat.

So that whole bulkhead is thermally insulated.

We do have a sliding door for security, so if we ever did need to dive into the cab for whatever reason, it just slides open and we can crawl in.

It’s no issue.

We’ve got the best of both worlds in that respect.

Zach:
You’ve worked for clients pretty consistently, right?

For one client, I guess, essentially at the moment, but in the past you’ve done multiple clients.

That creates another tension, because I know you guys have your own socials, which I’ll give you a chance to tell us about in a minute.

What’s your relationship like with maintaining a social media presence for clients, but also your own social media?

How do you deal with that challenge of managing both of those?

Benjamin:
I’m quite selective about my own social media, ironically.

It’s weird, the more fulfilled I have been with my life, the less I feel I need to broadcast it.

So I treat it as more of a tool, not a performance.

I use my own social media to see what trends are out there rather than actually putting myself out there.

Although, for my New Year’s resolution, I have decided I will put myself more out there on social media because I feel like I have that opportunity and I really should.

But it has been really refreshing living my life and not screaming and shouting about it.

That lack of broadcasting my own life has really helped me influence the creatives for my clients because I can put all that energy and all those creative juices into the visuals that I want to tell for my clients.

Zach:
Have you found that there are practical steps that you need to make?

These social media platforms and content are designed to be as addictive as possible.

They’re trying to sell our eyeballs to other people.

Are there things that you’ve had to do practically to remove yourself from social media?

For me personally, I know that it’s just so addictive.

I charge my phone downstairs. I don’t bring it upstairs. I don’t bring it into the bedroom.

Are there practical things that you’ve done like this?

Again, smaller space, so charging the phone somewhere else may not be an option, but are there practical things that you’ve done to counter some of those challenges?

Benjamin:
I’m a bit of a YouTube addict, I have to say.

I love learning about new stuff, and that’s kind of how I keep up with world events and stuff.

I use the Screen Time app that you get on iPhone as standard, and I just make sure that kind of locks it down after a certain time.

I try my best to adhere to that where possible.

Consuming content on social media, I guess because I’m in that world, I sometimes find what’s out there maybe a bit cringey.

So I naturally get the ick, as the kids say, when I watch certain content, and that kind of really takes me out of it.

I also think it might just be my algorithm.

My algorithm on Instagram and Facebook is very professional in that respect because that’s the content that interests me.

When you spend a whole day working, the last thing you want to do is do more work potentially.

So I find that naturally easier to step away from.

But I can see how it can be a challenge for a lot of people.

I like what you said about leaving your phone in another room.

We could do that, I guess.

But yeah, it’s just another thing.

Zach:
It’s an interesting thing you said too about the more content you are with your life, or the happier you are with your life, the less you feel like you need to share it with other people.

For people who are primarily consuming social media, that’s not the sense that they would get from watching other people online.

If you’re happy and you’re content with your life, then those are the people that are sharing, right?

Because all the content that we ever see is people talking about how amazing their lives are.

I think it does put people off pushing content.

It does for me, for sure.

I’ve had to push myself even to do this podcast, to push myself out there like that.

I’ve got coaching clients that I talk to and say, “Look, you’ve got to do this. You’ve got to grow your business. You need to be putting yourself out there.”

It’s just so hard when you feel like, “I don’t want to be that guy.”

So that’s good to know that that’s a challenge for other people.

You guys are pushing content. You’ve got TikTok. It is as polished as it can look.

It takes effort to just put yourself out there like that.

Benjamin:
Like I said, I’m using those creative juices in work.

In my free time, I want to do something that is maybe not recording or filming or editing for my own socials.

It’s one of those things where, like I said, as part of my New Year’s resolution, I do want to put myself out there more.

I just feel like I have the opportunity to.

But I do so knowing that it’s a double-edged sword and it will take more of my time.

But like you’ve touched on there, it’s becoming important now for my own work to put myself out there.

That’s how people are going to find you after all.

Your new storefront on a high street is your social media, your LinkedIn, your Instagram or Facebook profile.

So it is important to keep that cultivated.

I guess I probably have the opposite issue to what most people have, where they spend too much time on social media.

I feel like I’m reluctant to do so.

Zach:
Looking back on this whole transition, you’ve been on the road three years, right?

You’ve been in your van for three years?

Benjamin:
Yeah, coming up to three years now.

Zach:
Looking back on that transition from a more traditional life in a house and home and moving into your van, traveling and working, and thinking about what you did to prepare to make that shift, what marketing skills or even mindset would you prioritize earlier on?

And are there things that you would ignore now?

Benjamin:
If I could advise my past self, I’d say, “You already understand how businesses generate revenue. So you just need to articulate the value in that.”

Skills matter, but your positioning matters more.

You need to be able to know what the business wants, and you need to communicate what value you’re going to add to that.

Ninety percent of the clients I’ve landed are because you already understand what they want and you can say, “Well, I know I can do this.”

So it’s not necessarily about learning new skills, but knowing the skills that you already have and how that helps you sell that to the business.

Zach:
You talked about organization being one of the things that’s really important for living this lifestyle.

Are there other things that this lifestyle forces you to be better at?

Whether you want to or not, you have to be better at this.

Benjamin:
I guess selling myself.

Marketing is essentially just sales. It’s just a different cover you put on it.

But if you can’t sell yourself, you can’t sell the product.

So it’s really being able to do those elevator pitches, for lack of a better word, to grab that client.

I’m normally better if I manage to get sat down with a client and we’re having a face-to-face, or camera-to-camera, conversation.

I know at that point I’m pretty much a shoo-in.

But it’s getting them to that point.

It’s being able to present yourself over email to get them to the point where they’re sitting down with you and then you’ll be able to sell yourself.

Those are all really important things that I probably didn’t appreciate when I first started this gig.

I come from a background of customer service, so I’m great when it comes to in-person.

But now it’s digital, and there are different ways of presenting yourself, whether that’s just text-only or virtually.

I needed to learn to transition those skills to that kind of environment.

Zach:
There are going to be some people listening to this who are like, “Yeah, this life is not for me. I don’t want to live in a van. I don’t want to live in a box,” as you described it.

For people who don’t want that lifestyle, what lessons from your experience do you think still apply to people who are looking to build a strong marketing career?

Benjamin:
Even if you never live in a van, the core lesson is to consciously design your work environment.

The goal is alignment wherever you live.

What really is going to serve your best output?

That could be a dedicated area in your house where you can work and then, like an office, you can shut that door and go away.

That can be your weekend mode.

Or is it a case of just making sure that your organization doesn’t affect your personal life?

The key thing is to keep those things separate because you will perform better when you feel fulfilled.

There’s no point in being fulfilled at work if it’s miserable at home, for lack of a better way of putting it.

You can choose what to do and you can love what you do, but it shouldn’t take away from your life.

Zach:
One thing I know people are going to be curious about is, and I’ve been keeping it as a little teaser for the end here, what’s your current location?

Where are you located at the moment?

Benjamin:
I’ve spent most of early this year in Portugal surfing.

I am now making my way across the Pyrenees, and I’m visiting all the little ski resorts as I go.

Currently, I’m parked in a place called Saint-Lary, which is the biggest ski resort in the Pyrenees outside of Andorra.

I’m hoping to continue along the Pyrenees all the way to, I don’t know.

See where the road goes, I guess.

Zach:
I’m sure as we finish this call, you’re going to go jump on the slopes.

That’s pretty exciting.

Benjamin:
My snowboard is sitting just off camera, just over there.

Zach:
That’s amazing.

Well, I don’t feel guilty. I don’t want to take any more of your time.

Where can people find out more about you?

Benjamin:
You can find me on TikTok at Wilderness to Waves or on Instagram at Wilderness to Waves.

You can see all our adventures there.

Zach:
Amazing.

Benjamin, thank you so much for joining us.

I really appreciate it.

I know people are going to get so much out of this, so thanks a lot.

Benjamin:
Zach, it’s been a pleasure, mate.

All the best.