Copy And

10. How I Became a Digital Nomad Copywriter

• Samantha Burmeister @ Nomad Copy • Episode 10

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Curious about pursuing a digital nomad freelancing lifestyle? Tune in for a candid look at my approach to combining work and travel. I’m sharing my journey from corporate sales to copywriting from 78 countries, how I balance working 20-30 hours a week while traveling the world, and what shaped my approach to sales, copy, and client work along the way.

Key Points Covered in This Episode:

  • My background in corporate sales and how it shaped my copywriting skills
  • How travel, freelancing, and early missteps led me to copywriting
  • Why VIP Days became my favorite way to work with clients
  • My honest advice for aspiring digital nomad copywriters

Resources Mentioned:

Find Donna and the CEO Sprint podcast at this link!

To find Danielle at DM Squared Media, go to dmsquaredmedia.com/nomad. 

Connect with me:

Nomad Copy Services → sales pages, emails, websites, and more.

Get on my calendar → if you’d like me to write your sales copy for you!

Free Opt-In Copy Bot → Write high-converting opt-in pages in minutes

Watch episodes with subtitles on my YouTube

Nomad Copy Agency writes copy that CONVERTS for service-based businesses. Inquire about done-for-you services here.

Okay, friends, this is such a fun episode. Welcome to episode 10 of Copy and the podcast for people like you, online service providers who are trying to write copy that sounds like them, but converts better. You guys already know my name is Sam and I own Nomad Copy Agency, and I have been getting a heck of a lot of you asking me. How did you get here? Because I, Sam, have so much sales experience, so much writing experience, yet here I am in the online business space. Am I a full-time traveler, am I not? So I'm gonna tell you guys my story in kind of a. Really unhinged, unscripted kind of way. We're gonna cover a couple of interesting things, like how I can work 20 hours a week and earn a full-time income, which is like a dream from corporate Sam's Life and how I got so good at sales copy while being just kind of a wild Enneagram seven generator, world traveler. So let's talk about some numbers to start us off. First of all, I had 10 years of sales experience in the corporate world. I started in financial sales, I went into tech sales, both hardware, then software, then tech, research, sales. And then, I've been writing copy for six years, full-time. So since 2019 is when I quit my job to travel the world. So those are some fun numbers. Other fun numbers I have. Been to 78 countries. my first country that I visited was France when I was 16. My family was not one of those ridiculous, cool trips around the world, families. So I've self-funded all of my travels around the world. And sometimes that self-funding did look like student loans. I'll be completely honest, I had visited 13 countries before I graduated college and I've visited 28 since that time in 2019 when I quit my job. So I've worked from, at least 28 of those, maybe with the exception of San Marino,'cause I was only there for a day. So that's some numbers, but let's talk in a more linear fashion of like, how did I get here? So let's start things back in college. I went to Iowa State University. I'm from Iowa. My parents are from Iowa. Like I said, we did a good job of traveling domestically, but I didn't travel all over. Both of my parents worked very stationary jobs. My dad is an entrepr. So to me, entrepreneurship never looked cool. And I did not want to go into the family business because I didn't wanna be stationary. There was always something in me that was like, let's go, let's go somewhere. When I went to college, I actually at first enrolled in a private university in Texas that turned out to be a, not a good cultural fit for me. It was a small, private Christian university and boasted that it had a large international student population. Most of those international students were third culture kids. They were American born to American parents, but being raised abroad typically as the children of missionaries. So it was this super conservative university and I am just not that person. And so, like I said, culturally, it wasn't a good fit. I had a great experience while I was there. I was given the opportunity, not through the university, to go work in France. And so after my freshman year, I went to France for three months and taught English at a summer camp in France. Room and board and food were free. And then I would get days off for like two or three days at a time and go places all around France, stay with friends, families, went to England for a long weekend. But what that experience taught me is that I am completely capable of living and working abroad, which was terrifying when I was 19. Because I had accomplished a life goal of getting paid to live abroad. So then what? So I came home, did another semester in Texas, transferred to Iowa State University and finished out my schooling there except I did, study abroad while I was there. And traveled to the country of Cyprus, which is a Greek speaking country in far, far eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. So again, I was living and traveling and like not getting paid that time, but I was still able to like work, doing my student work while traveling full time. So I visited 13 countries during that semester. I'm saying that out loud. And I think it was actually 11, I think I visited 11 countries during that semester and was learned through that experience that I can. Work like I can live a normal life abroad. I was still living the student life and doing it abroad. So I came back. I had student loans, which meant I needed a job. I went into sales because it had the highest earning potential and chose to work for a company who took me to Rhode Island, which meant that I was close to the Boston Airport. I was able to travel a whole lot from the Boston Airport and travel to places in Europe, in the Caribbean. I took another job two years later and that job moved me to Florida. So I was able to travel to Europe a couple of times, but also Central and South America. And then that job moved me to Texas where I traveled a little bit, but I didn't stay there long enough, to really take advantage of the Dallas airport, but even Dallas goes direct to, I flew to Qatar and was able to travel throughout South Asia while I was in that job. How did I get so good at sales? All of those jobs. I was in personal finance sales, which is a very person to person and would be considered B2C business to consumer sales. I then went into tech sales, which is very much business to. Business and then I went into tech research sales where I was selling straight into the C-suite, which felt very personal as far as like a business to a consumer, except the money the consumer was spending wasn't theirs. It was the company. So it was very B2B, but it felt B2C because I was working so closely with people and dealing with their priorities as people and as professionals, even more so than dealing with speaking to the goals of the organization. So I learned a lot about sales throughout that. At the final company that I worked at, they were doing a lot of the research on sales techniques. So I was able to be trained by some of the best salespeople in the industry and also people who were doing the research. They were truly analyzing, buying patterns and thought patterns and working directly with us to hone our sales skills. So that's how I got so good at sales. I also, while I was there, had a travel blog and I got really good at writing for SEL not so good that I ended up getting paid. My blog wasn't that big to be honest, but I was able to, when I quit my job, reach out to a bunch of people in my network and say, Hey, I. Can write and I can sell, and I just quit my job. So what do y'all need? Every single person said, well, can you write this piece of sales copy for me? I did not know what a sales copywriter was. I was just asked. And then I was telling somebody one time about what I do and they said, oh, so you're a copywriter. And I went home and I googled what is a copywriter? So that's my journey to how I became. Both a nomad and a copywriter. Again, I get a lot of questions about how can I work less and travel more? And I think part of it is that I'm so confident in sales methodologies and I'm so well practiced that I do write really fast. It's why people get so much value out of my VIP days. Every single time I do a VIP day, people come back to me and they say, how the heck did you get all of this done in a day? And the answer is absolutely not using ai. It's truly what comes outta my brain. So how those work is that we will have a day, typically one or two days before my actual writing day, where I sit down with somebody and we go through their priorities and their projects. They've typically sent me things like testimonials and what they're planning on selling, and we ideate on. What else do we. And then I have two days to marinate on it. And that person also has two days to get me any additional information that I need. And then on the VIP day, I sit down and I just write for the entire day. And typically because I'm part of it two days beforehand and we've strategized on things I'm not just a service center. I'm somebody who is part of the ideation process. So it's ideas that I have and that I'm really excited about, which helps my writing process also. This is super nice for everybody involved because no matter where they are or where I am in the world, they don't need to be present for the VIP day. So it's something that works really well for me, but it also works really well for my clients because they get great work really quickly. So I think that when a lot of people are thinking, how can I quit my job to travel the world? How can I make money while traveling? Copywriting is always one of the first things that comes up as is like graphic design and being a software engineer and other remote jobs that they can get. I was already traveling and it was something that worked for me and I didn't really have any other options. Not in a desperation kind of way, but I followed my values and I ended up copywriting. And really, I'm just in another sales job. It just looks a heck of a lot different than it did before. So there's a lot of people who come to me and say, Sam, how can I become a copywriter? Can you give me some advice? And honestly, typically the answer is no. But copywriting really has been such a joy for me because I love helping people sell more. And sales can be such a sticky topic. And when your copy does the selling for you. It becomes a way more comfortable conversation when you finally get potential clients on the phone because they already know what you offer and how it's gonna benefit them. So the conversation is then less about how do I sell to people on the phone? Like once I get them on a sales call, what do I do? It's more of the conversation just about the details of what are the next steps, not. Is there going to be a next step? So copywriting is so powerful like that, and for me it just makes sense and that's why I love working for service providers because services can be a tough sell. They're ephemeral. You're not just delivering, you know, here's$20 for a full tank of gas. It's not like product where it's money for product, money for service. You have to be able to identify the transformation, which. I would encourage anybody who doesn't know what the transformation is, go back and listen to episode four Talks a lot about the transformation and how to find it in your business and how to communicate that, but when you can tell people the value of what you sell without ever mentioning a dollar sign, that's where you've absolutely nailed the transformation and that's something. That based on my experience, I do super well and I find it really fun. So this is me. This is my life. This is my freedom job. This is what I love doing. It does feel like work, but it's probably the closest thing to. If you find a job you love, you never work a day in your life. If this is your first time meeting me again, my name is Sam and I am really good at writing copy. I would absolutely love to write your copy in either a VIP day capacity or if you have a better way of working together, reach out if you think I'm the right person. And I think you're the right person in, in exchange we'll make it work. But I like to see myself as your guide on this copy adventure because we're all just here trying to lift other people up. And this is my way of doing it. I'm just lucky enough to get paid while doing it. So when we talk about copy, we talk about copy and, and we talk about copy and psychology. And in this case we're talking about copy and your. Lifestyle. I'm here to support you. You can reach out to me at the links below. You can get on my calendar if you'd like to talk about a VIP day. And if you need other resources, you can always reach me on Instagram and LinkedIn. The links to those will be below, but I'm at nomad dot copy on Instagram and Samantha Burmeister on LinkedIn. I love talking to people and love chatting about copy, so if there's somewhere that I can clarify or add color. Please let me know. I will talk to you very soon. I will see you in episode 11, which is super exciting. It's why pretty sales pages don't convert. I will see you then. Have a fantastic week.