Remote Work and Travel: Tips From Jeff Baker, CMO and Digital Nomad

Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker, and today I have with me Jeff Baker, CMO of Brafton, back on the podcast.

In the last episode, we talked about SEO and content marketing. Today, I want to shift gears a bit and talk more about remote work. Jeff’s been working remotely for quite a while now, and he’s been making the most of it by traveling. I’m curious to know more about his remote lifestyle—so let’s get the conversation started.

Do you have a place where you live, or—what I mean is—did you put your stuff in storage and now you’re doing this full-time remote thing? Or do you have a place someone’s renting out? What’s the deal?

Damn, dude. I’m jealous. I gotta be honest—I don’t always get jealous on podcasts, but man… you’re gonna have to tell me where you’re at, because I’m gonna come visit.

I’ve got a buddy, Adam—he used to work at BigCommerce—he’s out traveling in France and all kinds of places. I told him, “Give me your schedule. I’ll meet you in a city for a few days and we’ll do stuff we can’t talk about on the podcast.”

But Guatemala—I would do that in a hot second. That was actually one of the places my family went without me. I was in Costa Rica, which is my little fun fact—I went to school there.

So yeah, I do a lot of traveling too. My family loves it. We’ve got another family we travel with. They went to Guatemala during one of the big flower festivals, and it was just stunning. That one’s still on my list.

Right now, I just try to speak in exotic locations—not for a lot of money, but to be in exotic locations. That’s my excuse. My wife’s super understanding. She’s like, “Go get in a van and do your thing. I’ll visit when I can.”

We’re kind of hippie raised. My dad lives in Davis, so… you do the math on that. I’ve got this bracelet on—can’t see it—but it’s full-on reggae vibes. I told you I was at a concert in your hometown, man. I like it!

That’s what I’m saying—we’re Jungle Brothers now, man. So, aside from Brafton, which is obviously a big, ongoing thing, are you working on any side projects? Or is that top secret because you’re in Bolivia or something? Like… are you building a secret canoe with Elon Musk? Come on, give us the goods.

That’s smart. Like what HubSpot did back in the day with their little headline checkers and other tools—those kinds of things can drive a ton of traffic if the intent is right.

Even if someone isn’t super technical, they could see, “Oh, I got a B+” or “a B-,” and get value from that. Especially for people who don’t want to get lost in spreadsheets. You could even spin it into a content or service upsell—like, “Want an A? Let us write 10 optimized blog posts for you.”

So do you think that’s because of these incubators you’re around? Like, being in these cities, around creative people—did that inspire these ideas?

That’s really cool. What’s it called? I want to check it out.

Gotcha. So you pay monthly, travel to different cities, and the accommodations are covered as part of membership?

And how long are you in one place? Like, 30 days to let people connect and work together?

That’s freaking awesome. That’s kind of what I did in Costa Rica. I was in school during the week, and on weekends, we’d travel. I lived with a host family that only spoke Spanish—it was full immersion. That was 20 years ago.

Now I’m always trying to find excuses to travel. Like, I once lived with a startup for six months. I barely saw my wife. But she knows I’m a free spirit. I’m always like, “Where can I jump next?”

We FaceTime, she visits when she can. I follow travel deals and hacker tricks. Right now, I’m doing heavy real estate—fix-and-flips with a buddy—so I’m grounded for now.

But yeah, I’m gonna look into this. It’s super intriguing.

I didn’t want to bring it up. The medication isn’t working. You knew it. You wanted to say it. So what would be—because man, you’re a different dude. And I mean that in a good way. What are three adjectives that describe you?

So what do you— so when you say moving around, you mean just like, new adventures, new things, things that are going on? Is it like, or is it like?

Yeah, so this is like the perfect job for you then, right? I mean, like, it doesn’t get any better than that, right? I mean, it’s like, hey, they let you— it’s a remote team, you can really go wherever, as long as you’re getting your work done, which you have. You’ve been there seven years. So I think you’ve put in the time to show that, you know, you’re gonna— you’re doing a good job. That’s phenomenal.

Well, you know, working from home, you work more hours than you do if you’re in an office. There’s such a misnomer with that. People don’t understand remote work at all, really. Like it’s— yeah, when you work home, it’s just so easy to open it— to your own detriment, too. It’s so easy to open up your laptop and crank out a couple extra hours of work. And before you know it, you logged 12 hours that day, you know? So yeah, it does benefit employers.

Yeah, I think so too. And you can tell when people aren’t working, right? I mean, you can tell when things aren’t getting done, because you kind of have an idea of when they should be done. If they’re not— they’re not hitting the mark, then, you know, obviously this doesn’t— doesn’t have to do with remote work. I mean, my team is all remote, so for me— and I don’t micromanage them. There’s— and I— if I have to micromanage you, then you’re not gonna be on my team, right? You get your stuff done and there we go. And it’s— we have processes and things in place, so I know if things are being done.

So anyways— so what if I was to give you— if I was to give you $50,000 that’s cold cash. I don’t know what that is in Bolivia. That would probably be a lot of money, last time I checked. How would you spend it? Like, what would you— is there something that would like— probably other than travel, because I know you’re gonna go traveling. Don’t give me that basic answer, god damn it. I’m looking at like, what would you do? What would you do with $50,000? Like, would— is there something, like, you’re like, I would go buy a, you know, bedazzled canoe, because I like fake diamond.

We just started working on that. Like, obviously I’ve known about passive income. There’s other ways that I’ve gotten little passive income, nothing crazy, but that’s what we’re doing right now. It’s a course— howtobeaninfluencer.com. It’s a course built for exactly that— passive income.

And we also just started doing crazy affiliate stuff, which has been driving a good— I mean, we drive about— on Saturday— about 170 a month, right around there. And so now we’re starting to use affiliate stuff, right? So that’s, you know, some— there’s, it’s so funny. If you look at, like, people— first, I was like, having my own name as my domain, like, sucks. But then on the other side, I’m like, well, then I can do some stuff that, you know, like— you know, if you went to Brafton and said, “I want to do affiliate stuff,” they’d be like, “I don’t know if we’re gonna do that,” right? Because you’re gonna drive it to your own engine, right? And have clients and do that kind of stuff.

So that has been the only— one of the only benefits of using my own name for my own company. But yeah, some pretty cool affiliate stuff. And trying to get, like, getting people in that monthly type deal where it’s, you know, it’s gonna be reoccurring, and I don’t have to worry about it. Because I have been heavy on the client side, and now with the courses and other stuff, I’m looking to kind of transition some of that so I can travel more, so I can make money while I’m sleeping and work on the stuff that I want to work on.

And I’ve been fortunate over the last few years that I have been able to work on what I want to work on, but anyways— just trying to work more on that. It’s kind of like— you’re kind of saying the same thing.

Yeah. All right, Jeff. Jeff Baker from Brafton.

That’s— that’s me. Strikingly, frankly beautiful. I mean, I should have done something other than a podcast. I mean, this is like— this is what the guests gotta see every day. And I think if people just go— “I just didn’t know that you looked like that. I mean, that’s super amazing. Your parents must have been blessed or something.”

Like, wasted on audio only. Really wasted.

I know I am. I should be— I have to start doing more TV stuff because obviously, I’m strikingly awesome and beautiful. I don’t believe all of that, but we’re gonna say that for the— for the listeners.

So if anybody needed to get in contact with you—because obviously you don’t have a real address and we’re not even sure where you’re at right now—if you’re even in Bolivia or if you might be an FBI agent or CIA, we’re not really sure what you are. But if they were to get in contact with you through Brafton or whatever company you work for, don’t work for—how would they do that?

No need, that was enough. They’re gonna— yeah, we’ve already got pictures of you and stuff, so I think that’s cool.

Thanks, Jeff. I really appreciate you sharing your experience on this podcast episode. I’m sure all the remote workers out there who can’t wait to travel are taking notes on how they can do it successfully.

It’s time to wrap up this segment, but before signing off, I want to remind all my listeners that you can reach out to my team if you need any help with content marketing, influencer marketing, PR, SEO, and more.

For more details, you can check out shanebarker.com. That’s all for today—thanks for tuning in. I’ll be back soon with another interesting conversation. Stay tuned to the Marketing Growth Podcast.