When we set out on our RV adventure, the main purpose was to build our business, Bison. Bison is a custom motorcycle racing gear business we started in September 2018. We provide motorcycle riders and racers with bespoke suits and gloves. We also sell several ancillary items, including undersuits, knee pucks, and apparel. We started the business on a part-time basis while we were working our full-time, corporate-level jobs. We started the business to meet a need (high-quality, custom leather suits at affordable prices) and to make an extra buck.
The business grew much quicker than we expected and by August 2019, we were faced with the decision to hire someone to handle the business or quit our jobs and do it ourselves. After what now seems like a divine course of events, Rob and I both ended up quitting our jobs and going all-in on Bison. When we sat down to have conversations about how we wanted to market the company in 2020, we were faced with a decision to either grow by adding dealerships in the area or by expanding our reach geographically without adding dealerships. We developed a grassroots marketing campaign centered around the MotoAmerica racing schedule. We decided to load the family up in the RV, follow the MotoAmerica racing schedule, and hit up club-level events along the way.
We started our adventure in February 2020 by attending the season's first CMRA event in Houston, Texas. The next stop was originally Dayton Beach, Florida for MotoAmerica pre-season testing but we opted to forego that event since our sponsored team decided not to go. It simply wasn't worth the cost at that point. Instead of Daytona Beach, we headed to New Orleans, Louisiana for the second CMRA round. This is when all hell broke loose with COVID-19. The CMRA event was canceled on the first day as the Governor of Louisiana implemented a limitation on the number of people that could gather for a public event. Meanwhile, the Daytona Beach event we originally planned to attend was also canceled. Thank goodness we didn't decide all that way and spend all that money just to have the event canceled on the first day!
Over the next two months, we quarantined, re-grouped, and questioned everything in life as our huge business investment seemed to crumble before our eyes. After wallowing in our sorrows for the first few weeks of quarantine, we decided to gather ourselves back up and re-focus. We spent the next few weeks, re-planning our trip, investing in new product development, improving process efficiencies, and re-designing our website. When it was time to get back on the road in May, we were structured much better for growth. We hired a part-time virtual assistant to handle all of our daily processes and used the SBA loan funds to order inventory to sell on the road. After a HUGE outpouring of support for our products at the first event at Hallett Motor Racing Circuit in Jennings, Oklahoma, we knew we made some wise investments.
The growth since that event has been big. We went from selling an average of five suits per month in the first four months of the year to eleven suits per month in the last three months. Revenue increased by 81 percent over the same time frame. We released a new glove design that is unlike anything on the market and we invested in a large SEO and PPC marketing campaign to increase our reach beyond where we will physically reach over the remainder of 2020.
The great news about all of this growth is that we are much closer to being able to sustain our full-time RV lifestyle than we were when we started this journey 13 months ago. The bad news is that we have new challenges to deal with on the road. When we first hit the road, we had very little product that we carried with us. Since all of our suits and gloves are custom, we only carried a couple of each with us. After selling out of our gloves and undersuits at our first event in May, we quickly realized the demand for these products trackside was high. Since we are focused on becoming the best custom motorcycle racing gear business in the industry, we designed our first colorway, The Roots design. This was a custom Thor.1 glove design that we would offer for a limited time until we created the next colorway design. We placed a fairly large order of both The Roots colorway and men's and women's one-piece and two-piece undersuits.
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally received our stock products near the end of July. Now we were faced with a new problem. What would we do with all of these items in our small space? If I'm honest, we haven't quite figured it out yet (as you can see from these pictures) but we do have a plan to reduce some of our undercarriage cargo (personal items) to make room for the business stock. We also have a longer-term plan to order additional stock, have it all shipped to our centralized shipping and receiving location, and have a limited number of items shipped to us periodically from that location. Unfortunately, ordering that much stock is very costly so we have to work up to that point. Here's the other issue - that's just one of our businesses. We are getting ready to launch products for both our Lackeys Be Trippin' brand and our Edie Kate children's clothing brand. We have designs being developed for both now. The plan for those two brands is mixed. We will probably stock most of the items at our centralized shipping and receiving location while carrying a few Lackeys Be Trippin' items with us on the road in case anyone wants to buy them when we meet up. We also have a future brand in its infancy stage that will be geared towards the RV lifestyle and will require much more storage space than we will have to offer on the road. We will have to come up with a creative solution for that as well!
So what's the hardest part about running our business(es) from our RV? Storage! Living in an RV full-time is already like playing a daily game of Tetris - try adding the need for product storage! Now I know why most full-timers look for service-based work on the road. The good news is that I've realized we don't need nearly the stuff we originally thought while on the road. We've purged our personal items twice in the past year and it seems we'll need to do it at least once more before we can reach the optimal personal/business balance. If anyone has any storage tips, we would appreciate it if you would share them with us! Leave them in the comments below. Until next time - go fast, be safe! (That's our motto for Bison if you didn't already know!)
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I'm a member of various Facebook groups for full-time RV living as I'm sure you are if you are also looking to go full-time. There are two questions I always see posed in the groups by newbies - what internet service do you use on the road and what do you do for work on the road? Today's blog is going to focus on the latter because, if I'm completely transparent, we haven't fully figured out the first one yet - even a year in!
COVID-19 has undoubtedly created a remote revolution. There are good and bad that come with that but, so far, I've mainly see good come from it. When we started our full-time journey one year ago (yesterday), people thought we were crazy (thus the Lackeys Be Trippin' name). Our friends and family had so many questions for us. What brought us to this decision? What were the kids going to do for school? What were we going to do with our house? But the most popular question was, what are you going to do for work on the road? To be honest, when we first started our journey, we didn't fully know the answer to that question. I remember Rob and I saying to each other, "we'll figure it out". For those of you that cringed at that, you're right. It was very cringe-worthy but we did (mostly) figure it out so hopefully that lets you continue reading without too much anxiety.
We actually both intended on looking for full-time or at least part-time jobs while we were on the road. We needed (need) the health insurance since our 13-year-old son has Type 1 Diabetes, Epilepsy and Abdominal Migraines. We also didn't really have a fat nest egg to be able to go too long without regular income. Fast forward to today and we still haven't fully figured out what we're doing but neither of us have looked for full-time or part-time employment in the last few months. In fact, we're both certain it would be incredibly difficult for us to go back to working for someone else at this point. (But never say never, right?)
When we originally went full-time, we were almost a year into our business, Bison. Neither of us were working it full-time but we had grown significantly in the first year and knew we were inching closer to hiring someone. Since I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do with my life after leaving my job as Vice President of Finance for a marketing agency, I was the natural choice to take Bison on full-time. I had the time. However, after much debate, Rob and I both agreed that I wasn't the RIGHT person to take it on full-time. Bison was born from Rob's passion for motorcycles and relationships he had created with suppliers. Because of that, we made the choice to have him focus on Bison full-time. He left his job as Service Director for a couple of car dealerships in Oklahoma City to work on Bison full-time and begin homeschooling the kids in September 2019.
After leaving my job at the marketing agency in July 2019, I joined a real estate investment company as their Chief Operating Officer. The job was extremely flexible and, while I did go into the office most days, I could take off in the RV for an extended period of time and still be able to function in my role. During my time there, we spent 18 days on the road with a trip to Barber Motorsports Park just outside of Birmingham, Alabama and Gulf Shores. We had a great time and work was able to continue like normal. Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of my control, my time with the real estate investment company ended at the end of October 2019. I was officially on the hunt for my next thing going into the holiday season.
After much soul searching and several meetings with professional contacts, I decided to pursue my own clients for which I could do business consulting work. When I signed my first client, I formally created Caffeinated Consulting. While I was excited about my new adventure, clients don't just show up when you're building something new. It takes time and a lot of focused energy. I have spent the last eight months building a small roster of clients and advising them on all of their business needs, including accounting, finance, marketing and operations. I even went through additional training during quarantine to become a business broker so I could help my clients with selling their businesses and building value for their business until they are ready to sell. I work with my clients on an on-demand basis so there are no long-term commitments or dedicated hours every week. My work fluxes from week to week which is great for the life we are living on the road.
While I was working to build Caffeinated Consulting (did I mention it was a long, slow process?), I sparked an interest in developing a dropshipping business. Because I'm a firm believer in creating brands that support bigger missions, the dropshipping site I created was called Edie Kate (nickname for my daughter, Edith Katherine) and we committed to donating 10% of gross profit from the shop to charities that connect families to their babies in the NICU. (Our daughter was born 15 weeks premature at 1 pound, 14 ounces and spent 77 days in the NICU so it's something our family is passionate about.) Building the dropshipping website was fun and, while I still enjoy maintaining it, I hope to expand it to create signature products in the future versus only dropshipping. We are in the early stages of that right now.
Because I'm never tired of bringing on new things, I also committed to writing an e-book in April 2020 after connecting with a beautiful, brilliant digital nomad named Christina Voll in the Workew Slack group. Workew is one of my favorite sites for finding remote work, btw. I highly recommend checking it out if you're interested in going remote! Christina was in the process of developing a site for digital nomads to find resources to achieve remote work success called Rise Remotely. She asked if I would be willing to be a contributor to the site and I enthusiastically agreed. And then I freaked out! I had never written a book in my life. I wasn't good at writing. I started to doubt everything about my ability to write an e-book. Then I forced myself to sit down and just start writing. Now, I'll be honest, I still don't know if it's really all that good but I did it! I'm still waiting for feedback from Christina before the book is listed for sale but I'm proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone. I'll keep you all posted about when the book will be listed for sale so you can tell me if it's good or not. Please, be nice. Did I mention it was my first book?
That's a lot, right? Not for me! I swear it takes a lot for me to feel fulfilled with work. Earlier this month I started researching affiliate marketing and how to create a revenue stream through a website. I actually started researching it for Bison but ended up realizing it was more fitting for Lackeys Be Trippin'! That's when I created a website for Lackeys Be Trippin' and started writing blog posts. And because I don't ever do anything half ass, I committed myself to a 90 day blog challenge which started on July 10th. The theory is to create one blog post a day for 90 days to jump start your website traffic and begin earning affiliate marketing dollars. Here I am 18 days into the 90 day challenge and I've fallen a bit short with only 12 blog posts complete but I'm very proud of the progress I've made and continue to be committed to catching up and writing all 90 blog posts by the end of 90 days. Wish me luck! Btw, if you're interested in the details of how affiliate marketing works, I highly recommend checking Miles Beckler out on YouTube. He and his wife started blogging in 2009 and have created multiple blog sites generating millions of views and millions of dollars. He's committed to giving away the road map for free so people don't have to pay for courses or books to get started. His material was super helpful and did I mention free?
I guess the last thing I would mention is that Rob and I also rent our home out on Airbnb and VRBO as a short-term rental property while we're on the road. Now, this doesn't provide any true income for our family but it has allowed us to keep our dream home while we travel. It also comes with a significant amount of work which is another reason why I mention it. Depending on the week and number of guests we have in our home each week, I can easily spend 2-5 hours per week in overseeing the operations of that business. The operations includes accounting, coordinating with cleaning people, writing guest reviews, responding to guest inquiries and ordering supplies for the property. Those are all things I can do from afar. However, not everything can be done remotely. We are very thankful to have a great friend who has taken on the property to manage everything on-site while we help coordinate with her from afar. ![]()
So there you have it - that's (pretty much) everything we do for work on the road. While we enjoy the entrepreneurship journey, I also understand that life is not for everyone. I simply present it as an option to all of the other blogs you will find out there focused on full-time and part-time employment. If you are interested in learning more, feel free to reach out to me at any time. I'm an advocate for entrepreneurship as I believe it's one of the best options for creating a flexible, remote friendly lifestyle.
Last weekend we attended another race event at Blackhawk Farms Raceway in South Beloit, IL. We were excited to return to the race track for the second time during the Wisconsin stint of our trip to hang out with friends and build our business. We did enjoyed spending time with our new friends of the north but quickly learned that it would not be a great weekend to build our business.
On Friday, our first day at the track, we discovered an issue with the generator in our RV. We had been having some issues with it off and on over the past few weeks but thought that we were in the clear when we went to the race track. I'm not great with details so I'm not going to share all of the details of what went wrong and what he did to address it but I will say that Rob spent most of the weekend diagnosing and attending to the generator with no success. We were all so frustrated with the situation by Sunday (Rob was understandably the most frustrated) that we headed out a little early to get to our next destination - an RV park with full hookups just outside of Madison, Wisconsin called Whistle Stop Campground.
We spent the next four days enjoying the beautiful campground and exploring the surrounding area while we waited on a local generator expert to come to the campground to diagnose the issue with the generator. The repair man arrived on Thursday, spent a couple of hours checking out the generator and informed us that he would need to take the generator to their shop to have it pulled out of the RV (the issue was apparently in the back of the generator).
And that leads me to the most important factor of full-time RV living. You must remain flexible to live this lifestyle. If we would have had a place to be this week, we would have had to change our plans and, possibly, not been able to arrive at that destination. Because we've kept a flexible schedule, we've been able to adapt to our situation and make adjustments as necessary.
Broken generators (or similar situations) arise all of the time in the full-time RV life so be prepared. Be willing to make adjustments as necessary. Don't be surprised when situations outside of your control arise and you have to make adjustments to your schedule. Be flexible. Be adaptable. Flexibility is what we asked for, after all. Enjoy!
Most people plan their journey to full-time RV living through a thoughtful, phased approach. They come up with the idea, discuss it with friends and loved ones, research the best way to go full-time, make decisions on when and how to go full-time and then pull the trigger on those things based on the timeline that works for their lives and budgets.
We're not most people. We started our RV journey sort of on a whim. We went from our first conversation about full-time RV living to buying an RV in twenty-four days. There were no conversations with friends and family, very little research (at least on my part) and no well-thought-out plan with a formal timeline. We made decisions on the fly which caused us to move quickly
The first big decision we made to make to become full-time RVers involved our house. What would we do with our house while we were on the road? Sixteen days after our first conversation about full-time RV living, we put our house on the market. We have a beautiful, historic home in downtown Oklahoma City (our dream home, really). We made the decision to sell it because we didn’t want the risk of not being able to cover our costs of the home while we were on the road. Since we were quitting our corporate jobs to run our business, we were concerned with the strain that would put on us financially. However, twenty days after listing our house, we took it off the market. It truly was our dream home and we were terrified we were making the wrong decision by getting rid of it. We listed it as a short-term rental on Airbnb and VRBO instead. The house was officially listed on both platforms within four days of making that decision and we had our first booking two days later. It was official – we had to be out of our house within three weeks.
The second big decision in becoming full-time RVers was the RV. Rob spent the first couple of weeks doing a ton of research on what type of RV would be best for us. He would send me texts with links and pictures and go into these huge, in-depth reasons why we should (or shouldn’t) choose this model. He looked at everything from fuel mileage to towing capacity. I mostly focused on what layout made the most sense for our family. We finally decided on a Class C motorhome (Super C). We even went to look at a few of them in person. Then, one morning I woke up to tons of links and pictures of different Thor Outlaw Class A motorhomes in my text messages. Rob had stayed up super late the night before doing more research. He found the Thor Outlaw 37MD layout that was ideal for our family. He found two that he was interested in – one in Texas and one in Florida. The one in Texas was obviously a lot closer but the one in Florida seemed to be nicer and was less money. After several phone calls with the dealership, we put a deposit down on the one in Florida and had one-way plane tickets booked for three days later. Within twenty-four days of our first conversation about full-time RV living, Rob and I were officially RV owners.
The next big decision we had to make about full-time RV living had to do with our jobs. Some people go full-time but stay stationary most of the time due to work or any other reason that may keep them close to a certain geographical location. Our plan was different. We wanted to go full-time to build our business so there was going to be a lot of travel for us. We needed the flexibility to work on the road. Since I had made the decision to leave my job of nearly eight years and my career as an accountant at the same time, I was faced with the decision to not only find a new job but also find a job in a completely different space. Let me tell you – switching careers, looking for a new job and needing that job to be flexible to lend to RV life was quite the challenge! I did find a job that I thought was going to work but that only lasted about three months (long story there). By November, I was convinced that the perfect job for me didn’t exist so I forged a new path to figure out how to make money on my own. (That’s probably a blog post of its own.) Meanwhile, Rob had quit his job as the Service Director of a couple of car dealerships to focus on building our business full-time. Since our business, Bison Track, operates through an e-commerce store front and does not involve a physical store front, the flexibility for travel was certainly there for him.
The last big decision in our series of decisions was deciding how to educate our children on the road. Believe it or not, that one came fairly easy to us because we had been going down that path for three years already. Three years prior, our son, Carter, started having severe abdominal pains in the fourth grade. They caused him to miss a lot of school (50+ days in one school year). Over the next two years, we took him to several doctors, ran countless tests and couldn’t find any answers until mid-way through fifth grade when his neurologist suggested it might be abdominal migraines. We started him on some medications and things started to improve. He wasn’t having migraines nearly as often and, when he did, they were rarely as debilitating as they had been previously. By the end of fifth grade, we were pretty sure we had him on the right track with his medications. However, as it was time to research and decide on a school for him for sixth grade, we realized there was a misalignment between the school we wanted him to go to and the needs of his health condition. We decided the best option for him at that point was an online charter school where he would have the flexibility to go back to sleep if he needed to sleep off a migraine but still do all the work he needed to advance his education. Sixth grade went great for him. He had some bad days but he had the flexibility to do the work when he was feeling better. We were also extremely lucky that our employers were both flexible and allowed him to go to work with us daily. After our experience with the online schooling, we knew that was the best option for both of our children as we began to travel. Edith has been more of a challenge because she has a completely different personality than Carter (and she’s also much younger). However, we were able to get her through first grade remotely and she’s excited about continuing to learn on the road.
Becoming full-time RVers was a decision we made and implemented in less than sixty days. This involved four critical decisions. What do we do with our house? What RV is right for us? What should we do for work on the road? How will we educate our children? I’m not recommending anyone else necessarily make the decision on that timeline but it worked for us because we didn’t have the opportunity to drag our feet or back out when things got tough – we just figured it out. If you’re struggling with either of these things as you’re trying to go full-time, consider just doing it. It’s amazing what you can figure out when you make yourself.
Our daughter texted us this morning to let us know she and her boyfriend were considering moving into an RV as their first place together. She reached out to us since we were full-time RVers and she wanted to know what tips we had for them.
First of all, there's no one-size fits all answer to this question. There are several basic RV styles with multiple layout options for each style. There are also many different lifestyles one can lead in an RV. Therefore, specific recommendations for furnishings, storage and maintenance cannot be given until the RV style, layout and lifestyle are chosen. However, there are at least five recommendations I could give to anyone looking to go full-time that would be applicable to everyone no matter the specific choices made in these areas.
Downsize as much as possible.
No matter how much you think you've downsized to move into your RV, it won't be enough. You'll downsize again at some point. We're nearly a year into our journey and we've already downsized twice since moving into the RV. (We probably got rid of 2/3rds of our stuff before we even moved into the RV.) It's amazing how few things we actually needed once we hit the road. We simply don't focus on things anymore. We focus on spending quality time together and making memories. We also use the "where would it go filter" before we purchase anything new. If we don't know where we're going to put it in the RV then we don't buy it. Let's be honest, I never used that method in my house. I just bought it and figured out where it was going to go later.
Learn the KonMari folding method.
Unless you're a person that can live with an extremely limited amount of clothes (I'm talking capsule wardrobe size or less), you will probably need to find an efficient way to fold and store your clothes. Even if you do have a small number of items, folding them properly can reduce the amount of unnecessary wrinkles. The KonMari folding method by Marie Kondo focuses on both space saving benefits and the reduction of wrinkles and it's a must-know for any full-time RVer. You can learn more about the KonMari folding method buy reading Marie Kondo's best selling book called The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Now, the down side of the KonMari method is that it takes additional time so find a TV show to watch or an Audible book to listen to while you're folding because it's going to take some time. It does get easier the longer you do it, though.
Leave the glassware behind.
It's not a good idea to bring glass in the RV. Even if you are going to be stationary more than moving, the spaces where you will be keeping your plates, bowls and cups will be small. You will need to stack everything together to save space and, with that, comes the risk of breaking. I highly recommend picking up some plastic items and leaving all glassware behind. We bought these from Target for $0.79 each but Amazon has some great options as well if you are an Amazon-aholic and prefer to get the most out of your two day Prime shipping.
Invest in high quality internet.
Internet has become a household necessity just like water, sewer and electricity, especially if you plan to work on the road. Many RV parks advertise their free WiFi but very few parks actually have good WiFi. If you are doing any sort of work or want to easily communicate with family and friends from the road, high quality internet is a must have for all full-time RVers. Some people can get by with using their phones for internet connectivity but others will need to invest in a hotspot to use on the road. (We invested in a Netgear Nighthawk.) There is a ton of information out there already on the best internet options but the truth is that, just like the type of RV, there is no one-size fits all solution for internet. You have to review the carriers in your geographical area and research their plans. Plans also change all of the time so just because someone was able to get a great internet plan six months ago does not mean that plan is still available today.
Make sure you have a nest egg for repairs.
If you buy an RV, you should definitely consider buying an extended warranty for major repairs but the truth is that there will be times when using the extended warranty may not even be an option. Here's an example. Your generator goes out because a piece inside the generator breaks. It's Saturday afternoon and all RV dealerships are closed. You are boondocking and you can't wait until Monday to have it repaired because you need power for the rest of the weekend. You figure out you can fix the issue yourself by doing some Googling. Guess what? You do it. You fix it yourself (even if it would have been covered under your extended warranty if you would have waited until Monday). These situations occur all of the time in an RV. Sometimes you don't have time to wait until Monday or until a dealership can get to you in two weeks. You have to be flexible and sometimes you have to solve the problem yourself. Be prepaid to pay out of pocket for repairs in these situations. And these situations happen a lot in an RV. So, there you go. Those are my top five must knows about the full-time RV lifestyle. Let me know if any of them resonate with you or if you have any you would like to add. Like I said, this is meant to be a list of must knows that apply to pretty much everyone. I could come up with several different lists depending on the RV style, layout and lifestyle you choose. More to come on those in future blogs. |
AuthorsRobert & Tosha Lackey are full-time RVers, business owners and parents focused on providing a unique, well-rounded educational experience for their children through real-life learning on the road. Archives
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