Marketing Sucks
Marketing Sucks is the podcast for business owners who are looking for practical, fun, and strategic ways to get noticed online, and don’t want to sit through 30 minutes of filler to get to the good stuff.
Each week, Grind Social Media + Co founder Amanda Casinha sits down with the industry’s most interesting and unconventional ad experts, funnel developers, content creators, and changemakers to explore their off-the-beaten-path strategies and experiences in the world of marketing and business — and dig into real stories of failures, strategies, and how they got their jaw-dropping results.
Marketing Sucks
How We Run a Remote Agency While Living in Portugal for the Summer
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This week on Marketing Sucks, Amanda and Phil are giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how they run Grind Media Group remotely while living in Portugal for the summer. They talk about what it actually takes to work abroad with kids, clients, time zones, no full-time childcare, and a business that still has to keep moving. From late-night work blocks and summer hours to client boundaries, batch working, chaotic travel days, and the reality of working in paradise without actually being on vacation, this episode pulls back the curtain on what remote entrepreneurship really looks like. Amanda and Phil also share why this lifestyle matters so much to their family, how Portugal shaped Amanda’s childhood, and why building a business with freedom at the centre has always been part of the bigger goal. If you have ever wondered how people actually make remote work, business ownership, and living abroad work in real life, this episode is a very honest look at the beauty, the chaos, and the trade-offs.
What You’ll Learn
✔ How Amanda and Phil run their agency while living in Portugal for the summer
✔ Why working abroad is not the same thing as being on vacation
✔ What their summer schedule actually looks like with kids, clients, and a five-hour time difference
✔ How they manage remote work without full-time childcare
✔ Why boundaries, expectations, and communication are essential when working from another country
✔ How batch working helps Amanda create more freedom during the summer months
✔ Why client trust and strong systems make this kind of lifestyle possible
✔ What people do not see behind the scenes of “working from paradise”
✔ How remote entrepreneurship can be both magical and completely chaotic
✔ Why building a business around your life requires discipline, flexibility, and a high tolerance for messy moments
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Welcome back to marketing sex. Why do you make that face every single time?
SPEAKER_01I'm waiting for your marketing sex.
SPEAKER_00I am your host, Amanda Gazinha.
SPEAKER_01And I'm your co-host, Phil Ginther. And what sucks this week, Amanda?
SPEAKER_00What sucks this week is answering the same bloody question that I get all the time about our summers in Portugal. Which is That's actually really smooth. We didn't even rehearse this. Which is how do we make it work living abroad, like with remote work, running an agency? So we thought we'd go a little off topic today. Give you a little behind the scenes of what it's like to be us. So we live in Portugal during the summer months. So we usually leave at the beginning of June. We come back just literally 36 hours before the kids start school. This year happens to be September, which is great.
SPEAKER_01Loving that late labor day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so yeah, and and we started doing this five years ago because I grew up this way. I grew up, you know, in the beaches in Portugal. And my parents would also take me out of school early, and we would just live, you know, with my grandparents and my parents and my cousins. And it was just such a an amazing part of my childhood and really shaped truly how I view the world. And so obviously, no-brainer to, you know, try to recreate that for my do that. And yeah, so booked the plane tickets, made it work. And now what's interesting, well, I mean, last year too, but Phil wasn't like you weren't working like a hundred percent in the business yet.
SPEAKER_01Like, I kind of last summer was the summer of Phil.
SPEAKER_00Like that that was Phil Phil quit his job in like March. He left his position and then he joined the company. But I was like, you know what? I'm like, you've worked really hard for 15 years. I'm gonna just give you one account and then you can kind of just coast all summer. But in September I'm putting you to work. So that was kind of Phil last summer.
SPEAKER_01So I was working we'll we'll do another episode on the summer of Phil.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's fun. But this summer he's got full workload. So, you know, the question we always get asked is like, that's amazing. Like, how do you make it work? So, just to be clear, we do not have child care in Portugal. My grandparents do live with us, but they're 84 and 85. And so our version of child care is basically put the kids to bed, and then we can like go out on a Friday night or a Saturday night and like hang out with my cousins at like their bar or like on the beach. But like that's that's about it for child care. And then the odd time when, like, you know, maybe we're both in a meeting and they'll sit with my grandparents like in the front porch eating their little pumpkin seeds and like hanging out, but really short like bouts of time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's not, it's not their responsibility.
SPEAKER_00No, it's and we would never expect that of them. And so, because of that, we have to schedule our time differently. So when we're talking about like remote work and running a company, it is challenging, it's super rewarding, but there are a lot of like I'm pretty good at making it clear on my personal like Instagram, like with my community there. Like, this is it's this is an amazing experience, but there are some fucking fucked up things that can happen while you're doing this. So I I it is magical. I'm not gonna sugarcoat that, but there are moments that are very challenging that we have to like work on.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I think that's like it's like the the fallacy, right? Like, because the idea is beautiful and it is wonderful, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but the the amount of prep and the sleepless nights. Well, just you have to be so comfortable with the consistent amount of chaos because there's just things that are uncontrollable, right? But you built you have systems for it, and so there's uh there's a trade-off, but I think everyone's like, oh, you're going away and that's great. Enjoy your vacation. I know vacation is a trigger word for you.
SPEAKER_00I know I hate that. Like, I'm not on vacation, guys. I'm just I'm I'm just working in a really beautiful part of the world. Like, that's really it. Like, I actually don't take vacation. The only vacation time we take is the Canada Day weekend weekend. We'll go to the island of Medada. That's like, I joke, it's like our Disney World for us. And the last week of August, I usually take off. I'll still take a meeting or two, but I'm not like working as much just because we have to help close the houses and like help my grandparents with things. So, and we obviously want to spend time with them. So, those are really the only two times of the summer that I'm taking true time off, and it's not even like I still bring my laptop with me, but anyways, I digress. So we sorry, what were you saying?
SPEAKER_01Oh, just just about about like outside looking in, like it looks very simple, and then but when you're in it, you're like, oh my god, the chaos.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so this was the first year that Phil had to really actually see or got to see what behind the scenes of like our company is before we leave for Portugal. So, like, why don't you take it away and tell people what it was like watching and also experiencing it this time? Because I think usually it just looks like I'm a crazy person, angry at everything and and like really maxed out.
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, yeah. Yeah, there's that. I think before it was like I I I was more concerned about negotiating, like, you know, in my previous job how things would work, you know, setting expectations around hours and meetings, etc. But I there were there's like all the back end stuff that I never had to worry about just because like that was automated within the company, right? Whereas this year, it's like you gotta think about everything.
SPEAKER_00Everything.
SPEAKER_01And it's like even even to like just get on a plane and be not be in communication like overnight, and then like you have to account for that time, so when you land, you can be prepared for whatever's on the other side of that. So I I have uh I have an appreciation for the madness and the anger and all those things that I witnessed in previous years that I didn't really understand because I didn't have the the context around, right?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01Still so worth it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, a hundred percent. It's worth it every time. I literally will stay up for weeks on end getting as much work done ahead of possi ahead of possible ahead ahead what ahead of ahead of time? What am I saying? As much done ahead of time as possible.
SPEAKER_01You're just missing a few words.
SPEAKER_00That's all that was you watched like a perimenopausal brain like at its peak performance right now.
SPEAKER_01This is usually that time of year where I'm like, so you're gonna sleep this month? You know? True. You're like, no, dispatch working, you know, it's only it's only 1230.
SPEAKER_00I know. I'm like that. But I like doing that because you know, because we don't have child care, it's great because you know, sometimes as a mom and an entrepreneur, I feel really guilty where I'm like always working and I, you know, sometimes miss have to miss certain things for like client events or shoots or whatever it is. And like I'm really grateful that you step in and do all of that. So the summers for me are very sacred in that like I like to spend as much time. So basically, when it comes to our schedule, it be it looks like this. We get up with the kids. I mean, thankfully they sleep in. Our kids are not really that much of early risers, like the odd time, but usually they wake up around like 8:30 or nine, which is really nice. And because we're five hours ahead in Europe, like Toronto's not awake. And our clients, even our US-based clients, are East Coast. So they're not awake until about three, like, well, they're not at their offices until like about three, four PM our time. So the beautiful part is that we can get up and we can go for a bike ride, go for a beach run, go to the actual beach and hang out, you know, go for a nice lunch, explore a new town, get a little bit of work done as well. And then we get home when it's time for like working hours, right? So now here's where it gets complicated. So we are up, you know, relatively a normal time with the kids, and then they go to bed at like 9 or 10 p.m., which is when we're doing the majority of our work and our client meetings. And I, I would say twice a week will work until two, three in the morning there. And then the other days I take it pretty easy because those are long ass fucking days. So, like it is literally sometimes like 20 hour days to do what we do. But for me, it's still worth it. It's not for everybody, but you really have to wrap your head around what Phil was saying, which is it's gonna be chaotic. And if you're okay with that level of chaos and you're really good at like going with the flow, then it's the perfect ideal situation. But at the same time, even going with the flow is not, I I'm I'm not good with it. But I I by the time July hits, I'm like, okay. In my head, I'm like island time. It's like everything is fine, everything's working out. Nothing, it's not brain surgery. So, yeah, so some things to keep in mind if you are working abroad and running a company at the same time. There's a lot about like setting boundaries, setting expectations specifically around time zone and tech, right? So, like we have to make sure, like, for instance, us traveling to Medata, I've always had an issue with my phone there. Like, I like like messages are delayed, internet can be very spotty, like you're on a remote island in the middle of the Atlantic. If there's any kind of storm, like you are not getting reception, like it's gone. And so I always like warn my clients, like, hey, I'm on the like, and it's also a Canada day-long weekend. So I do it on purpose where it's like people typically are just offline anyway. So they're not really there to like bother me and there's no like emergencies. But like I I bring my laptop, doesn't mean I can use my laptop. So that's something where we have to be very clear. Like, make sure you get your requests in by certain days. Like, this is the timeline, this is when we're absent. Obviously, we have our team in Toronto and remote that people, other people can step in and take care of things. It doesn't rely just on us, but you know, it's still setting those boundaries. And also, like, you know, we just call it summer hours, which is pretty standard for most companies. It's just that, like, remember that 5 p.m. Toronto time is actually 10 p.m. for us. So we may not even see that message until the next day. So we we're pretty good and clear about communicating that. So I think that's one of the things that people are always like, how do you do it? Like, how do you do the hours there? And da. Well, short, that was the long form answer. The short form answer is we work really fucked up hours for a short amount of time to experience paradise every single summer. That's it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's not for everybody. And I mean, that's my for me, I think, like especially the first year, I I didn't really give much thought to the amount of discipline it takes to do work when you're in a beautiful place.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, those days suck.
SPEAKER_01Like when you're when you're just staring out the window and you're like, that is awesome, and I'm clickety-clack on my keyboard. And I think if it was like a like a shorter form stay, like you know, like two weeks or something, I would I would go absolutely out of my mind and I would maybe compromise somewhere. But knowing that we have time and that we said this this time block, this is dedicated for this purpose in order to do what we're gonna do tomorrow. That has worked so well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I think also like for me specifically, I'm the type of person that can actually work 18 to 20 hours straight without really needing a break, other than for coffee and like meals.
SPEAKER_01I give you water in there too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I typically will take like two days of the week and literally work 20 hours and it's obscene, but that's 40 hours for the work week, yeah, which is really a traditional Monday to Friday, nine to five. I'm just getting all that work done in a 48-hour period because my brain can function like that. And then the other times are just like some meetings, some check-ins, making sure work is flowing and all that stuff. But like the majority bulk work that I do is in a two-day period, which for most people is like fucked up. Like they can't understand it. But for me, I've just trained myself to be like, just get this done now, all of it, like the full week of work, and then you have all the luxuries to have time with your kids. And yeah, you're gonna be tired, but it's okay because you can sleep in the other days, but I'm built very differently. So I don't need much sleep to operate. So yeah, I think that's really it. I the it was really just a conversation about like how we do this, because that's really one of the questions I get asked the most is like, how do you guys make this work? But I think the biggest compliments from clients and stuff is just like, you know, we're our work ethic is still there, we're still doing everything that we need to get done, nothing's missed. And and if anything, it inspires them to do their own travel and it inspires them to like, you know, do things a little bit differently. I've never done anything in a conventional way, so it's not surprising that we're doing this in in terms of how we live our lives. Will we move there permanently?
SPEAKER_01Only time will tell.
SPEAKER_00Only time will tell. It's always it's a debate. It always leans toward yes, but there's a lot of other circumstances that we have to figure out first. But for right now, doing this over the summer feels really good. It's a good chunk of time with our family, it's a real good chunk of time with our friends there. It's incredible for our children just to live in a different culture and experience a different type of living and a different atmosphere. And, you know, we live on like a surf town, so it's very chill and very opposite of our life in Toronto. And so I think that's why people are always so interested because it is so different. Yeah, I don't know. Anything you want to add?
SPEAKER_01Again, just like hats off to you for wanting this and and literally making it happen. Like you laid the groundwork, you've made things happen, you built the relationships and the trust and the work ethic to make sure that this is like a repeatable thing. And glad I'm here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're welcome. I mean, I was gonna do it with or without you. Like fair enough. He was just like, I'm not getting on that plane. Like, what if I can't? And I'm like, well, then you have a great summer in Toronto. I'll be with the kids in Portugal. Anyways, that was it. I hope you enjoyed that one. We just wanted to give you a little bit of a behind the scenes of what we're doing this summer. Obviously, we recorded this before we left, so I'll probably include some like behind the scenes shots of what we've been up to up until this point. But yeah, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening, and we will talk to you next week. Bye. Bye.