Meet Mark Schoenmakers Judith Dollevoet | Creative Directors Travelmonster

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mark Schoenmakers Judith Dollevoet and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mark Schoenmakers, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Before we started our own company I(Mark Schoenmakers) have been working in various managerial positions. I went from setting up a Marketing Intelligence Business Unit to Marketing Director to my last post as COO for an energy company. I was always fond of building and growing businesses but somehow I always ended up building someone else’s.

Meanwhile, Judith (Dollevoet) was making a career in sales. Both of us made a lot of hours in the office. Then on our off days and holidays, we always decided to travel and make sure we were spending the money on experiences to make the most out of our free time together. These were often experiences like swimming outside of your cave hotel in Santorini or High Tea in Burj al Arab in Dubai. We wanted to enjoy, and do extraordinary things.

By photographing these moments and posting them on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/travelmonster.nl/ our account slowly began to grow. And with that growth came opportunities. After 15 months of growing opportunities and steadily growing my skills as a photographer, we decided to make a change.

Because over the years we’ve gotten infected with the travel virus. We decided we didn’t want to work, save, repeat to be able to have a good life later. We made a conscious decision to live right now. And the way career always seems to work is that you work most and hardest in your 20s-40s. But this is also the time you are often healthy, active, and full of dreams. Then mortgages, kids, and career opportunities often lock us down. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of what we call the upgrade life. You are looking for a higher salary, better job, bigger house, bigger car, a bigger garden, nicer clothes and pretty much everything just had to feel like an upgrade. While in essence, nothing really changes. Life is just the same, maybe even less comfortable if you have to work more hours.

We decided to define what was our dream life. Because by defining it, we could chase our dream life. Dream life doesn’t mean we were dreamers though, we definitely noted down what we would be losing too. What if it doesn’t work? and talk about the insecurities and risks we would be taking. Because our situation was different from a lot of 9-to-5 escapers who are very early in their careers. We already had very good careers and actually liked our jobs as well. We absolutely didn’t dislike our life. Yet we still looked for something better. A life in which we didn’t only see each other in the evenings and weekends. Something exciting, living life as an adventure.

After defining our dream life we both quit our jobs and sold our house. We
started our own business named Travelmonster. We started offering companies mostly travel-related photography services while building our Instagram and own Travelblog www.travelmonster.nl as well. That was almost five years ago, and we have been full time traveling ever since. There is not a day in our lives we look back with regret.

What should our readers know about your business?
We are Mark Schoenmakers and Judith Dollevoet from Travelmonster Media. We are two Creative Directors from the Netherlands. Starting in 2017 but leaving our management careers definitively behind in 2019, we have been traveling the world as Fulltime Content Creators ever since, fueled by our sense of wondering and wanderlust.

Fired by a deep desire to see and experience more. We have made a conscious and dedicated decision to live life as an adventure. We are committed to showing everyone the planet’s raw and unfiltered beauty. And we combine that commitment with a strong passion to inspire with an environmentally conscious and ethical approach to luxury and sustainable travel.

And so Travelmonster was born, a brand that celebrates traveling, creating, and environmental responsibility at the same time. What started as a small international travel community on Social Media slowly but steadily grew into what now falls under Travelmonster Media.

We provide professional Content Creation Services for a very specific branch. We have unique expertise in Luxury Travel, Sustainability, Travel & Lifestyle and Destination Marketing. Our team always consists of a minimum of two persons and maximum of 6 persons which greatly enhances our flexibility to create faster or more content pending on potential time sensitive requirements that may exist based on seasonal occupancy.

Before we started our Creative Agency I believe there are some key learnings that have benefitted us greatly. In our professional life, we have always been in marketing and sales. Well before my managerial career, I (mark) started as a Big Data Scientist and made marketing intelligence analysis to create data-driven processes and campaign management. Even though I don’t use most of these skills anymore, there were lessons I learned in that period that are still invaluable.

Lessons learned: Get the right mindset

A mindset I live by and a lesson I believe is core to becoming successful for any business and any person is the following.

Let’s say there is a scale from 1-10 and 10 is the best and 1 is the worst. There are two mindsets to approaching something.

Mindset 1 – Ensure you get a 10. Then try to increase the speed and efficiency to get to that 10 faster.

Mindset 2 – Go as fast as you can to get a good 8 or 9. Then try to improve it to a 9 or a 10.

If you want to guarantee success always use Mindset 1. Apply it everywhere. Slow down, don’t worry if people with Mindset 2 are doing better right now, don’t worry if they go faster. Mindset 1 will always win in time. Patience is a virtue. Understanding this concept is probably the most important skill you can learn in my opinion.

Lessons learned: Learn to listen

The second most important skill you can learn is to actively listen and to never know anything for sure. I always say: ignorant people know everything for sure, smart people don’t know anything for sure. This means even if you think you are the smartest person in the room, you should always be open to someone’s opinion or thoughts. And also be open to changing your mind instantly if they make a good point.

There is a difference between believing you are right or believing that the chance you are right is currently higher than someone else’s.

Make sure you never get defensive in an argument, and instead look for the best collective thoughts before you make an opinion and decide on a way forward. Being able to change your mind or have a temporary opinion is a strength, don’t let people confuse it with hypocrisy or being unable to make up your mind. Those are very different things.

The reason why this is so hard is because they teach us debating in school, but not listening. We are taught to win an argument, debate, or discussion. But no one teaches us to say in the middle of a debate: ‘That’s a good point, I didn’t see it that way, but you are actually right’. Because we see this as losing the debate.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would take them to Bali. The Indonesian Island has so much going for it. From Western to Asian fusion food, sushi, and amazing beach life. The lush jungle and temples and wonderful people. I would especially check out Uluwatu and its amazing cliff ocean views and Ubud where everything is still green and the rice terraces are otherworldly.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
We have to give a shoutout to our families for supporting us these past years. When we initially announced our plans both of our families weren’t too thrilled about the prospect of us leaving what is often seen as a successful life. But they supported our decision nonetheless. They even overcame the idea of us being on the other side of the world most of the time, which was potentially even harder. That really helped us in challenging times. Speaking of challenging times, the worst time to start your Photography company in the Travel Industry is when CVD19 hits a year later. Losing gigs and clients and pretty much any potential to do business for a few years was incredibly challenging. Because of it we had to go back home a few months before things would pick up and we were always welcome to stay if we had no projects going on. This was absolutely crucial in these unprecedented and crazy times and saved us from having to give up.

Website: www.travelmonster.nl

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/travelmonster.nl/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schoenmakersmark/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/travelmonster.nl

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/travelmonster