The Blogger Genius Podcast

If you're interested in how to overcome burnout as an entrepreneur, this post is for you. Most people outside of the online world have little understanding of what being an entrepreneur entails. Sharing with your friends or even family that you’re struggling with blogger burnout may not bring much relief. It’s not that our people don’t want to help us; they simply don’t know how. Most folks have never spent months or years trying to get a business off the ground. They don’t understand the pressures of building a business and what it requires of you day after day and year after year. And so they simply can’t offer any solutions to the all-too-common struggles of entrepreneur burnout. This is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. My husband, David, and I have built 2 businesses from scratch, so we know what it means to face the daily slog of a mile-long to-do list and too few hours in the day to get it all done. That’s why I am so excited about my guest on today's episode of The Blogger Genius Podcast, Jason Zook. Jason Zook has started some of the most unique businesses I have seen. He and his wife Caroline have a membership site for client-based business owners who want to begin developing and selling digital products but not burn out while doing it. Jason has some interesting thoughts about when enough is enough in your business. If you suffer from blogger burnout, entrepreneur burnout, etc., his method will help you set new guidelines and reshape the way you think about your business. I think you will find him incredibly inspiring. How The Purple Cow Changed Things  Jason began his entrepreneurial journey in 2007, with no background in the sphere, not even a lemonade stand as a child. He had a normal 9-5 job as a graphic designer for three years after graduating college. But one day he looked around and realized how blah his existence was. He felt that he was surrounded by beige, literally and metaphorically. Then one day, a book, The Purple Cow, landed on his desk. That book helped Jason see himself in a new light and propelled him to make the leap to something new. He began his own design company with a friend, and they grew that company over the next two years. In 2008, he was standing in his closet when he realized that he was promoting businesses just by wearing shirts with their logos on them. At that time, social media was only just beginning to emerge and Jason saw an opportunity to use that platform in new ways. He created a project called, I Wear Your Shirt. For one year, he was going to charge small businesses to wear their shirts and promote them on social media. It was not an easy road to pursue, but he knew he wanted to do something unique. That project went on for five years, and although he ended up with debt in the end, he will forever have the lessons he learned from that time. All the time, people are having those ideas that make you say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Jason did the same with his tee shirt project. Even though it ended in 2013, his project still gets fresh traction because of its bizarre nature. Learning Through The Challenges Not knowing how to run a business perfectly, the unusual charging structure for the project, and taking on too much growth too quickly made it hard for the business to stay afloat. Jason says that he was focused on growth and success the way he saw it playing out for others. The problem is that what works for others doesn’t always fit your particular business. Without knowing how to manage the day to day of expenses and revenues, Jason was getting deeper and deeper into a hole. It sounds silly to say that he didn’t think about how the business would pay for itself, but no one gets taught this in a way that is applicable to entrepreneurs. Jason helps many entrepreneurs work through problems they have keeping their businesses afloat. Business classes are not focused on entrepreneurial business. Without knowing what things to look out for, it’s easy to get swamped before you know it. Jason had several credit cards, he owed family money, and when he realized he was over $100K in debt, he made the decision to throw in the towel. He worked tirelessly for five years and ultimately, the entrepreneurial burnout he faced forced him to take a break and reevaluate what he was doing. How to Know When to Quit Being an Entrepreneur Jason’s business with his wife is the climax of all they have learned throughout their business careers. He says that it all boils down to knowing who you are. Are you an entrepreneur? Are you cut out for that kind of life? 9-5 jobs are very straightforward. You have a set path that you follow daily. Entrepreneurs do not have that safety net. You are going to have unknown expenses; your path might change from what you originally planned. If you think you want to start a business, you need to know a few things going in. The first is related to the choices you need to make. You have two choices. One, you can give yourself a cap on how long you can stick with your idea. You might have enough savings to get you through six months or you might be willing to go a couple of months incurring debt. Choice #1 is to give yourself an end date. Decide to stick with your project for say, one year. At the end of the one year period, you have to reevaluate on whether you can keep going. Choice #2 is that you have to know at what point you will decide to stop with the project and move on for your own good and your family’s good. You need to cut your losses at some point. So if you see your business isn’t heading in a positive way anymore, it's time to cut your losses and move on to something else.  When Failure Is What You Need as an Entrepreneur Jason struggled with feelings of failure until he read Ryan Holiday’s book, The Obstacle Is The Way. He learned that the business failing is what needed to happen for him to learn lessons about business, entrepreneurial experiences, work-life balance, and debt. If he hadn’t stopped when he was $100K in debt, he may have gone on until he was $1M in debt. That $100K became a boulder he had to get around, but it helped give him a better focus on budgeting. When something doesn’t happen the way you think it will or a project fails, it’s your chance to reframe your thinking to, “This is an opportunity for me to get better and learn something.” Outsourcing Your Weaknesses as a Blogger It is hard work to be an entrepreneur. You have to make sure you hit every area of your business to make it grow and become better. For some of us, it’s worth it. But you have to know if you want it and how badly you want it. For Jason, paperwork is a weakness. He would rather clean house than do paperwork. So it is worth it for him to hire a bookkeeper to do that. Focus on where you might need to bring in strength from outside in the areas you lack it. Jason encourages entrepreneurs to find the three things they absolutely hate to do and then see if they can outsource them for under a couple of hundred dollars a month. Doing this one small thing will free up your time and your energy, including your mental energy. *Here at Milo Tree, I tell people to figure out what you make an hour, and if you can outsource a few jobs for less money than you make an hour, you should do it. Some things are more expensive, but freeing up your time and releasing yourself from a task you despise is worth it. If a job is holding you back and hindering your business growth, you need to outsource it. I go to UpWork and I hire people for a specific project. If we work well together, we can do more projects in the future. I have met so many wonderful people just by doing that. How Much Is Enough? The media has glamorized having lots of employees but in reality, it is stressful. Jason learned from his failed business that he doesn’t need to bring on help just for the sake of bringing on help. You have to put yourself in the mindset of asking, “How much is enough?” Jason and his wife ask themselves this question to ground themselves. How much money does a business need? Not how much money is a glamorous number, but how much would you really need to survive? Break down why you want the number that you’re going after. Jason has an MMM number, “Monthly Minimum Magic” number. That would be the money it takes to survive and run your business. No matter what, you want to make that. Then you can pick your “Enough Number”, the one that gives you all that you need. This is the number that provides abundance, the number that makes you feel like all the work you put in is worth it. If you can pick a number, you will free yourself from having goals that are unattainable and discouraging because they are too big. Minimalism is everywhere now. People are starting to embrace the idea that enough is enough. Reaching your number may take time, but it will be achievable if it’s not some pie in the sky arbitrary number. Taking Control of Your Perspective Instead of focusing on things that you believe will make you good enough, like an annual income, focus on how far you’ve come. Focus on how much you’ve learned. You can celebrate the small victories and not put all your hopes of happiness in future accomplishments. When you’re stressed and overwhelmed, you can take a moment to realize how far you’ve come and how your hard work is paying off. Jason says he is, “Walking a business, not running a business”. He and his wife got tired of always feeling like a hamster on a wheel, running with no end. All of this constant running, from emails to calls to meetings to social media to more emails...this is what leads to entrepreneurial burnout. Why can’t we just slow down to a walking pace? We don’t have to run all the time. It’s okay to slow down sometimes. Sometimes you have to run to get started, run to a place where you can walk, but if you’re thinking about what you would like to achieve, once you hit that, you can give yourself the freedom to rest more. The Concept of Time Profitability In business, it’s easy to understand cash profitability but we don’t think of time as something that offers profitability. If you have certain goals, are you willing to be time poor while you’re pushing yourself to reach those goals? Even if your business makes less money than you think it should, are you getting more time? Are you able to enjoy an easier schedule while still making enough? Jason likes to challenge the idea that money is the only profit you should think about in your life. Most people have to learn their lessons themselves. You might get to a certain point and realize your time isn’t as profitable as it could be. Do you have a tendency to always think that you’re falling short in what you do? We have to overcome those ideas of what’s normal for us so that we can go at our own pace, enjoy the moments in life as they come, and not feel burdened to always be running. No season in life will last forever. It’s important to make sure that you have a balance so you don’t miss out on life while you are building your business. Jason likes to ask, “What is it all for?” He knows that he cannot sacrifice the now in the hopes that when he hits his goals someday, that will fulfill him and make him happy. Your problems aren’t going to go away if your business succeeds; you’re going to have more of them. If you pursue more than what your enough number is, what are you going to have to sacrifice to get there? Is that money profit greater than your time or peace profit? Jason identified what was important in his life, and now he can work through the stress of running a business, because of the life he now gets to live. A life without burnout and without regrets. How to Know When You’ve Made It as an Entrepreneur Jason was able to identify when he felt that he had “made it” because he wasn’t constrained by what society said success is. He has what he wants and he is happy to have it. When you are able to identify the things you want from life and what is enough, you can be content, knowing you have gotten what you desire. As an entrepreneur, you not only need to manage the books but you need to manage your own brain. You need to manage the stories you tell yourself. You can tell yourself when you’ve made it and that’s okay. You don’t have to keep grinding forever and forever. You can have enough and be happy in the life you want. The finish line is whatever you want it to be. Overcoming Burnout as a Blogger Jason definitely struggled with burnout after the completion of his I Wear Your Shirt project. He had filmed himself almost every single day for 1,600 days straight. This was before Youtube stars and daily vloggers were really a thing. For 4 years after the business ended, he couldn’t stand to look at a camera. Anyone who’s gone through burnout knows that the only thing that heals it is time. You need space away from the things that burned you out so you can come back to it. To handle the burnout, you can set parameters to help you do the things you need to do. More relaxed schedules and less comparison are some of the things you can put into effect so that you won’t feel soul-sick while working. Jason has created a six-month program called, Build Without Burnout Academy, to help people who want to create a digital product of some kind. This program is releasing in March of 2019. It takes a lot to get something up and running and making revenue, and Jason helps with doing all of that while keeping the burnout away. His method, based on his experiences, helps you set goals you can achieve, take your time doing it, and not hate every second of it. It is very important that you don’t get burned out building a business that you are then going to have to keep up and running for years. There Is No Magic Bullet to Growing Your Online Business We tend to buy into the idea that a quick fix is all we need to be making millions of dollars. What happens when that doesn’t happen? We hit burnout. It is so important to have realistic goals, visions, an idea of what you will have to sacrifice, and how long it might take. You have to be willing to not sacrifice yourself and your life on the altar and grow your business in a way that you will be happy with. There is no magic bullet for success. It’s a day in and day out grind. But you get to decide what that looks like for you and how you can make it fit the life you want to be living. You can learn more about Jason and Caroline and listen to their podcast on WanderingAimfully.com. Jason Zook is on Twitter and Instagram as well. Jason would love to connect with anyone who is ready to build a business they can enjoy running while living the life they want to live. TIMESTAMP Intro 1:00 How A Purple Cow Changed Things 6:05 Learning Through The Challenges 10:34 How to Know When to Quit 13:08 When Failure Is What You Need 16:00 Outsourcing Your Weaknesses 20:30 How Much Is Enough 24:00 Taking Control of Your Perspective   26:58 Time Profitability 32:02 How To Know When You’ve Made It 38:13 Overcoming Burnout If you're looking for more followers, subscribers, and sales, MiloTree can help you do it faster and more easily than you are doing it now. But it can’t help you unless you take the first step and add it to your site today. Head over to MiloTree.com. Sign up now and receive your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Get full podcast transcript here * Post may contain affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I might receive a small commission at no cost to you.*

Welcome to episode 57 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. Today, Deepak Shukla, our SEO expert, is back on the show talking about why LinkedIn is the new Facebook, especially if you're looking for a social platform to grow your business. We talk about how it's a great way to make business connections (people actually open their LinkedIn emails), to get your content seen by lots of people (it's like the old Facebook feed), and to find podcasts to get interviewed on. If you think LinkedIn is not the right platform for your business, you need to listen to this episode because I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at this new opportunity. Resources: Jillian Tohber Leslie on LinkedIn Deepak Shukla on LinkedIn MiloTree Pearl Lemon Catch My Party LinkedIn Sales Navigator Alt Summit Transcript: Why Linkedin Is The New Facebook With Deepak Shukla Host 0:04 Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Leslie 0:10 Hey, guys. Welcome back to The Blogger Genius This is Episode 57. Wow! Reach out to me if you use an email pop-up and MiloTree at the same time! Before I launch into today's episode with my guest Deepak Shukla, I wanted to ask those of you who are using both MiloTree and a different pop-up solution on your blog at the same time, because we are rebuilding our email pop-up, and we have some cool ideas. But I wanted to run them by you and I wanted to talk to you about your strategy. If you could reach out to me at jililan@Milotree.com, I would love to pick your brain. Maybe we could even, I don't know, get on a call. Okay, I want to launch into today's episode. It is with Deepak, my friend. And we are talking about a really interesting concept, which is how to use LinkedIn to grow your business. Deepak, welcome back to the show for podcast #3. Deepak Shukla 1:09 Hey, Jillian. Yeah, absolutely. Three's the charm, they say. Thank you. I'm really happy to be here. Jillian Leslie 1:15 Oh, yeah. We were talking again, because we're working together, and we are talking about a topic, LinkedIn. and I said we should record this as another episode. So, here we are. Deepak Shukla 1:27 Absolutely. Hey! Jillian Leslie 1:29 So first, I wanted to talk about, so we've been working together now for two and a half months and I wanted to do a recap on how it's going and what we're doing and how you see it, and how we see it, that kind of thing. Deepak Shukla 1:43 Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's a really good topic to explore for your, your audience. So yeah, we're coming up to the 2 1/2 month mark. And I think that one of the really interesting things that's come out of the process is, what we're in the process of doing now as we've discussed, is almost doing some refining. So my aim when I came in was to clear up any kind of technical problems that we saw as to the HTML, if there were any broken links, whether internally or links that were going out externally that were broken, doing things that we could do to improve any of the kind of meta text and data on site. As well as, of course, building some fresh links that were industry relevant and continuing in that fashion for your site. And over the way... we started, so we're 2 1/2 months in, well it's 20th of Jan. So what's been really nice to see is that, you know, if you plug MiloTree into, for example, just an external tracker of showing kind of your organic keywords. As of November 2018, you are ranking for 108 total keywords. And we're now, what Jan, and it says there's now a total of 100, sorry, 207 keywords. There's actually been a kind of especially at the long tail, there's been a significant expansion of the number of keywords that you're ranking for. And certainly, there's some additional ones that come up now into the top 10. And I think this was some of the data that we were, of course, discussing on our last call, because now what makes sense, and this is sometimes typical of what happens is that we see a bump in keywords and the amount of keywords. We're not yet seeing that correspond in terms of, okay, is there a corresponding bump in terms of revenue. And what happens at this stage is we've just discussed as well. Let's take a look at the keywords we're ranking for and there's a bunch of them, the external tracker fixed up 207, which internally means like if you look via Google Search Console, this is, how many is it, 1400 and 90, in fact, actually 1400 and 90 as of today. So what, you know, we went through, of course, and this is where, you know, you can probably tell your audience about our conversation. It was where we looked at it and started kind of narrowing and refining, so then we can look across the keywords and think, well, what are the key words that are most commercially meaningful from the ones that we're already ranking for. Jillian Leslie 4:14 Exactly. So we looked at it and said there are certain keywords where it's great that we've gone up, but they're not specifically relevant to somebody who is looking to grow their Instagram and wants a pop- up and has a website, and all of the different things that need to be lined up for somebody to purchase our product. Deepak Shukla 4:34 Yeah, absolutely. Jillian Leslie 4:37 So we went through. David and I did, and we said, "Okay, what are the most relevant keywords for us?" and send them back to you. And now we're hoping to grow those to really get traction under those because, you know, we blog about a whole host of topics. And while they're relevant, they might not be super relevant for somebody. Now what we're looking for are people who want to buy, people who have a specific problem that we can solve that problem. Deepak Shukla 5:12 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It makes complete sense. And what typically happens is when you run, let's call it, fixes or maintenance from a technical perspective as well as building initial links, there is in this case, you know, kind of a surge of what could be considered to be the low-hanging fruit or words at the long tail that you begin to rank fo. And then it's a case of, as you said, it's digging into that, as you and David have done and saying, Okay, great, these are the keywords that, you know, we're ranking for overall. What can we do, or rather, you just give us the information, let's do it right. Let's narrow the things down even further still and see what makes most commercial sense. Because what will happen often, to anticipate what someone might be thinking in the audience, is that, well Deepak, you have the original set of keywords and you start kind of ranking or rather focusing on those. But when you, for example, take a sample set of even, let's just say, 10 keywords, in actuality, if they have a search volume of let's just say 100 to 300 to 500, there'll be all of the kind of long tail keywords around it, that, you know, targeting that keyword will help. But also, there'll be other keywords you already ranked for, at some level. So in fixing technical problems and beginning to build kind of links to your site, it will have an overall net effect across a lot of the keywords that you actually, you know, already rank on Google for. And so what that means is, in improving one thing, you may end up improving something that's slightly to the right or left side of it a lot more and then you begin to adjust once you see, okay, Google is responding really well to these things and now let's kind of target and drill further still. Jillian Leslie 6:53 Right, so let's steer the ship in this direction. Deepak Shukla 6:56 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What are the opportunities as a blogger on LinkedIn? Jillian Leslie 6:58 Exactly. And then we started talking about LinkedIn. And I was saying that I am, of course, on LinkedIn but I don't think of my LinkedIn profile as a direct way to grow MiloTree. And you said, "Ooh," like there's there's an opportunity there. So on my LinkedIn, for example, I have my education and my background, and I am linked to, you know, because of my background, I have links to lots of people who are big in Silicon Valley and stuff like that, but they're not exactly relevant to my customers and to people who, let's say, would be reading our blog. So I've kept it somewhat siloed, and you said that that's a missed opportunity. And so we started to think about this from the perspective of our customers, our users and to say, is there an opportunity on LinkedIn that we are all missing as publishers, as, you know, mompreneurs, as food bloggers, as what, you know, small shop owners. And you said, "Ooh, there is an opportunity here on LinkedIn." And I was just thinking about this, as we press 'record,' which is -- and Deepak, I want your feedback on this -- as entrepreneurs, we're always looking for where the opportunity is, And say, in the beginning, the opportunity was on Facebook. Back in the day when you would post something and it would show to all of your followers. And guess what, that's dried up. Now, you want to reach people, you've got to pay for it. Facebook is going through a lot of changes. Facebook's not the place where... and also ads on Facebook have become very expensive. It used to be that was the opportunity. You get in on Facebook and then even putting money behind stuff and all of a sudden you'd see this huge return. And that's not necessarily there. An opportunity that I think we as predominantly women entrepreneurs saw, especially as publishers/creators was Pinterest. That to us, like men weren't on Pinterest. Businesses weren't really unless they were like food brands and stuff, they weren't really on Pinterest. And Pinterest for us has been this huge opportunity both for Catch My Party and MiloTree. And I think what you and I are are circling in on, is maybe there's an opportunity for bloggers, small business owners, female entrepreneurs on LinkedIn because we're not yet there. Deepak Shukla 9:42 Yeah. Jillian Leslie 9:43 Did that make sense? Deepak Shukla 9:44 It does. It makes complete sense. I think that, you know, let's step back a second. LinkedIn has changed dramatically as a platform. It has become a lot more social because they're pushing video as, you know, Facebook Call with Facebook Watch, they're attempting to compete with YouTube. The world's kind of accepting that video is almost here and video is here to stay. So what that means is that LinkedIn has become now more socially driven. It's attracting a lot more people that are entrepreneurs, mompreneurs. It's attracting a lot of people that are building, you know, independent to small to medium to big businesses. And they're talking a lot more about this personal stories, about their journey, about, you know, everything that relates to kind of what they're doing within the world. And it's almost in some respects, being a lot like Facebook was, but maybe five to seven years ago, where you post a status update, you post some content, it would get, you know, a decent amount of reach. That same thing. And that might be the best kind of, number one, you know, avenue for some of your audience to understand that that opportunity that we used to see on Facebook is definitely a lot more prevalent on LinkedIn. Whereas Facebook, everybody uses this term. It's 'pay to play'. You know, you have to spend money to get your content seen. That's not the case on LinkedIn. Can you get a lot of reach on LinkedIn? If you write good content and you do simple things, such as tagging people, you know, I see it still happen. Tagging people that, you know, all your friends are tagging people that have liked your last status updates or tagging people that, you know, individually commented, you can get a really, really decent amount of reach. That's, you know, something that's really big. And this is where it gets really interesting, is in terms of, you know, what LinkedIn is, of course, LinkedIn is probably the most powerful business, individual business person directory in the world. And a lot of people don't really think of how much data LinkedIn actually holds, you know. If I want to find an individual that is a blogger who, you know, is producing content, I can find that person for free on LinkedIn. Whereas there's no real easy way to do that on any other platform, unless you want to pay for the privilege. And you can directly send them a message. So when we think about, of course, now, all of your actual audience and, you know, they've got, you know, perhaps, you know, a fashion site, or maybe there's a cooking site, or maybe you've got an opportunity. For example, you know, I was looking. You've got an opportunity, number one, to use LinkedIn to search literally. If you search for the keyword 'mompreneur', then you have around 900 results come up. If you search for the word... let's have a look now because I've got it here in the background. I just want to check. If you search for the word 'solopreneur', then you have several hundred results come up. And this is the part that we, you know, that we originally made reference to. If you search for the word 'podcast', you have 9721 results come up. How to get on other people's podcasts using LinkedIn Jillian Leslie 13:15 Wow. Because that's one thing that I want to do is while I have a podcast, I want to be on other people's podcasts that are relevant. I want to be introduced to other people's audiences to provide value, stuff that I know that hopefully can help them. But that also helps me, you know, grow and get a bigger audience and hopefully connect with like-minded people. Deepak Shukla 13:43 Absolutely, absolutely. Jillian, podcasts are really still at the very, very early stages of their growth, right? If video is now, businesses aren't really savvy to the idea of podcasts I think being now. You know, a company would much sooner do video before they do audio. And what's really interesting is, is that, you know, podcasts are on a huge growth swing. It's still very, very early days. Which means that what we're seeing is an abundance of podcast creators who are actually hungry for people to share their story on their podcast. Jillian Leslie 14:18 Definitely. When somebody reaches out to me with an interesting story, I immediately go "Please come on my show. I want to hear it, I want to share it. And I want to learn from you," that kind of thing. Okay. And let's talk about this, which is, I do think it is a great strategy to try to get onto people's podcasts, especially in your niche. Deepak Shukla 14:31 Yep. So, you know, using LinkedIn Sales Navigator. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is just really simply like it's like an Amazon search with additional filters. So for cost of, you know, perhaps $70 to $80 per month. And, you know, LinkedIn Sales Navigator offer a free trial for the first 30 days, right? So you have the opportunity to run keyword searches. So you can run something such as, you know, simple as, you know, podcast in someone's title. So I ran the search 'podcast' in title. What that means is that anybody who uses the word 'podcast' in their actual title will come up in search. Now that's the search gave me 9721 results. Jillian Leslie 15:29 Wow. Right. So I don't know what is Sales Navigator. So it's a service and therefore you can search? Deepak Shukla 15:30 So that means there's potentially 9000. And let's assume that that number, you know, is on the largest side, that's probably at least 5000 people that has podcasts, Jillian. Yeah. So you can search basically LinkedIn using a variety of filters. So if I want to find a particular kind of person, what this does is it allows me to search by geography. So I can go, so for example, I'm doing it right now, I'm going to... So I've used the keyword 'podcast'. So what that means I'm searching people that have the word 'podcast' in their title, that are based in the United States, that also use the keyword perhaps, you know, 'entrepreneur' because, you know, then they'll welcome any kind of small business owner come on to talk about their story. And that's of itself has given me 551 results, which means that there's potentially of that, let's just assume even half of that, our podcast hosts, that means that there's 250 people currently who are in the United States that are podcast hosts that, you know, discuss the world of entrepreneurship. And that' the opportunity. These things will be, I think, as you said, Jillian, you know, you going on to, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 podcasts over time is going to add huge value in so many ways. Number one, you get direct exposure to their audience. Number two, you get the opportunity to practice, refine, and build your brand story. Number three, you get links from every podcaster you go on. Jillian Leslie 17:14 Right. Yes. And the more podcasts you go on, the more people will invite you on to their podcasts, so it snowballs. So the question then, if in fact, I see a podcast and I go and I look at it, and I listen to an episode or so, and I go, "Oh, I want to be on this podcast," let's say, Would you recommend reaching out to them on LinkedIn? Or would you recommend sending an email? Reach out to people on LinkedIn and not email because the open rates are higher Deepak Shukla 17:40 Yeah. I think that LinkedIn is probably the most powerful way to do it at the moment. Because LinkedIn inbox messages, for those who are active on LinkedIn, gets a lot more open rates than anywhere else. Jillian Leslie 17:52 Really? Deepak Shukla 17:53 Mm-hmm. And here's the really interesting thing. Not only can you search people, for example, that have that profile listed as a podcaster, you know. You can search specifically for people that have posted on LinkedIn in the past 30 days. So I can then just target people that I know that are already active on LinkedIn, and I can directly send them a message. And to take it one step even further, you don't necessarily even need to listen to their podcast until they actually responded. So what I've been doing -- and this is the process that has got me probably on to around 40 podcasts in the last month and a half, Jillian. Jillian Leslie 18:31 Wow! Deepak Shukla 18:32 Yeah, absolutely. I don't listen until I initially reach out to... so I've got someone invite me, Errol. He came up in the search, right? Errol's title is entrepreneur, podcaster, and creative director. Error helps entrepreneurs. So I would send a message, the initial message would be "Hey Errol, I notice that you're a podcast host" and being a business owner or being, you know, or loving podcasts myself, I just wanted to connect. I hope that's okay." How to reach out to podcasters on LinkedIn So that could be the same message, right? "Hey, Errol. Hey, Heather. Hey, Jason. I noticed that you're a podcast host. I'm always on the hunt to connect and listen to more interesting podcasts. I hope that's okay. -- Deepak" You know, a lot of people naturally would say, "Oh, well, yeah, of course, you can connect. This is my podcast." You know, here's my podcast, Eric helps entrepreneurs. Here's the iTunes link, have a look and let me know what you think. That's literally a lot of the responses that I get. And it'll be at that stage that then I'll quickly go and have a look at the podcast. I will maybe listen to a couple of bits or will listen to a couple of bits and pieces, figure out if it's a fit. And then I'll say, you know, "Errol, I really liked your podcast. I particularly like this episode. I don't know if it's possible. I'd love to come and explore being a guest on your show. What is it that I could tell that would be useful for you to make that decision?" And then they'll directly say, "Well, this is my audience. This is what I want to know. How do you think my audience could benefit?" So they asked you the direct questions that you have to answer. And that's the process I've been following, Jillian. And it was working so well with it. For the last three weeks, I stopped doing any reach out but I've still been getting responses from past messages that have come in, because I was getting overwhelmed with how many positive responses I was getting. And that is a process that anybody can emulate. Jillian Leslie 20:25 Absolutely. So you recommend breaking it down? You don't recommend saying in the first interaction, "Hey, I see you're a podcaster. I think that this would be a great fit. I'd love to come on your show. Here's what I do." So you wouldn't do it that way. Deepak Shukla 20:44 I wouldn't do it that way for a couple of reasons. Number one, it's perhaps too much too soon. So that's the first thing. Number two, you know, it's always important with any transaction that we do to try and focus on getting initial yeses. "Can I connect?" "Yes." "Here's your podcast. What do you think?" "It's great." "Could I be on your show?" "Yes." It's so much easier when you start asking small asks before you make the big one. That's the second reason. The third reason, and this is probably the most important reason for your audience. There's a huge element of practicality to it. Your audience will not have the time to go and listen to 200 individual podcast shows. Jillian Leslie 21:21 Right. Deepak Shukla 21:21 Right? And, and even if you do, what if only 10% of them respond anyway? You may as well only focus on the ones that make an effort to accept your connection request, that write a short response saying, "Thanks for reaching out, I appreciate it." And they should be the people that you focus on. Jillian Leslie 21:38 Got it. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. So in terms of being active on LinkedIn, okay -- let's say I always use this example -- I'm a food blogger, or I'm a beauty blogger, or I am a teacher, you know, and I do kids' activities. Or I sell jewelry or something like that. How active do you recommend I be on LinkedIn? And two, can I take my content that already exists and put it on LinkedIn? Deepak Shukla 22:10 Brilliant questions. So number one, how active should you be? I think that you could produce a piece of content each day if you want. And here's the interesting thing, Jillian. When I say produce a piece of content, I mean, literally about 70 to 100 words. I don't need a 2.5 thousand blog post. I mean, status updates. Jillian Leslie 22:32 Really? Okay. Deepak Shukla 22:33 Yes. They work way better than any other type of content at the moment on LinkedIn. So number one, be active every day or be active every day or two. What I mean with being active is if you can sit down for a couple of hours and produce literally probably 1000 words of content, but if that's broken down, of course, into short stories which are 100 words each, that content could last you a month. Jillian Leslie 22:58 Okay. Deepak Shukla 23:00 That's definitely the first thing. That's the first thing that I'd say that it's less content that you wait, it's much less content than you think and it's just snippets rather than actual, you know, long form content. So the barrier of entry is very low. That's the first thing that I'd say. Jillian Leslie 23:17 Okay. What content should you post on LinkedIn? Deepak Shukla 23:18 The second thing that I'd say is that as to the content that you currently have, absolutely, you can repost literally, you know, 30% to 60% of your content onto LinkedIn as an article and then link back to your actual, you know, entire blog. You can absolutely do that Jillian Leslie 23:35 So you're like teasing it and then you're linking. Deepak Shukla 23:38 Yes, yes. Jillian Leslie 23:39 You're not putting the entire post. Deepak Shukla 23:41 No, because you want people to come back to your website. Jillian Leslie 23:44 Got it. Yeah. Deepak Shukla 23:45 Yeah. So you could for example, you could spend some dedicated time and think right, you know, this weekend, I'm going to spend one hour just reposting content. And you could probably get through 3 to 5 blog posts in an hour because you're just reposting, right?You're shortening it and then you're putting it on. So you could spend maybe you know several hours getting 20 pieces of content on there. It's a couple of hours but then it's done. And then the only focus is to produce those status updates and they get a lot of traction, you get the metrics that LinkedIn provides you. You know, this status update got 3.5 thousand views. This status update got 400 views. The next status update got, you know, 900 views. And you will begin to see opportunities open up. So I get people that are approaching, "Hey Deepak, I'd love to, you know. Could we work together or what is it that you do?" Or "You know, I love your status updates." And what this opens yourself up for is influencer marketing, Jillian. And people are interested in simple stories. If you run a blog about, you know, something about arts and crafts and children, then be authentic. Talk about, you know, some of the things that arts and crafts have taught about you are with your own children. If you sell jewelry and necklaces, then you can produce content that still, you know... And this is the interesting thing. A lot of people are just interested in stories about your personal life and your journey and what you're learning. So if you're thinking, "Well Deepak, I don't know how to really talk about jewelry..." or you don't even necessarily need to even mention jewelry at all. Because people are going to follow you and for your your life as well as for your passions on LinkedIn. So you can be so flexible and broad in terms of the content that you want to produce. What I'm saying is, you can talk about anything that you want. Jillian Leslie 25:41 That's so interesting. So it does feel much more like Facebook back in the early days. Deepak Shukla 25:47 Yeah, it's really like that now. You know, I generate a lot more business from LinkedIn when I don't talk about SEO. Jillian Leslie 25:53 Hmm. Interesting. So what will you talk about? Deepak Shukla 25:58 I will talk about stuff that's inspirational. I will talk about stuff that if I go to my posts, I'm going to quickly... Jillian Leslie 26:06 And we'll link to your LinkedIn profile and my LinkedIn profile. Deepak Shukla 26:11 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So the last one I spoke about was about... let's have a look. So I gave a tip about how to turn videos into blogs. The one before that was thanking my team. Another one before that was about... let's have a look. About talking to business owners, embracing brand personalization. So I'm talking to, you know, another one with just a quote. So I'm talking broadly within the area of entrepreneurship, but there is no mention ever where I discuss... Yeah, I talk about turning 33 this year. And, you know, that was one of my posts that got, you know, a lot of... let me have a look. Yeah, so one of my most viewed posts is: "Today's thoughts: Act like a hustler, work like a dog, operate like a hacker, position like a painter, prepare like an athlete. Let's grow." And of course, I don't expect your audience to write anything like that at all. But the point here is that I didn't write anything about SEO. But that's the kind of stuff that will generate traction and have people reach out to me and then ask me about SEO because, you know, we're moving into an area of people less and less feel like they're being sold to and more and more where they want to work with interesting and inspirational business owners. New Shopify MiloTree pop-up to grow your Shopify sales. Try it today! Jillian Leslie 27:35 I wanted to take a short break to talk about MiloTree. We just rolled out a Shopify pop-up. What that means is you install this pop-up on your blog, and it says 'Shop Now' and it has your pop-up, and it leads directly to your Shopify store and it's populated with your most recent products. We will also be rolling one out for Etsy where it will pop up and say, you know, "Shop my Etsy store." So be on the lookout for that. If you sign up for my MiloTree, you get your first 30 days free. So you can definitely check it out. kick the tires, see what you think. Okay, now back to the show. Should you connect with everyone who sends you a friend request on LinkedIn? Now, when you get a request for somebody who wants to connect with you on LinkedIn, do you always say yes? Deepak Shukla 28:24 I connect with absolutely everybody. Jillian Leslie 28:25 You do. Deepak Shukla 28:26 Yeah, yeah. Always. Always. Always. I think that you can't know. And this is the interesting part, Jillian, and it relates also to podcasts. You can't know who you know, is within anybody's second degree network. So if, you know, if I'm at a cafe and I'm really friendly to Frank the barista. I should be friendly to Frank the barista because Frank the barista's uncle could be, you know, the owner of a whole multi-chain retail outlet. Frankie's cousin could be somebody very important. So this principle that we see so often in real life that you don't know who you're talking to really ever or you don't know who that person might know is definitely, you know, one of the biggest reasons I think that we should accept connection requests from everybody. I think that if you have an opportunity, Jillian, to go on a podcast that has nothing to do with entrepreneurship, you should absolutely do it. Jillian Leslie 29:21 Interesting. Deepak Shukla 29:22 Because you can't know their audiences. Because it's folly for all of us to assume that our audience are only interested in jewelry or are only interested in arts and crafts there. We're weird and wonderful people that are interested in all kinds of things that have nothing to do with, you know, the business that we're in or the service that we offer. Therefore, we should recognize everybody else is like that. So, I've been on a podcast about sustainability in the environment. And I've been on a podcast about, you know, about sports and stuff that has nothing to do with my business. But I know that or, you know, based upon what I've seen, I recognize that you know what, the people that listen to this are also, you know, to some degree, probably interested in what it is that I have to offer. And for that reason, I accept invitations. When I do podcast reach out, I'm happy to go into any podcast because I think that, you know, someone somewhere... And what the couple of podcasts I've been on that have ended up generating work, there haven't been podcasts that have been about SEO. Jillian Leslie 30:28 I love that. I think what you are teaching me is this idea of openness -- openness to opportunity and that you can't connect the dots until afterwards. And I've talked about this previously on my podcast, which is I tend to want to silo things. I tend to want to silo my LinkedIn from the rest of my business like even in small ways. I don't tend to talk about what I do to the moms that I interact with because I immediately think, oh, they're not going to be interested in that. Or it's kind of hard to explain what I do. And then people will find out like moms, let's say, you know, in my daughter's school and they'll be like, Wait, you have a podcast? You have a business, you're an entrepreneur?" And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, yeah." And I think that the one thing I'd like to work on for 2019 is not being afraid to pull my worlds together. And I want things I think tied up in like little... I want things in buckets. And I don't think that that is helping me. Deepak Shukla 31:47 I think that you shouldn't be hard on yourself. I think it's human nature especially when, you know, you you operated in such a different space before coming into entrepreneurship. And before, you know, launching your podcast. And you're basing that based upon everything that, you know, you have seen and understood as being the way that things are done that, you know, work; what we do here is what we do here. And I think that, you know, what that means is it's exciting, Jillian. There's a huge opportunity for everybody here because, you know, life is... The interesting thing, of course, about today's things are moving so quickly, and everything is emerging and immersing and subject to change. That there is no way we can accurately predict where our next win nor where our next setback, if you will, will come from. Jillian Leslie 32:45 I agree. Deepak Shukla 32:47 And with that in mind, give yourself every opportunity for success. Jillian Leslie 32:50 I agree. I totally agree. I think about this all the time. I just wrote a piece in my newsletter. And by the way, to get on my newsletter, sign up for my MiloTree. You can cancel it but you'll still be then getting my newsletters. And I wrote about how you don't know where your next win is going to come from. And you need to be open to everything. And that you're right. As things are moving so quickly, you want to be failing. Because it means that you are, I call them at-bats, and that you're trying. And I think that you're right. And so it's just a whole different way. So one thing we talked about was taking my LinkedIn profile which is very buttoned down and you were going to look at it and and kind of try to personalize it or give me feedback on it. So I'm curious, ultimately, you know, what you come back with so that I can start to merge these different personas together. I mean, not that I'm inauthentic in any of them. It's too exhausting to not be authentic, you know, to have to keep different, I don't know, personas alive. But I think that I do need to, I don't know, to merge things more. Deepak Shukla 34:14 I think that people will find your journey amazingly weird and wonderful. You know, I looked at your resume on LinkedIn and, you know, I apologize in advance if I'm going to be over sharing on your behalf. Jillian Leslie 34:26 No, please. Deepak Shukla 34:26 I can imagine how I would feel if I received a request from you to be, you know, on my podcast versu,s "Hey Deepak, I'd love to, you know, if it's of any use to explore what I've learned on my journey, starting out in Stanford, going to work for Warner Bros and then Walt Disney to, to leaving that all behind to venture into the world of entrepreneurship. You know, with my family and everything that's taught me as a woman that's come out from the corporate world and then gone to launch an interesting cool little pop-up that serves female business owners. Do you think that might be interesting for us to explore any elements of that on your show?" That sounds so powerful to me, Jillian. Jillian Leslie 35:18 It's funny. Because I'm hearing it where, yes, again, on the inside I'm like, "Oh, that's alright." But no, that's nice. Deepak Shukla 35:27 Then you attract the Stanford crowd, then you attract the Warner... then you attract the screenwriters. Because what happens then is you attract all of the other people who would ordinarily never listen to you because they'd assume that you don't know my story, there's no way I can connect with you. And the more that we weave in those different elements of your story, right, the bigger your audience becomes. Jillian Leslie 35:50 Right. I think you're right. I think that is really valid. And that's why I would say to everybody out there if you're listening to this and you're saying, "No, LinkedIn isn't my thing. It's not for me, it's not my business, my tribe is not there," I would challenge you to really broaden it as well. Because you're doing then what I'm doing, which is you're narrowing your self-definition. And you're saying, "No, no, no. I need to be in Facebook Groups with other people like me." And it's like, well, wait a second, maybe we all can venture out into areas where there are opportunities. Deepak Shukla 36:30 And you have then the opportunity to bring those people back into your own Facebook group or your own place of power. And the only way that you do that is to go and become parts, you know, intermittently of other conversations. Jillian Leslie 36:44 Yes. And that you can have all these different pieces to your door. I think that's probably true. My journey has been... it hasn't been a straight line. And so therefore I think because of that, it's confusing to me to kind of explain that to somebody. But to embrace that, I mean, you're giving me all these, like, I wish you could see my brains like exploding right now. But it's about embracing all of those different elements. And, you know, I'm Jillian no matter what, like I am who I am but I have had this very path, and therefore I know about lots of different things that I can bring to my story. For example, story. I understand story. And therefore, I can understand because I was a writer, and I understand story when it comes to selling and marketing. And so it's like taking these different components and pulling them together into embracing all the weirdness. Share your story on LinkedIn Deepak Shukla 37:41 And I would say, you know, by not sharing your story, you're you're doing not only yourself an injustice because you have all of this value to add that come as a consequence of the experiences. And this is for everybody that's listening as well. You've all got a story and you probably listen to Jillian and me, and you think that well, you know, I haven't been to Stanford and I don't have this background. So maybe my story is not not interesting. And Jillian will tell you way, way more about this than I ever could. That, you know, at the heart of any powerful story, it's the journey that people care about, and where it starts and ends is of lesser consequence than anything else. And we've all got, you know, this journey that's our lives. We all should share that story with others. And by doing that, you not just lift up your business, of course, but you lift up people like yourself. You lift up those people who are in the shadows that are teetering about starting their own business that are looking for someone they can identify and connect with, that are looking for any means of inspiration. So, I would say that, you know, by not sharing your story, by not going on to the podcast or the shows, or connecting with people that you look at and overtly think have nothing to do with your audience, that you do yourself an injustice and you do others an injustice. Because as Jillian said, you don't know where your audience actually truly are because, you know, there's still many, many, many silent Sally's out there who love what you do but just don't know about it. Jillian Leslie 39:25 Yes. And I think that another thing I am really working on in my own life is when I think I know something in my business, and to say maybe that's not true. So maybe I think I know my audience or I think I know you guys who are listening to this podcast. But there are outliers, people who I would be really surprised to know they're listening. And so I find that the more I can say to myself, okay, that's a story I'm telling myself and it fits my narrative and maybe it's not true is very humbling and scary but important to do, is to challenge those assumptions. Deepak Shukla 40:05 Wow. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more, Jillian. Jillian Leslie 40:09 And so I do this again in my parenting with my daughter because my daughter will come home with like some story of how tomorrow is going to be a horrible day. And I go, "Wow, that's a really interesting story you're telling yourself." And to just even make some space around that narrative that my daughter completely believes is true. And we all do this. And so therefore, it helps me do it in my own life to go out like if I can point it out for her, I can point it out for myself. So it's just you're kind of opening my eyes to not just doing things the way that I do it or the way that I think everybody else in my space does it. Deepak Shukla 40:49 And that could be the angle in for all of us, I think, that if everybody feels a bit scared or feels a bit insecure, then that can be the story that you can share with others. Because everybody identifies with that. Jillian Leslie 41:01 Absolutely. Deepak Shukla 41:01 Everybody is scared and fearful and, you know, the more that you are open about those feelings, the more that you win people to your cause, that you have people to empathize with you, that sympathize, that will follow you. And, you know, Jillian, we all are. Well, I know that you are familiar with, of course, the concept of the flawed hero and this whole idea of the origin story. And I think that, you know, one of the things that I've as well continue to try to challenge is that you know, Deepak, you know, don't make assumptions until you have the data in your hand. Go and do 10 seemingly irrelevant podcasts and then you can truly say that, Okay, I see now that this might not be the right path for me. And often we we will take, you know, a tiny bit of data. LinkedIn is a professional platform. It will take another bit of data. "Deepak, I could never go on a sustainability podcast or a podcast about, you know, sports because I'm selling jewelry." And I'll say, "Well, you know what, there might be a lot of dads who listen to that podcast about sport who would say, you know what, it might..." You can't know really how things can evolve and develop. And the smartest and sensible thing to do in this world of, you know, evolution and adaptation is, as you said, Jillian, is to try stuff. Jillian Leslie 42:26 Yeah. Advice: Sign up for a 30-day free trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator Deepak Shukla 42:27 Just try. And this route to trying really, to pin it down again in practical terms that everybody's worried you can sign up for 30-day free trial with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can type in a couple of keywords into their search. If you've ever been on Amazon, if you've been on eBay, it's exactly the same thing. Type in the word 'podcast' and send a couple of people the same message, change your first name, and begin to see what happens, and do that. It will take you literally three minutes a day to do it. Jillian Leslie 42:59 Yes, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do this. And then do you pay $70 to $80 a month or do you just do it and then cancel and then, you know. Deepak Shukla 43:09 I've signed up for the year. LinkedIn is so powerful for what I do with work. And that search filter is excellent. And for a long time, to be honest with you, Jillian, because I was like, "Oh, I don't need LinkedIn Sales Navigator." And I'm an agency owner and I was in the same camp as you. And it was only about three months ago that I became three, maybe six months ago, something like that, but I began using LinkedIn Premium. And since then, I've never looked back. What has been the result? I've been on 40 podcasts. Jillian Leslie 43:42 Wow. Deepak Shukla 43:44 Because of that $70 a month subscription that I pay. Jillian Leslie 43:47 Right. And how many sales did that get you? Deepak Shukla 43:51 We've got, well, we didn't meet through LinkedIn, I don't believe. Jillian Leslie 43:55 No. You reached out to me. But again, like, you know, how many clients did those podcasts get you? Deepak Shukla 44:00 Yes. So that process has led me to three direct clients from actual podcast hosts who then directly asked me. And it's led to a further one more from an audience member. And these are people that you know, work with me on SEO. So people consider them to be you know, three- or four-figure deals. And then finally, it's improving our SEO significantly because I'm generating a continuous series of decent links from these sites and still, I'm getting more people that are joining and that's finding out about our tribe, that personally reach out to me and say "Deepak you know, I listen to..." So, you know, I go into a lot of careers podcasts, Jillian, about career transformation, which could go on because you've changed your career, you've got a lot of advice that you could give to anyone who wants to get into Stanford. You could go into podcasts about, you know, getting top college jobs. You could go on to podcasts about creativity and design because of your experiences with Warner Bros and Walt Disney. And a lot of those audience members, you know what, they're probably quite likely women that's going to be some of your audience or at the very least it's going to help you rank for really important keyword terms that we're trying in the process of going through. You know, like Pinterest pop-up tool or something to that effect. So the benefits are both upfront with the direct conversations that you have but also they serve you over time because as we also said, podcasts are only growing. It's easy to tell your story on a podcast That person is only going to have more people that's going to connect with them. And you going to Deepak podcast, Deepak's going to have another 20 podcast interviews lined up after you -- that's a benefit to you. Because more people will find that show, more people will subscribe. And you know what, it's quite easy to talk about yourself on a podcast show. Well, it's easier than writing a 4000-word long guest post or blog post for many of us at least. So the actual process of getting onto podcasts and sharing things that are true to your story is way easier for many of us to do than asking somebody to write a full, you know, 2000- to 4000-word blog post. Jillian Leslie 46:21 Yes. And what I would also say is, when you're on a podcast, for example, you and I are co-creating this podcast. We both didn't know what was going to happen. We had an idea, we wanted to talk about LinkedIn. But you could just show a different side of you, I get to show a different side of me. If I sat down to write something about myself, it would be my narrative. And here we are writing a narrative together. So you get to see a whole different side. Deepak Shukla 46:49 Absolutely. And here's the other thing. What, it's a benefit to you and we're co creating, and hopefully, to your audience as well, is that what we have just started implementing, is taking the YouTube transcriptions of my videos and my podcasts. Giving it to a writer and then turning the transcriptions that YouTube generates for free, of course, that have only about 70% accuracy. But turning every video that I do into a blog post based around that podcast, and that is doing wonderful things for our SEO as well. If you're thinking about starting a podcast... Jillian Leslie 47:23 Interesting. And I have to say, out there, if anybody is thinking about starting a podcast, I so recommend it. I really do. I'm going to be at Alt Summit, which is a conference. And my session is going to be about how to start a podcast in a weekend. And I have to say that I love doing the podcast because I get to talk to people like you. It's very intimate. It's not like I'm having to talk to thousands of people. Hopefully, I can reach thousands of people. But it's just you and me talking. And there's something so neat about that and then being invited into somebody's ears. It's really intimate. It's like, I feel privileged. So if you are at all thinking about it, reach out to me, because I will probably be putting my talk online. But I would recommend people take the leap and try it. It's not very expensive. You can do it down and dirty. And I think it's really satisfying from a human perspective, from a connecting perspective. Deepak Shukla 48:26 I completely, completely agree. I couldn't agree more. Jillian Leslie 48:45 So Deepak, I have to say, what I love about you is you opened my eyes to stop. You know, when I talked to experts about other topics, things especially that I know a lot about, I find those conversations very interesting. But also very, what is the bias... confirmation bias, which means I hear stuff that I know, it confirms what I know it, it solidifies it, and then it's harder to be thinking outside the box. Deepak Shukla 49:08 Yeah, I understand. And I want to, as much as I can, at least come on and try and present you perhaps something that at least, hopefully, is somewhat unfamiliar to me. Because then I know that it can impact a lot of the existing bodies of data that you've already got in your mind, as well as hopefully take, you know, your audience down some different paths that they haven't yet considered. Jillian Leslie 49:32 Yes. So if you haven't, anybody in the audience, go to LinkedIn. And I'm going to do the exact same thing and start poking around and start seeing what it looks like and start doing some searches and see if there's a way in. Because it could be what I would say Pinterest is for men today, which is undiscovered and it's like a sleeping giant for them. We all know that Pinterest is very powerful. But if you talk to your husband about it, or he'd be like, it's just cupcakes and wedding dresses, and it's not for me. And I have a feeling that there could be that opportunity on LinkedIn for us. Deepak Shukla 50:14 Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, there's a huge opportunity on LinkedIn. At the very least, you know, even at the very least, just sign up for Sales Navigator. It's a 30-day free trial. If you've never used it before, type in the word 'podcast', type in any word that you want want with anyone you want to connect to. See what comes up and and be surprised and look at some of the status updates that are in your own feed and have a look at one that seem to get comments and likes and patterns will appear before your eyes. Jillian Leslie 50:45 I love it. Deepak, thank you so much for being on the show again. And you know what, we're gonna do this again, if you'll do it. Deepak Shukla 50:54 Yeah. 100%. These are lots of fun. And, you know, I'll do my best to keep trying to bring something that's not yet considered to you and your audience. Jillian Leslie 51:06 I love it. Well, thank you. Deepak Shukla 51:09 Thank you. Jillian Leslie 51:10 If you're liking The Blogger Genius, please subscribe and tell your friends. And I will see you again here next week.  

Welcome to episode 55 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. Today my guest is Nicole Ketchum, the designer behind the acrylic chandelier craze.  In this episode we talk about how to design and manufacture a product in China. We discuss what it takes to get the word out about your new product, especially one in a brand new category, what common mistakes entrepreneurs make when designing a physical product, what it's like to have to take out a loan to fund your inventory and so much more. If you've ever dreamt of building and designing your own product, this is the episode for you!   Resources: MiloTree Chandelier by NK Oh Joy Amy Atlas Warby Parker Away Luggage Everlane Planoly Glowforge AltSummit Transcript: How to Design and Manufacture a Product with Nicole Ketchum Host 0:03 Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Build your Shopify sales with MiloTree Jillian Leslie 0:11 Hi, welcome back to The Blogger Genius Podcast. The response to our new Shopify popup has been terrific. If you have a Shopify store, definitely go try it. Try our popup on your blog to get people to shop on your store. If you have a friend and know somebody who has a Shopify store who could benefit from it, please tell them about it. It's all part of your subscription and it takes, gosh, less than a minute to set up. All you do is just put your Shopify URL into the box and the popup will have your most recent products show up on it. And as you know, MiloTree is the easiest way to grow your social media followers, your email list. Head to MiloTree.com, sign up and get your first 30 days free. Today, I am interviewing Nicole Ketchum. And she is one of the first people I've interviewed who has built a physical good, a real product that she sells. She sells these beautiful chandeliers, you'll hear all about it. She is incredibly honest with her journey. If you are thinking of creating a physical good, you definitely want to listen to this. And even if you're not, I think her story is incredibly interesting and insightful. So without further ado, here is Nicole Ketchum. Nicole, welcome to the show. Nicole Ketchum 1:47 Thank you for letting me be here. Jillian Leslie 1:48 Oh, wow. So we met because you reached out to me about coaching probably a year ago. Nicole Ketchum 1:57 Yes, yes. And it was a great call. You helped me in so many ways. Jillian Leslie 2:02 Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. And I think it's really cool because you are one of the first people that I am talking to on the podcast about creating a physical product. And so can you tell like what your product is and and how you got started? And, you know, I'm sure my audience will go and check it out. Creating and selling a physical product Nicole Ketchum 2:24 Yes. So I design acrylic chandeliers. That's the medium I currently work in. And I had the idea in late 2011 and spent two years researching the idea that I had before pulling the trigger. I made a prototype in late 2013 and threw together a website and crossed my fingers and launched, and four years later, here I am. Jillian Leslie 2:58 Okay, first of all, what is an acrylic chandelier? Nicole Ketchum 3:02 So basically, we created a design where two pieces get cut by a laser cutter and then there are slots on each of the pieces of the chandelier. And you take the two pieces and you slap them together. They have holes at the top where you put two S hooks and you can hang it anywhere. And you can hang it with chandelier chains that you can get at like Home Depot or Lowes. Or even fishing wire. They're very lightweight, which I've said a lot but actually people still ask me quite frequently, and they're only three pounds. Jillian Leslie 3:42 Okay. And they don't light. They're decorative. Nicole Ketchum 3:46 They're decorative and it's a new concept. I apparently designed a product that didn't exist. Jillian Leslie 3:52 Okay. Nicole Ketchum 3:54 So that's very exciting but it's also been a learning curve. And they're perfect because acrylic is basically plastic, and it can go inside or outside. It can go below 20 degrees. It can be in hot weather. You can put it up anywhere that you can hang. They're perfect for weddings and parties. Jillian Leslie 4:15 Exactly. That was my next question, which is, what is the use case? Where do people use them? Nicole Ketchum 4:20 People use them for parties, events, weddings. I use them in my child's play room. They can go over a bathtub, they can go over a bed or a nursery. Jillian Leslie 4:36 I was gonna say I'd like to put one in my daughter's room. Nicole Ketchum 4:39 Yes, I have one hanging over my daughter's bed. Jillian Leslie 4:43 Okay. And your background though, is in product design. Right? Nicole Ketchum 4:48 No, actually I went to school a long time ago for English and then I worked in marketing and graphic design. Jillian Leslie 4:54 Graphic design, okay. Nicole Ketchum 4:55 Yeah, for a very long time. But it was more like corporate design. So my fantasies were I wanted to design wallpaper and home goods. And in reality, I was designing annual reports. But I eventually started to make that leap on my own and I eventually transitioned into surface design and I was designing patterns for stores. And it still didn't feel like it was enough for me. And I interviewed for Michaels Corporate a long time ago in 2011, when my husband and I had lost our jobs from the fallout from 2008. And they had challenged me. It was between myself and another designer come up with something for Halloween that's modern and that people can use. And for myself, I've always wanted to have a really fun chandelier for Halloween that I could just throw over a table. I always lived in apartments when I was younger, you know, there's no outlets and places. So that was the idea I had and I was going to do a foam core. And my husband who is a designer as well, he said, "Why don't you do acrylic?" So I designed a raven and moon chandelier for Michaels Corporate along with competing the patterns that they could use for journals. And I presented it to them and I believe they must have been on the cusp of transitioning from where they were to where they are now, and they said I was too modern. I thought that was really interesting because I know I would fit now. Jillian Leslie 6:35 Yes! Nicole Ketchum 6:36 Yeah. But back then, I thought it was still a great idea and I couldn't get it out of my head. Designing a product in AutoCAD So I spent every weekend just researching, talking to people, going to stores and eventually harassed my husband into going to his office on weekends and working in AutoCAD to come up with the two lines that I have currently, which is the octopus and the fancy. Jillian Leslie 7:04 Okay. And what is AutoCAD just for the people who don't know. Nicole Ketchum 7:07 it is a computer-based software that allows you to design in 3D. And that is not my foray. I was able to sketch the idea but he took it and made it real. And then I think we must have done that for six months straight and eventually pulled the trigger and ordered a prototype through a company that I found on the internet. Then we got to see in real-time how that worked. Jillian Leslie 7:38 Okay. And was this a company in China? Was it here in the United States? Nicole Ketchum 7:42 It's in Las Vegas. They're such a great company. I worked with them when we made our Disney chandeliers. So then we realized that we had a product that actually worked and so I ordered two prototypes -- one for the octopus and one for the fancy. Then I basically, when I totally believed this and I push it all the time, it's fake it till you make it. Jillian Leslie 8:06 I love that. Nicole Ketchum 8:07 I changed the colors in Photoshop and pretended that I had a full catalog. Jillian Leslie 8:11 I love it. Love it. Love it. Nicole Ketchum 8:14 I didn't tell anybody. But I was like, whatever, what's going to happen? And nobody ever found out and people started ordering. I mean, of course, I changed the colors to reflect whatever the Las Vegas company had and then I would get an order and then I would place the order with them. And it was both time consuming and very expensive, but it was perfect for me to just start to see who my customer base was, who was ordering my product and what they were using it for. And that was really fascinating. Jillian Leslie 8:48 So what was your assumption going in? And then what did you start to learn based on what your customers were ordering? Nicole Ketchum 8:57 My assumption was that they were going to be like me, where they were just going to use it for maybe a holiday and it took on a life of its own. Getting your first order of a product you design My very first order was from Nordstrom for a party and they used it on the table. They didn't even hang it. And I was shocked and delighted, and I even asked them. They said that they were just perfect centerpieces. I was like "Oh, okay." It's not what I designed it for, but that's awesome. And then I noticed that party stylists, event planners, they got it immediately. I didn't have to explain to them at all. And I did have to explain to like the average person at home that was just looking at home decor. So I noticed there was just that interesting correlation and also a disconnect happening between where I thought they were going and where they were actually going. Jillian Leslie 9:55 Right. So it seems like more sophisticated designer-y people got it. Nicole Ketchum 10:00 Yes. Jillian Leslie 10:00 And moms might have needed more education. Is that true? Nicole Ketchum 10:04 Yes. Because they don't have lights. There is that learning curve. "What do you mean they don't have lights?" "Well, what do you do with it?" Whereas the party stylists and event planners were like, "Oh, yeah, I'm just gonna put this over a dessert table. Jillian Leslie 10:19 Okay. That's very interesting. So what is the price point right now, if I were to buy one? Nicole Ketchum 10:25 The price point for the octopus is $59.99. And the fancy is $69.99. And I have a limited edition gold that is new and one of a kind, and that is $89.99. Jillian Leslie 10:41 Got it. Now tell me, I remember this from our conversation. Somebody... it was Disney. Somebody like got it and was like, "We want to order this." Nicole Ketchum 10:50 Yes. I basically had my coaching call with you and the very next day, I got an email from Disney. I kid you not. It was insane and so exciting. And they found me on Pinterest. Yes. And I was like, "Score! I'm doing it right." And they asked me to make 21 custom chandeliers for a new store that was opening up for visual merchandising. And three different sizes. So it was imperative that I still had that Las Vegas connection. We made a 12 by 16, a 24 by 20, and a 40 by 60, which is huge. And 12 different colors. Jillian Leslie 11:37 Oh my god, okay. Nicole Ketchum 11:38 Yes. So that was awesome. And they had a very, very, very tight deadline. I totally met that deadline. Overextended myself, over delivered, and under charged them. And they were incredibly happy when I flew down in March to see them. So they ordered at the end of December, almost mid-December, and February 1 is when they needed it. Jillian Leslie 12:07 Oh, wow. Wow! But wait, wasn't there somebody else who had discovered them too? Maybe it was Nordstrom. I don't remember. Where you were like, "Ooh," like early traction? Nicole Ketchum 12:20 Yes. I've actually had a lot of different celebrities use them. Jillian Leslie 12:23 Okay, maybe that's what it is. Okay. Nicole Ketchum 12:25 Yeah, early traction would have been Nordstrom and then right after that Michael Buble's sister used them for a book party that she had written some children's books and bought a whole bunch. And then I got picked up by the Associated Press and then I went nationwide. And then I started getting orders from there and more traction. Outsourcing production to China -- how to do it? Jillian Leslie 12:47 Okay. So you were looking at then factories or outsourcing in China, that kind of thing? Nicole Ketchum 12:55 Yes. When I had spoken to you, I was still stuck on kind of a hump of how do I do my next inventory run. My first inventory run had been successful but the company then came back to me, which actually happens a lot, you can't order this amount. You have to order thousands And that's how they get you. And so I had to take a step back. And after Disney, I decided to go on Alibaba. com and just tell them exactly what I need as an RFP, and then have people just kind of send me their company information. Jillian Leslie 13:39 What's an RFP? Nicole Ketchum 13:41 A request for proposal. Jillian Leslie 13:43 Got it. So that means you're soliciting companies to say hey, "This is what I want to make. Can you do this? You know, a factory in China, come and tell me how much this would cost." Nicole Ketchum 13:55 Yes. Now, I want to preface that with when you have a product or you have proprietary information, and I have all my designs registered with the US government, I can't patent anything because the slot technology is not new. So I had to have them sign NDAs so that I could send them my CAD files that my husband had designed because that is your proprietary information and you should never give that out willingly. So they had approved that they knew what I was speaking about, what kind of product I needed beforehand. So there was a lot of back and forth of here's some pictures of my product and what have you done. And I eventually, surprisingly, to my delight, found the largest acrylic supplier in all of China who is my manufacturer. Jillian Leslie 14:48 Wow. And then did you have to place one of these gigantic orders? Nicole Ketchum 14:54 I did not. My first run back in 2014 was for 350 chandeliers. And this new company let me just place an order for 450, which maybe doesn't sound a lot to the average user. "Okay, you only jumped 100." But as far as money goes, it was a difference of $3600 to $8500. Plus shipping. Jillian Leslie 15:21 Wow. Were you able to order them in different colors like for your inventory? Nicole Ketchum 15:25 Well, that's where they get you too. If I could, I would have done a ton of colors. Because people ask me all the time, "How come you don't have other colors and another product?" but that's what I was given. So I had to order my bestseller, which is white, and a new one which I just had a gut instinct would do well based on I used to have a mirror chandelier that sold out super quick. So I ordered a gold. And that was $12,000. How to protect yourself from knock-offs in China? Jillian Leslie 15:56 Wow, wow, wow. And is there... because I've heard this, you come up with something and then somebody in China sees it and knocks it off. Do you have that concern or kind of how have you protected yourself? Nicole Ketchum 16:13 You know, initially I did, but... not to say that our files are complicated, but they are somewhat. And it's interesting to note as a side note, when we first designed the product, it was great but we did have some breakage. And my husband and I could not figure it out. And his brother is an engineer. And one night, he was looking at our chandelier and he was like, "All these points are pointed and they need to be curved." And we were like, "What?" And so that whole sort of cyclical thing with our design, I'm not afraid of China knocking me off because it's kind of intricate. And I say, if you want to, great, you know, I have the paper trail. You know, I'm not going to worry about it anymore. I did initially and I'm just really not going to be worried about it anymore. How to market your product Jillian Leslie 17:06 I love that. I love that. Okay, so let's talk about how you have gotten your product out there. So you build this product, by the way, you did something interesting, which is you built this on a hunch. Now, again, you seem to manage your downside risk, meaning you didn't order 5,000 of these to start and you started to see how people were using them so that it could inform you, or what colors people were interested in. So I love that strategy that you were kind of going piece by piece and I love that you change the colors on your website to see what people wanted without going out and, you know, buying all this inventory. Nicole Ketchum 17:46 Right. That's a mistake a lot of people make. Jillian Leslie 17:49 Two things that I have to give you props for. One is that you seem humble enough to know that you don't know all the answers. Like that you're working with your customers to figure out what they want rather than, "Oh, I know what they want." And two, that you are scrappy. Nicole Ketchum 18:15 Yes, I am. Jillian Leslie 18:16 Because when we talked and you were in that conundrum of, "What do I do? My company that I'm working with wants me to place this huge order, and that's a lot of money. And I don't want to take on that risk." And you solved it. Nicole Ketchum 18:33 Yeah, exactly. I was almost mad and so I took that anger. And I was like, you're not going to stop me. But they did stop me for a while, I did cry for a little while. And then I just got mad. And my husband and I are like, how are we going to pay for this, and we took out a home equity loan to pay for this run. But this run versus 25,000+ is more manageable over 30 years. I can do this, I can pay it off. And that's okay. That's debt that's manageable. And so yeah, I wasn't going to let them stop me. Jillian Leslie 19:11 I love that. Scrappy. Okay. So how did you start to get the message out that you made this product? You know, whether it'd be Instagram, email, what was your strategy? And what is your strategy? Nicole Ketchum 19:26 Well, initially, my strategy was I basically sent it to every blog I could possibly find back in 2014. And I got free press from Amy Atlas and Oh Joy pinned my octopus chandelier and it went crazy viral. Jillian Leslie 19:45 So wait, so you sent them a chandelier? Nicole Ketchum 19:48 I didn't send them a physical product, this is what's so awesome. I just sent them my website and I was like, This is new, you've never seen anything like this. If it interests you, could you write about it? Jillian Leslie 20:01 Good for you. Nicole Ketchum 20:02 I know. I don't think I could get away with that now. Jillian Leslie 20:05 Why? Nicole Ketchum 20:06 I think things have changed in four years. People are demanding product plus payment. And four years ago, they were like, "Sure." Jillian Leslie 20:14 Right. Content. It was like cool. Nicole Ketchum 20:18 Just to kind of like, yeah. And it was cool and I knew that, if anything, it's different and no one's seen it before so that had it going for it. So that's how it happened. It was just a lot of free press. And then I hit a wall after a couple years. People wanted a lot of product and a lot of money. But initially, that's how it got me started and that's how my customers heard of me. Jillian Leslie 20:46 Okay. And now then, how did you... again, this is very true to social media to what happens, which is trends come and go. You know, people see it, they love it. But then all of a sudden, that strategy doesn't work anymore. So then what did you do? Nicole Ketchum 21:03 I had a business mentor who I was stressing because I'm sure just like a lot of people, they look at Shark Tank and think that, "Oh, I'm not making a million dollars. I'm not successful." And I was stressing out bad and he was like, "Nicole, it's better to build as slow as you can and as thorough as you can versus run hot and disappear." Yeah, so I took it to heart and I decided to slow down. I had paid off my whole debt for my first run. It was going slow, but I was like, nobody knows that I'm here because press had died down like you had said, so I started building my Instagram out and it's been very slow. Building my Pinterest out. I was on Facebook for a while. I've now gotten off Facebook and just focusing on Pinterest and Instagram. And now I'm trying to build my email list. And really what I did about two years ago is I reached out to party stylists and bloggers and I said, "Here, I'm going to send you some free product. Could you just test it out and use it and maybe take a picture or two?" and it's been working great. Jillian Leslie 22:19 Really? Okay. Okay. Nicole Ketchum 22:22 And now, some of them are my friends and they really tell me what they think about them. And pretty much everyone, and I'm not tooting my own horn, I'm just saying that they love it. And they've been telling me what colors they wanted and how they were using it. And then they're giving me the photography, which as you know, photography is a lot of money. So I've been saving tons of money off of that and that's how I've been doing it. It's been super slow. But I finally sold out of the best seller and the mirrored one sold out super quick. And I started getting orders from like Sugarfina and other companies like that, and I couldn't fulfill the orders. And that's when I hit the wall and then talk to you and then decided to take out my loan and find another company. If I was on Shark Tank, they would be like, "See you later because you're growing too slow at four years," but I feel like I'm finally gaining some important traction and Disney has been able to kind of give me that tailwind that I need to keep going basically. They validated me. And, you know, I'll go to my grave just being so happy about that. Thinking about the mom market to get your product out there Jillian Leslie 23:41 That's so great. Have you thought about the mom market, reaching out to mom influencers? Nicole Ketchum 23:51 Yes. I have done that in the past and I've even run contests. And I've been in, I don't know, 5 or 10 national magazines and done contests as well. And that's worked okay. But just so people know, just because you get press in a magazine doesn't equal sales. In fact, it's a misnomer and it usually doesn't equal sales. Unless you're in Oprah. And that's not happening as much anymore. Jillian Leslie 24:24 Right. And also then what you want is to be in a magazine and have them link to you in their digital form so that you can get some SEO juice. Nicole Ketchum 24:34 Yes, I recently linked with Life & Style magazine and J-14 magazine and did a contest for one of my octopuses. And it was the largest contest they ever had. There was 24,000 entries for this and they wouldn't share any of the information with me. So, yeah. So that was a good learning experience. A, it showed me people are probably interested in free product but also that there was interest in my product. And B, I have to figure out at some point down the road, more of a marketing budget for that sort of thing. And also taking out the HELOC loan last year for the inventory, we decided to jump off the cliff. And my husband and I were like, we're just going for it, guns blazing. We're going to try everything. And we hired a company that is like a Shark Tank company, so they are going to be working with me to kind of shrink my chandeliers, repackage them, approach buyers, and also kind of help me get into that mom market that seems to be pretty hard for me to get into. Jillian Leslie 25:50 Got it. Now what about though trying to get into Michaels or trying to get into boutiques? Nicole Ketchum 25:59 Yes. In its current form, they're 24 by 20, and the box is huge and it's not made for retail. I was recently on a website called Fair and basically,it's trying to be a middleman and knock out trade shows. So buyers would go in, look, buy your product and then test it out in their stores. And I was getting a lot of buyers. But they were saying, "Well, how do we put this in the stores?" And I was like, "Exactly." Jillian Leslie 26:35 What do you mean? You mean to put it on the shelf it's too big? Nicole Ketchum 26:39 Yeah, right. Jillian Leslie 26:40 The actual box is too big? Nicole Ketchum 26:43 Yes. If they wanted to use it for visual merchandising, that's cool and that's fine. They should buy it at a full price and not wholesale. So that told me that my direction, I stopped selling on there and I pivoted with this company. And they're going to shrink it to down to like, I think we're going to shrink it down to like 12 by 16 or maybe even smaller. So that it won't have the giant glorious impact it has now, but those are mainly used by party stylists and wedding planners. So the littler ones will be good for the little girls, teenagers, college students, moms. And I want to be able to have them packaged so they can slide right into the stores. And yes, we have a whole target market that we're looking at. Michaels. Target. Hasbro. Hasbro is actually in Rhode Island and my goal is to get a face-to-face meeting with them and talk about designing some princess chandeliers for them. Jillian Leslie 27:53 Oh, my god. Yes. Yes. And I feel like also somehow with Disney and all of their, you know, all that they do in terms of merchandising. Nicole Ketchum 28:02 I know. I recently reached out to my contact there and we left on perfect terms. They were very happy with me. But he also had let me know when they were there that they work at a crazy cycle. They used to work at 90 to 120 days and now they're working 30 days for a project and he can't even see straight. So he never got back to me and I don't want to bother him right now because I don't want to ruin that relationship. So I'm thinking when I rebrand and repackage because I'll be changing the name of my company too. Jillian Leslie 28:38 From what to what? Do you know? Nicole Ketchum 28:40 Yes. I just talked to the company today. So Chandelier by NK doesn't work for me because it has my initials and I want to move past just designing chandeliers. And it was hard for some people even in my Instagram like to look at it and get what it was. Not my pictures but just my handle. So we decided on Hey Girl Decor. Jillian Leslie 29:08 I like that. Nicole Ketchum 29:11 And I haven't come up with a tagline yet. Something like "modern and colorful" or something. That series or something like that. I have a trademark attorney looking now. There are several companies with the 'Hey Girl' name, but they are like tea, jewelry, a nonprofit. So nothing in the sphere I'm in. Jillian Leslie 29:30 Got it. And is that your vision? Is your vision to build out new products? Are you working on new products? In your mind are you designing them? Like, what are you thinking? Nicole Ketchum 29:42 Yes, I designed a heart chandelier. Well, it's basically just a hanging heart that slots in two. I wouldn't really call it a chandelier. And I've been dying to get that out and I've had some people buy it just on the side. And they love it. And that's the other thing that I want to impart to anyone that takes a company and is making a product. Sometimes I'll see people and they're cranking out a product, A, I don't know how they're doing that because that costs a lot of money. They must have like a slush fund or something. But in reality, I've had to take a huge step back based on, you know, monetary budget. And so I'm hoping that I can get the heart out in the next year. And yeah, I have a ton of ideas that I've had to basically shelf because I just can't do them, I can't afford to do them right now. Jillian Leslie 30:39 So what is your advice to somebody who says, "I have this great idea for a product" and they see companies like Warby Parker or, you know, these direct to consumer brands that have, you know, some sort of interesting story behind them like Away luggage. Or just even these like, I just bought a bra from a company, I forgot even the name but it's like, you know, designed by women and, you know, selling them. Everlane, those kinds of things. Like you've got this vision. And what is your advice to those people? Nicole Ketchum 31:16 I would say, go for it. And make sure that you love your product, know your product, know where your product fits, and who your potential market is. And then just go for it. Jillian Leslie 31:32 Really? Nicole Ketchum 31:34 And don't worry, just like I've had to go slower than I wanted and I'm an impatient type A person, I'd say slower is better. The tortoise does win the, you know. Jillian Leslie 31:47 Win at the end, yes. Win the race. Nicole Ketchum 31:48 Win at the end. Give yourself that grace to realize that it's not a straight arrow shot that just when you think you've climbed the hill, you are back down that hill. But don't give up. And if you hear any of those stories of the two guys that built Warby Parker or the Away luggage, they also struggled and had to raise funds and didn't know if they were going to be able to pay everybody. And then they hit their hump and they got over it. And so I would say just get that in your mind that not that it's going to be hard or easy. Just that you have to be focused. Jillian Leslie 32:32 Right. And you have to, just what you said, love your product because it's not... It can't be about the goal. Or it can't be about like, you know, making this huge. successful company. Nicole Ketchum 32:46 Correct. Jillian Leslie 32:46 It's the long slog. Nicole Ketchum 32:49 Yes. That's perfect, Jillian. That's so perfect. Yeah, it is a long slog. And you have to love it because there's been times that I wanted to give up but it wouldn't let me basically. Jillian Leslie 33:02 That's so interesting. Now, do you sell on Instagram? Nicole Ketchum 33:09 I am working with, well, let's see. I lay out my Instagram on Planoly. It looks like Planoly has a way that I can link my shop. But because I'm not on Facebook, I'm actually kind of punished for that and I can't put my prices on there. Jillian Leslie 33:24 On to your Instagram? Nicole Ketchum 33:26 Yeah. Squarespace is my website provide and they'll work with, you know, and Facebook owns Instagram. So there's all that. But yeah, that's what I would like to do. Some people, I do get customers from Instagram. But mainly my customers are either finding me online or buying through. I just got on Wayfair so they're buying through Wayfair or Houzz or AHAlife. And that's how I'm selling too. Selling your product on Amazon Jillian Leslie 33:57 And do you sell on Amazon? Nicole Ketchum 33:59 That is what my company that I just hired is going to be doing next for me. I tried to do it on my own and what ended up happening is some of my vendors threw my stuff up there without asking me. And then when I went to approach Amazon about selling, they're like, "Well, you're already on there and who are you?" And they're just giving me the worst time. So I'm having my company represent me to go forward getting me on there. Jillian Leslie 34:27 Got it. And have you ever explored Etsy? Exploring Etsy as a selling platform Nicole Ketchum 34:33 That's so funny. Yeah, my brother-in-law even worked for Etsy when I was having trouble. They were absolutely horrible to me. Jillian Leslie 34:41 Why? Nicole Ketchum 34:43 I went on there and they were like, "Well, you're not handmade." And I said I understand that. Then they had the wholesale, the Etsy wholesale, and I approached them for that. And they said, "Sure, send me all of your proprietary information, plus all of your manufacturing." And I was like, "Well, I can send you everything from my manufacturer." Like documents, logs, pictures, you know, everything that's proving that they are there, they are watching the workers. There's nothing illegal, or, you know, like a sweatshop about it. And that wasn't good enough for them. They wanted my CAD files. And I said absolutely not, and they wouldn't let me on. Jillian Leslie 35:25 That's so interesting. But now though, I feel like Etsy will let people with goods from China, for example, sell that it's no longer as handmade as it used to be. Nicole Ketchum 35:37 Oh, I agree. I thought that that was quite ironic and troubling to me that there were tons of China knockoffs and other things on there and they were giving me the hardest time and my brother in law worked for Etsy corporate. Wow. Okay. And they told me to never asked them again. Seriously, because I was gonna say, go back to them. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe, maybe I can. But I got an email like a year ago. And they're like, you better not even think about asking us to get on and I was like, are you harassing me? Yeah, I don't know what happened. But Etsy wholesale failed. So maybe those people are gone. I don't know. Jillian Leslie 36:17 Okay. So now what is your kind of like, it sounds like building a product is I mean, building a physical product, not a virtual product is a lot of pushing the rock up the hill. How not to get taken advantage of building your own product Nicole Ketchum 36:31 It is and you need to arm yourself with as much information as you possibly can. Because anyone and everyone can take advantage of you. And I don't mean that in a bad way. And I'm not knocking China because everyone I've worked for in China has been wonderful and kind and hardworking. But the more you know about your own product, and that includes materials, how it's made your your files, the better, you are able to push that rock up the hill. Sign up for MiloTree and get added to my "Actionable Business Tips" email newsletter Jillian Leslie 37:04 If you want to get weekly business tips. Small digestible business tips, head to military. com, sign up for an account, you get your first 30 days free. And you also get added to my email list. Each week, I send a little nugget that will help you move your business forward. These are tips and tricks we've used to grow our two successful businesses. And now back to the show. Mistakes made building a product So what mistakes did you make the you would say, Oh, don't do this. Nicole Ketchum 37:38 Um, yeah, tons. Let me say, not knowing enough about acrylic. Jillian Leslie 37:49 Okay. The actual material. Unknown 37:50 Right? I'm not really the first time not the second time asking them point blank. What reorder number do you need? Nicole Ketchum 38:02 And what is acceptable to you? I'm finding out what would you have done differently? Unknown 38:11 I probably wouldn't have used them. Okay. Yeah, basically, they were a middleman. The owner is an American citizen who lives in Berkeley and owned a manufacturing company in China. And that China company also was like a middleman for because they have to source the acrylic, they have to source the crystal that I put in the middle of the fancy chandelier. The they have to source the S hooks and everything has to be sourced. Okay, um, and then they send those things to you. And then you look at it and they you say yes or no, this isn't fitting what I envision and I didn't know enough back then. So when I approached this second manufacturer, this time around, I had already my source all the materials from China and gotten it. Okay, so I knew exactly what it was. Yep. And I mailed them a sample, which I didn't do the first time. Okay, I mailed the sample of what my box look like, what the phone that holds a chandelier looks like what the shadow looks like, the accessories for the chandelier so that they would not mess up at all open. It was perfect. Jillian Leslie 39:26 Got it. Now, do you know other people like you who are creating products? Nicole Ketchum 39:33 Um, no. Jillian Leslie 39:35 Okay, to say it's like, I feel like other people are probably going through a lot of the same stuff. Nicole Ketchum 39:44 You know, it's been really frustrating for me, because I've joined a couple mastermind groups and everyone's either doing stationery and I'm not knocking any of that. I'm just saying they're doing like paper goods or, you know, other things that I'm not doing. And I at the level of I'm at, I need to find women or men that are already above me making more money and are where I want to be. And I haven't been able to, to find that and I need that so desperately that that camaraderie and that like ability to say, Hey, you know, I need to source this, or did you did you find I had I just had someone approached me who makes acrylic jewelry. And she's like, Are you okay, giving me that information? I was like, absolutely. Because it does nobody good for you to hold all of your sources close to your chest. You're just being selfish. And I don't believe in that kind of world. So I gave her my manufacturing contacts. Okay. I wouldn't do that. If, like some, if I'm teaching a class. I'm not going to give that to everyone, unless they pay for it. But because she was already making product, right? And was having trouble sourcing and acrylic. I gave that to her. Right. But I need that kind of, I don't know, I need to find people like that. And I'm having the hardest time that's so interesting. It's lonely, right? Jillian Leslie 41:17 Oh, I was just, I just recorded another podcast. And we were talking about that exact same thing, really general about being an entrepreneur that, you know, it's like, it's like the other moms at your kids school don't know what you do. And they don't quite understand it. And it can be it's a lot of you at a computer, right? And it can be lonely. And that's honestly one of the reasons why I wanted to do this podcast because I wanted entrepreneurs to share the truth about their lives, and to talk about struggles as well as the successes. But it's so easy on Instagram to see everybody's perfect life. Exactly. And it's not like that. But the reality is, it's the long slog. right? 42:06 It is and I've challenged myself, one of the things that I did get away from the mastermind group I was in is that I challengde myself to take behind the scenes video. So this morning, I went down to my basement. It's so glamorous, right? Show my inventory, right? Here it is, when you place an order, I go down to my large basement, and I get a box and I bring it to FedEx ups, or the post office, right, and I drop ship, but you don't see all the stuff I had to do to get to that point, or the money I had to spend, right. But here it is. And I'm trying to do that. Because people are like, "Well, can you get it in a pastel pink?" And or can you just do this? And I'm like, that's great. But I can't because I don't own a giant laser printer. Right. And cutter that I can put so right. Going to China to build your product Jillian Leslie 42:54 Right. Now, what about though either like, have you thought about going to China? Does that make any sense? Unknown 43:02 Yes, I would. That is one of my dreams is to to keep my manufacturer that I currently have and build a great relationship with them and go over there. Definitely. Jillian Leslie 43:15 And what would going over there give you? What's the benefit? Nicole Ketchum  43:20 Just seeing your product made in front of your eyes versus just having to do everything over the computer. And we used to do late night Skype sessions, right. As the time difference. Yep. Hmm. And they even walk me around the factory with their phone. So I could see that it was indeed a good place to do business with that would give me I don't know more. I'm not confidence. I don't know what the word is. Um, I would just feel more ingrained with my product. There's a little bit of me being removed. Jillian Leslie 43:53 I get it. Now. What about you investing in of laser cutter? Nicole Ketchum 43:58 I looked at a GlowGorage and that's something that I could probably use to make small products like, Yeah, but there I think their capability is like, till, like, 212 or something. Okay. Um, we looked, my husband and I, before we, we took the loan at, we looked at taking a loan out for a laser cutter, and even just making them smaller, we would still need a giant size and you and I live in the northeast, you can't put it in the basement, it would seize up and freeze. So and there's no room. Yep, yep. Yeah, so we definitely, he's, since he's a designer, he was able to, like, approach it. He builds dorms for colleges, so he was able to approach it with a very pragmatic, right, and he was like, you're just gonna have to go through China again. And I was like, you're right. So Wow. Nicole Ketchum 44:48 Yeah. Well, I guess Yes. Nicole Ketchum 44:50 Oh, I was gonna say the company that I had I hired and, and I don't mind saying what, what company is, it's called idea buyer. And they're out of Columbus, Ohio, okay. They have their own manufacturing firm in China. And if things are successful with them, which I hope they will be, I could probably do a trip with them to go and see. Teaching other entrepreneurs about product design Nicole Ketchum 45:13 Yes, I eventually, along with having passion for home decor, and, and the stuff that I'm designing. I eventually want to teach other entrepreneurs. This, I discovered that I'm equally as passionate about that. And because I'm lonely, assuming other people are lonely. So I want to take the charge and lead because I am not seeing anybody really doing that. Jillian Leslie 45:36 Okay. So if you're interested in products, reach out, reach out to Nicole. Nicole Ketchum 45:41 Yes. Or go to the all conference. Jillian Leslie 45:43 Oh, yeah. So yeah, so let's talk about that. Okay. Well, first of all, what are you most excited about right now in your business. Nicole Ketchum 45:52 The possibilities with the company that I hired and with the connections that I hope to make it all conference and just the knowledge that I have, I have new inventory, new ways to sell it. Getting on Wayfare took four months. That was a big slog, and that's super exciting. I hope to be successful with them. So that's, that's what I'm excited about. Jillian Leslie 46:18 Okay, so we are both going to be at AltSummit in March. I am going to be talking about how to start a podcast in a weekend. This is my first time at AltSummer. And I had Gabby Blair on the podcast, you know, who is Design Mom and is one of the founders of AltSummit. And, you know, she said, definitely apply and I applied and so there, there I am, and you're going to be a resident to explain expert. Nicole Ketchum 46:51 Yes, I'll be a resident expert. At some point, I actually reached out to to Gabby, just saying, hey, do you guys need some of my chandeliers like over a table. It doesn't even have to be my table just for glitz and glam. And what did she say? I haven't heard back from her. But I'm pretty sure she's pretty busy. Yeah, okay. And one of my good friends. Olivia has been there several times and, and has worked in various ways with them. So I can always just ask her to how do I do that? Jillian Leslie 47:27 Right. And if if anybody in the audience is looking for a very cool design element in their house, or for a party or for their kids room, I love one for my daughter's bedroom. Definitely check out Nicole's product because they are super cool, beautiful, you know, they're very glitz and glam. That's what I would say. Yeah. And modern. Nicole Ketchum 47:49 Yes. Thank you. Appreciate that. Jillian Leslie 47:50 Definitely. Okay. So how can people reach out to you and you know, find out what you're doing connection with you and like pick your brain. Nicole Ketchum 48:01 They can always go to my website. It's for now. It's ChandelierbyNK.com. Or you can go to Instagram and look up chandelierbynk is the handle. You can just email me at Nicole@chandelierbynk.com or DM me on Instagram and I'll get right back to you. Jillian Leslie 48:22 I love it. Well, Nicole, I am again really impressed with your journey. And thank you so much for being on the show. Nicole Ketchum 48:01 Thank you Julian. I appreciate it. I look forward to seeing you in March. Jillian Leslie 48:22 If you're enjoying The Blogger Genius Podcast, please subscribe, leave a comment on iTune, rate us, share it with your friends, email me at jillian@milotree.com and I will see you again here next week.  

Welcome to episode 54 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. Today I'm talking with Coley Arnold and Lindsey Holt, founders of Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market. We talk about how social media can build your business. Coley and Lindsey, both vintage collectors, stumbled into starting a vintage market event business, and built it with social media, word of mouth, and a lot of guts! We talk about how they got started, what it's like working as a team, how important Instagram has been for them, and why they built a supportive community of like-minded female entrepreneurs. If you love design, vintage, and entrepreneurship, you'll love this episode! Resources: MiloTree Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market The Foundress Catch My Party  Monday.com Transcript: How Social Media Can Build Your Business with Coley Arnold & Lindsey Holt Host 0:03 Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Get more sales from your Shopify store using MiloTree Jillian Leslie 0:10 Hey everybody, welcome back to The Blogger Genius Podcast. Before I get into today's episode, I wanted to share that we just rolled out a new popup for Shopify store owners. The way it works is, it pops up on your blog and it says, "Shop My Store" and it is populated automatically with your most recent products. It's part of your subscription to MiloTree, so not only can you grow your Instagram followers, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, your email list, but now you can direct people from your blog directly to your store. I'm really excited about this. We've gotten some great early traction. If you have a Shopify store, please try it out and let me know what you think. Email me at Jillian@milotree.com. We just want to make it better, easier. We want to help get you sales. Okay, for today's episode, I am interviewing Coley Arnold and Lindsey Holt. They are two friends and they accidentally started a business called Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market. They both loved vintage goods, and they started selling them. And they've, again, found traction and they turned it into a really cool business. Instagram is a big part of their success. You're just going to hear their passion and how they grew this organically and what it's like to work with one of their husbands. So without further ado, I bring you Coley and Lindsay. So Coley and Lindsey, welcome to the show. Coley Arnold 2:02 Thank you for having us. Jillian Leslie 2:04 So as we were just talking about, I found you guys because you use MiloTree to grow your Instagram, it looks like. I don't know if you're using it for other social platforms. But your social media person reached out to me because she had a question about it, and I went to look to make sure it was working. And I saw your website and I thought, "Wow, what a cool business you two have made." And then I had to stalk you and read everything on your website. And then I was like, "I need to interview them on my show because I love talking to entrepreneurs who create really interesting businesses." So would you share what Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market is all about and how you guys started it, that kind of thing? What is Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market and how did you start it? Coley Arnold 2:49 Sure. This is the best accidental business that we didn't mean to start. But, gosh, in 2011, Lindsey and I had met at a church group. We were both on the leadership team of a young marrieds class and our husbands became friends and we became friends. Lindsey Holt 3:08 You just had your first child and I was pregnant with my first. So we kind of bonded over... Coley Arnold 3:14 Kids and vintage stuff. Lindsey Holt 3:16 Yes! Children and antiques. Coley Arnold 3:18 And the antique portion of it was mostly because we were totally poor and we're like, how do we decorate a house and a nursery with items that we find on the curb or out of a dumpster? So we kind of bonded over that. Lindsey Holt 3:32 And we kind of started hoarding things and collecting and our garages being full and these old barn wood signs on Etsy and I painted -- Jillian Leslie 3:41 Oh wait, say that again? Coley Arnold 3:41 ...sold it to friends and through Craigslist. I sold painted furniture off of Craigslist. Jillian Leslie 3:49 Got it. Coley Arnold 3:52 So our husbands were like, "Listen, the garages need to be cleared," which by the way, never happened. Lindsey Holt 3:56 They were hoping. Coley Arnold 3:57 They're just getting worse. So we kind threw together this little market. We contacted some of our friends and some people that we had known and met on Craigslist as sellers on Etsy. And we did a little popup backyard market thinking it would just kind of clear stuff. The police came and tried to shut us down because we had so many people in my friend's backyard. Lindsey Holt 4:20 Down the streets. Coley Arnold 4:21 Two miles worth of cars. Lindsey Holt 4:22 It was literally like all the neighborhood streets were completely blocked and people were walking. And we were like, "I don't know what to do. This is, like, way bigger than we thought." Jillian Leslie 4:32 Wow! Coley Arnold 4:33 We did a central check out and Lindsay was I think... how pregnant were you? You were? Lindsey Holt 4:37 I was due in two months. Coley Arnold 4:38 Yeah. And then I was like dancing for people trying to entertain them. Like, "Don't leave, please. Stay here and spend your money." And so it was supposed to be just a one-time thing and everyone was like, "When's the next one? When's the next one?" And so our husbands were both like, "You guys just started a business." We're like, "No." Lindsey Holt 4:58 I don't know what that means. I don't know how to run a business but... Coley Arnold 4:59 No, we didn't. Jillian Leslie 5:02 Oh, my god. Lindsey Holt 5:02 So we did. We figured it out. Starting a business by solving your own problem Jillian Leslie 5:04 So it just worked. So what was interesting is you had a problem, which is you both had these crowded garages, and you went to solve your problem and you started a business. Coley Arnold 5:14 Yes. And our husbands saw it right away. We did not see it. We are like, that we're moms and we stay at home and that's what we want to do and we don't want to do a business. And our husbands were like, "No, this is a thing. People need this here. There's obviously a demand for it." And so Lindsey's husband actually went to the city and got us all set up with tax license and stuff and he's like, "Surprise! You have a business now." Lindsey Holt 5:36 He made us official. Coley Arnold 5:39 Yeah. So this is our eighth year and we brought Kevin on. So Lindsey's husband is now full-time with us too, like three years ago, I think. Lindsey Holt 5:46 I think almost four years. Coley Arnold 5:47 Four years ago, yeah. Crazy. So now there's three of us that run it together. Jillian Leslie 5:52 And what you do is you set up these vintage markets in different cities, different times of the year. Lindsey Holt 6:01 Yeah, they're basically like a giant antique event that we set up and we get, depending on our events, between 100 and 200 vendors that come and set up their amazing booths of all their stuff. Then we have live music and food trucks. It's just a really fun event for like to bring your whole family out to. Jillian Leslie 6:27 That's so cool. Do you charge the vendors? Like, how do you make money? How to monetize an event business Coley Arnold 6:34 We do. So the vendors pay a flat fee for a booth space, which is just a kind of a small fee and then that basically pays for like the production of the show. I think a lot of people don't realize how expensive putting on events is. So the things that you don't think about of -- insurance and fencing and bathrooms and all the not-fun things that no one sees are usually the most expensive, of course. Lindsey Holt 7:01 The rent. Coley Arnold 7:02 Yeah, the rentals. Lindsey Holt 7:03 Even just the building, a place to host it is a huge expense. Coley Arnold 7:10 Then we all charge at the gate for admission. We found that our shoppers are really connect with, you know, if they're willing to spend a little bit of money to get in -- and our tickets are start at $8, they're not expensive. But we get quality shoppers and we get women and men who are in there that want to purchase something. They're not going to just walk around to go, "Oh, that was nice." Like, they're on a mission. They're there to find something. So it's really beneficial to our vendors as well. Jillian Leslie 7:42 That's great. Now, what cities? We were talking you started in Arizona. Lindsey Holt 7:48 Yeah, we're in Scottsdale. So we do two markets in Scottsdale a year. And then we have expanded to San Diego, Pomona, which is the greater LA area, and Northern California. This last summer, we were in Richmond in the Northern California area. I think we're going to move this summer. So we're still working on that, but somewhere in the North Cal area. Jillian Leslie 8:12 So you do how many of these a year? Coley Arnold 8:16 Five. So right now, five. Last year, we did like a popup holiday market as well. So we did six last year. But five is our normal. And I'm actually going to have another child. We talked about expanding and I was like, "Well, that would be great except for I'm having a baby. We're going to do that. Lindsey Holt 8:32 A little hold on the expanding for next year, but we'll get there. How long does it take to plan an event start to finish? Jillian Leslie 8:37 Wow. And how long does it take to plan one of these events from start to finish? Coley Arnold 8:44 To set up like an event? Jillian Leslie 8:45 Yeah. Coley Arnold 8:47 Gosh. So it depends. Our Scottsdale markets because we've been here for so long, we've been eight years here, are obviously our biggest ones. So we rent the building starting on Tuesday. So we load all of our equipment and everything on Monday, and then we move into the building on Tuesday. We are there basically 24/7 from Tuesday to Sunday. Jillian Leslie 9:10 Wow. Coley Arnold 9:10 And we're usually finished on Sunday at like 1 in the morning. Lindsey Holt 9:14 Yes. The middle of the night. Coley Arnold 9:16 It's a long week. So that one takes a whole week. And then our California ones, we're usually there between Wednesday and Sunday, so it's a little bit less of a setup just because those markets are newer. Jillian Leslie 9:28 Wow, I'm so impressed. You both have small children. Lindsey Holt 9:33 Yes. Yes, we both have three. And then Coley, shortly, will have a fourth. How to manage time as female entrepreneurs Jillian Leslie 9:40 Yes. And how do you deal with managing like time working on this business because it's like a lot of moms, for example, who have businesses, you know, they do it from 8:30 to 3 when their kids are in school and then they're done. And you guys have these big productions that you're putting on. Coley Arnold 9:59 Well, we have a lot of help. So during the year when it's not market week, we are in the office 3 days a week and it is, you know, usually like 9 to 3. We pick up our kids and still be a mom. We transition from business owners to homework slaves after school. Lindsey Holt 10:18 And chauffeur. Coley Arnold 10:19 Yeah, and chauffeur. Lindsey Holt 10:20 To all the sporting activity. Coley Arnold 10:23 We call in all the big dogs. Our whole families come out and help during market week. And our moms and mother-in-laws watch the kids while we're setting up. So market week is a little stressful. But one of the things that we've loved watching as our kids see the value of kind of chasing your dreams and working hard, and they see the work ethic, and we tell them all the time like "You are super important. We love you. We're not trying to ignore you. But this is something we also love or passionate about." We've started bringing our older kids to help during the market. And it's been so fun. My son wants to quit school and just work for Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market. But they see the vision and they've me like "I think I can do anything because I've watched you run your business" which is really fun. Jillian Leslie 11:10 I think that that is one of the best things. For example, I work with my husband, we have a daughter. She sees everything we do. And she sees the boring stuff, she sees the cool stuff but she sees that it's possible. It's not a mystery to her. Coley Arnold 11:28 Right. And we don't do it all. I mean, there's things that we sacrifice to do our business. I don't cook for my family, we order out all the time. We have help. It's definitely all hands on deck, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Jillian Leslie 11:44 Wow. And what's it like for you guys now? How many years? Eight years in, you said? Working together and then also working with one of your husbands, what is that like? Coley Arnold 11:56 You talk about working with your husband first. Lindsey Holt 11:59 Well, I love working with my husband. And I know most people wouldn't be able to do it but it works really well for us. My husband came from the financial field and tax accounting. So he was literally gone all the time, all night long, like we would barely see him. So I think I am just so appreciative now for his flexibility and to be able to work with him and see him all the time. So I'm just very thankful for that. Had we not had the other first, it probably would be a little different. But I don't know, it works for us really well. I mean, definitely, as with any partnership, there's a lot of give and take, and we have to take turns giving and taking. All very strong personalities. So sometimes that's more difficult than others. But at the same time, we all kind of have our things that we work on. Then we literally three days a week, we're in the office together sitting at one big table. And so all three of us and it's a lot of communication, just texting and emails, and just being completely open and honest with what we're dealing with each day. Coley Arnold 13:18 And we have three staff members that we also manage that have come on board with us. So that's also trying to manage them, and they're all amazing and wonderful, and we're so thankful for that. And so that's just another layer. But Lindsay and I too work really well together. I feel like we've learned, like she said, there's give and take and we created last year I think it was the the rating system where we go, Okay, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is this to you? And we go around and if it's a 10 for one of us and a 2 for the other, then the person with the 10 gets to make the choice. Lindsey Holt 13:53 It sounds silly but it really does work. Coley Arnold 13:55 It really does work. So we always are like "I'm a 10, I'm a 10" or I don't care, you know, you choose. So it's actually really helped us kind of prioritize what's really important, what's worth kind of fighting for and what's not. How to find vendors for your events Jillian Leslie 14:08 Wow! How do vendors find you and how do you reach out to find people to come to your events? Lindsey Holt 14:19 Well, I think especially in Scottsdale, we have been here for almost eight years now, so we're pretty well established and we don't have to do too much of going out and searching for vendors anymore. For the most part, they come to us and are interested in our events. Coley Arnold 14:35 And we actually have a wait list. A really long wait list that we're trying to get through which I feel like is more stressful than trying to find new vendors because everyone wants... And then we have amazing vendors that are waiting and waiting and waiting. But we don't have much turnover, which is a great thing; however, it's harder to get new vendors in. Lindsey Holt 14:53 And we're maxed out in the building we're in, so there's no room to expand on some level in Scottsdale. So, you know, it's the good and bad. But in California, I mean, we're we're constantly looking for new vendors. A lot of our best vendors come from word-of-mouth from other vendors. But we spent a lot of time on Instagram and Craigslist and Etsy and, you know, constantly just searching for new vendors as well. Because we do like there to be fresh new vendors and items and people. Like, we like the vintage items that come from all over because it does add a variety. And every vendor sells better that way as well when there's, you know, not 10 people selling the same exact thing. So it's definitely, you know, it has taken us time but we have an awesome group of vendors right now. Coley Arnold 15:46 And they come from all over, like Lindsay was saying. We have Chicago and Mexico and New York and all over... I already said New Mexico. A ton from California that come to Arizona and then Arizona people are going to California. So it's just a great mix of you get a real variety of items. Jillian Leslie 16:05 And will people like fly out from New York to come to be a vendor? Coley Arnold 16:10 Well, a lot of the vendors drive because they have to carry all their stuff. So like with the guy from Chicago, I think, did a 3-day track down here with a two-ton trailer or something, I don't know. It was so heavy with all the goods and they go picking in barns in Chicago, and get the old shutters. They tear them off the barn walls. So it's really fun. We love watching them unload their trucks. It's like, "Ooh, what goodies do you have?" Jillian Leslie 16:39 Wow. And how important given that you're like a physical market, how important is social media for you guys? How important is social media for an event business? Lindsey Holt 16:49 Oh man, it's huge. I mean, especially like it being such a visual thing, I mean, social media, but also our markets are so visual. I mean, that's what it is, you're shopping. So, I mean, our business started when I felt like Instagram was really starting and taking off on some level. And so I feel like largely, we grew the way we did because of Instagram. It was taking off at the same time and we started Instagram. Jillian Leslie 17:25 You jumped on. Lindsey Holt 17:26 We jumped on. Actually, I think my sister-in-law was like, "You guys really need this." And we were like, "I have no idea what to do. You can set it up." But we picked it right up and it has definitely, you know, been a huge factor in our business growing. Jillian Leslie 17:43 And how do you use it to grow your business? How do you use Instagram for your event business? Coley Arnold 17:46 Honestly, just posting. So most people follow us so that they can find information for the market. So they may find out about our market, they follow us on Instagram, so that they're the first to know when the dates are, where the locations are. So it's more of an informational tool. So a lot of our posting is it's got to be pretty because that's what Instagram is all about. But also very informational. And I hate to even say this, we worked hard on Instagram, but it's not like a special trick of hashtags or do this, do that. It was really about building relationships and putting out content that people wanted to follow. And just really... Jillian Leslie 18:27 And being consistent. Lindsey Holt 18:28 Yeah, I would say. I mean, we've always really focused on being consistent on especially Instagram, but we use Facebook and Instagram for the most part. That's the only social media we post stuff. Coley Arnold 18:41 And Facebook has turned to a lot of like paid ads and we do a lot of promoting for our event pages and stuff like that. But Instagram is more of just Lindsay and I post every single day. Non negotiable. Just at least once a day. And so the consistency over the last eight years has built us this huge following and we've retained all of our even like, original followers, which is amazing. Jillian Leslie 19:07 You have a ton. How many followers do you have? Coley Arnold 19:09 We almost have 100,000. Lindsey Holt 19:11 Or at 98. We're not quite there. We're so close. Jillian Leslie 19:16 That's amazing. And so, are you using Instagram stories? Lindsey Holt 19:23 We are. It's actually something we've been really working on trying to do more of. We go back and forth. Coley Arnold 19:32 It's hard because I think that's such a... Lindsey Holt 19:37 Personal thing. Coley Arnold 19:38 Yeah, or informational site. We actually work on our personal ones as well and so we encourage people to, like, if you want behind the scenes, like follow our personal accounts and that will show you kind of what our daily lives are. Then we keep our main Instagram as more informational. If we just do stories, it's posting what the vendors are bringing and sneak peeks of the market and stuff like that. Jillian Leslie 20:04 And what are your personal Instagram accounts in case people want to follow you? Coley Arnold 20:08 Mine is just my name ColeyArnold. Lindsey Holt 20:14 And mine is _LindseyHolt. Jillian Leslie 20:23 Okay. So that's so interesting. So predominantly then, for you guys, Instagram is a way to let your community know like the logistics. Coley Arnold 20:37 Right. Lindsey Holt 20:37 Yeah, yeah. It's very informational. I mean, it's an easy way to get information out about the markets. And, you know, even I think, which we have found, that people really enjoy is just then how people are styling like the things that they buy at the markets, which is always really fun. Because, yeah, it's great to go to a market and you see all these awesome things and they're displayed so great at the markets. But then like, then you get home and you're like, "Oh, I don't really know how I'm supposed to use this old scale, or, you know, this crate... or what am I supposed to do with it?" How do you use your Instagram accounts for your business? Coley Arnold 21:12 So we also like to use our account a lot to just show how you can then use those antiques and fun things that you're finding at the market in your own homes. Lindsey Holt 21:24 And that's a big part of it. Facebook, we use. It's a lot of just purely informational. It's like, basically the events, event posts and getting out the details because I feel like that's what people want more on Facebook. Coley Arnold 21:40 And we found that people really they don't want to... I don't know if it's laziness or just the instant gratification, but we have this website that has all the information and people will go to Instagram or Facebook first to ask all the questions, so we found that that's where they like to get their information. Jillian Leslie 22:00 Yes. And they want to communicate with you on the social networks. Not going and searching for your email address on your website. Coley Arnold 22:07 Exactly. Jillian Leslie 22:09 Yeah, absolutely. And so you mentioned, are you running ads on Facebook as well? Spending money on ads Coley Arnold 22:14 We do. Yeah, we do some ads. A lot of our marketing money is through social media. We found that we've hired people in the past for marketing and we found that really, social media is where our demographic and our followers are. And so spending the money on social media through Facebook and Instagram has been the best resource for us. Lindsey Holt 22:35 Yeah, for our business. It's definitely been the most beneficial way for us to the most bang for our buck with where we're spending money to advertise. Coley Arnold 22:44 And unfortunately, now on Facebook it's like, no one sees it unless you pay for it. That's definitely changed a lot. But we find value in especially our event pages, we do spend a lot of money on promoting those because that has all the information people can RSVP and saying they're coming and it sends them reminders and comes up in their feed. So it's definitely a good place for us to advertise. Lindsey Holt 23:07 And have you set that up? Do you hire somebody to run your Facebook ads and your Instagram ads? Coley Arnold 23:12 Lindsay's husband, yeah. He does all the business side of things. We're the creatives and... Jillian Leslie 23:21 Got it. Okay, so he's the ad guy. Coley Arnold 23:25 Yes. Jillian Leslie 23:26 Are you putting lots of money toward ads? Coley Arnold 23:30 We actually have been really lucky. I mean, we definitely spend some money but we have not had to spend a ton of money in advertising because again, our market is an experience and so people come and then they tell their friends and their friends come and then they tell their friends. So a lot of our growth has been through word-of-mouth. We've talked to companies that spend $20,000, $40,000, $50,000 on advertising and we luckily have not had to do that. Lindsey Holt 24:00 Well. And until the last really like two years, we didn't have to spend any. Coley Arnold 24:04 We hadn't. Lindsey Holt 24:07 We didn't spend any money on advertising. But now I feel like social media has changed a lot and so we do have to spend money. But that is where we spend it is on social media, for the most part. Jillian Leslie 24:16 That's amazing. And what I love is how you guys kind of found this, found a need and have gone toward it, you know. You were mentioning ... well first, I have to stop for a second, which is, so we just moved to Austin and I am decorating and stuff. What are the three trends you're seeing right now in terms of vintage? Coley Arnold 24:43 Well, first of all, you need to get to Round Top because you're so close. Jillian Leslie 24:46 Yes! Lindsey Holt 24:46 You are so close. Coley Arnold 24:48 Incredible! So Lindsay's... Lindsey Holt 24:49 I'm actually very jealous that you're so close. Coley Arnold 24:52 Lindsey' s husband sold there a couple years ago and then we've been there twice to shop. And it's an experience in itself. You will find some amazing things. But one of our favorite things and I don't even necessarily say it's a trend because trends go in and out. And I think this is kind of a long-lasting here-to-stay. But when you can mix old pieces with new pieces, it really gives your home character and depth and this warmth that you just can't get when you go to a store and buy all new furniture. So finding pieces that you're comfortable with, like Lindsay has some vintage couches that are amazing. Some people are very anti-vintage old couches. So finding your comfort level in the vintage thing. So if it's maybe just vintage books that you're okay with, or suitcases as a side table, or a big trunk as a coffee table, find those key pieces that you're comfortable with having those vintage pieces. Maybe it's something that grandma left you or a family heirloom. But those pieces that you can bring in that have a story. They're old, they're worn, they have character, those are what's going to really bring warmth and character to your home. Lindsey Holt 26:02 And I think that what goes with that, that we always say too is like, when you're out and shopping and there's a piece that makes you stop and like you absolutely love that piece, and you're like, "I don't know if that's quite my style," it's outside of your normal realm. But if it's a piece that you really love, buy it and put it in your house because you will find a way to make it work into your house if it's something that you really love. Jillian Leslie 26:28 I like that. Lindsey Holt 26:29 Don't feel like you have to stick to this like, well, my house is this farmhouse style or I'm this shabby chic style. I feel like we're beyond like the... like, this is my... Coley Arnold 26:41 The labels. Lindsey Holt 26:42 Yeah, the labels of your style. I think give yourself the freedom to just put the things that you really love in your house because that's what will make it feel like a home is, you know, how you respond to the pieces that are in your house. Jillian Leslie 26:56 Oh, I love that. I love that. That's very empowering. Why MiloTree is so easy to use and so effective at growing your business "One thing David and I talk about almost daily is how hard technology is today, especially if you're an entrepreneur, if you own a shop, if you're a blogger. And we think about that when we build MiloTree. We want it to be easy. We want you to be able to install it in under three minutes, to trust us that that everything is handled on our end so that you can spend your time doing all the other stuff you need to do to run your business. If you are trying to grow your followers on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, grow your email list, and if you have a Shopify store, to get people from your blog to your shop, I highly recommend you check out MiloTree. Head to MiloTree.com, sign up. You can install it on your site in under 3 minutes. You get your first 30 days free. We are here to help in any any way we possibly can. And I really think you'll be amazed at how easy it is. And now back to the show. Do you guys set yourselves up as taste makers and how do you then share that in your business? Coley Arnold 28:23 And I think it's kind of naturally happened that way. Both Lindsay and I love to decorate our own homes and we have a passion for it. So it's something that we do and we share just because we love it. And so, we of course get all the messages. Where'd you get that? Where'd you get that? And so we share those things not to make money. We don't have affiliate links. It's just more of like, this is what we love, this is what we've done. Lindsey Holt 28:46 And a lot of pieces don't have... you can't get another one because they're vintage. Coley Arnold 28:50 One of a kind. Like, sorry, you can't find that. But yeah, we definitely I feel like have such a passion for it, so we naturally share it. But we didn't set off to try to be these know-it-all vintage queens. It's just something that we love and we like to share, you know, when we redecorate a space. We're starting a blog series now that's kind of just showing people like it doesn't have to break the bank to decorate your space or create your home and make it feel like you. You can do it on a budget. And we're going to try to show you kind of ways to do that. Lindsey Holt 29:30 Coley's living in like a rental house right now. I mean even in a rental house, you can still make it feel like a home without having to totally redo everything. Coley Arnold 29:42 Right. We moved. We sold our house. We remodeled our house and lived there for four years and we're featured in magazines and it was just really great. But we sold it in June and we couldn't find a house that we love to buy again. So as the baby was approaching and getting closer, we're like, we need to we need to move into a house. Any house. So we rented something and it's this cute little 1950's house that hasn't been redone but has brown carpet. It's nothing that I would pick, but I'm just showing people like, okay a lot of us are not in an ideal perfect gloried farmhouse that's been remodeled top to bottom. And how do you still make, you know, but your personal touch on this home that maybe you don't have the freedom to paint the walls or knock down walls or put new flooring in? So we're going to kind of share that too on our blog platform. And again, you don't have to go spend a million dollars at Pottery Barn to make your home feel comfortable to you. You can do it on a budget, you can do it with really fun vintage things and then mixing. We love Target. We love the big box stores too, but just mixing I think is the key of going don't just go buy a whole room from Pottery Barn. Lindsey Holt 30:55 Or feel like you have to. Coley Arnold 30:56 Yeah. Or feel like you have to because most of us can't. So how do you decorate and get that feel, but decorate on a budget. Jillian Leslie 31:04 Okay, so I was looking at your blog. One of you, I love this idea, I'm going to steal it. You're using like that pink kind of mesh on your tablescapes? Lindsey Holt 31:17 That's me, Lindsey. Jillian Leslie 31:20 I love it. Where did you find that? Lindsey Holt 31:22 Well, it's actually just cheesecloth, okay. They're like on Amazon. And I found out through Pinterest that you can dye cheesecloth and I actually died it with avocado. Sounds very strange. But with the like seed and the skins from... we eat a lot of guacamole in my house. So I discovered that you can actually die things with the seeds and the skin on it. So you soak it in hot water, and then it comes out that beautiful pink color. Jillian Leslie 32:00 Oh my God, it's pink! Lindsey Holt 32:02 You never think it, but, you know. Jillian Leslie 32:05 Oh, my god! I was like, I am so using this idea. So anybody who's listening and wants to go see it, definitely go to your blog which is JunkintheTrunkVintageMarket.com or is it just JunkintheTrunkVintage.com? Coley Arnold 32:18 I keep telling her she needs to... It's JunkintheTrunkVintageMarket.com. She needs to do a tutorial on that. Jillian Leslie 32:19 Exactly. That's why I was asking in terms of you guys as tastemakers because you do such beautiful stuff and I was wondering if that was a direction that you were thinking of moving in or kind of what your thoughts were because I'm like looking up to you guys as tastemakers. Lindsey Holt 32:43 Oh, thank you. Well, I think we just love it. Again, it's just a part of who we are and that we just like to share the things that we love. So we both we both love having people in our homes, and so that's an easy way to, you know, that's a part of who we are and what goes on in our houses. Starting a women's network for female entrepreneurs Jillian Leslie 33:03 You mentioned that you have a kind of women's network group. Coley Arnold 33:08 Yes. Jillian Leslie 33:09 And can you share what that is and like what you do? Coley Arnold 33:13 So when we started, I'm going to talk eight years ago, one of the things that we felt was missing from the community and the the marketplace was a creative women's entrepreneurship kind of networking group. Lindsey and I would go to a bunch of networking in the beginning just trying to meet people and spread the word of our market. And we found that a lot of the networking events were run really poorly. No one introduced themselves. There was no purpose. The heart behind it was great. It was like, let's gather as women. But then you got there and you chatted with the person you came with and then you laugh, not actually networking with anyone. Lindsey Holt 33:53 Or you exchanged a business card and then you leave with a stack of business cards. But you don't even remember the person who gave you the card on some level. Coley Arnold 34:04 So our heart behind it, and it took us eight years to actually start it, again there's never enough time, money or energy, but we just decided to do it this year and it's been such a blessing to both of us. So we meet. It's called The Foundress and we meet once a month here in in Phoenix, and the relationships that have been built and the connections that have been made, the collaborations, it's just really incredible to watch. And one of our goals is just really to encourage women because I think as an entrepreneur, especially a lot of people who don't have partners, you're working by yourself. And a lot of times you're working either at your house or at Starbucks, and it can be isolating. We also struggle with social platforms, product sales, and all the things that you start to question going, "Am I the only one dealing with this?" And you start kind of going down that spiral. Coley Arnold 35:10 We really wanted to create a space where women could come and just feel encouraged. One of our biggest platforms is like share your failures, share your successes, and we want to come alongside you whether you're feeling like you're failing or you just had a huge win in your business. Either way, we're going to be there and cheering you on. I think a lot of women are not just afraid of failure, but afraid of sharing their failure because we tend to think that we need to be these super women and we need people to think that we have it all together. And that's just a big lie. None of us do. Jillian Leslie 35:44 And how many women are in this? Coley Arnold 35:44 We don't have it all together. So just a space that's safe that you can go, "Hey, this has been really hard in my business." And then another woman could go, "Hey, I struggled with that last year. This is how I got out of it." Or, "I'm also struggling with that. Let's brainstorm on how we can get past this together." Jillian Leslie 35:44 None of us do. Coley Arnold 36:03 We have about 80 members currently. And we just launched in August. Jillian Leslie 36:06 Wow. Is this a way also that you're thinking of monetizing or is this really just come together and talk about stuff? How to monetize a women's membership group Coley Arnold 36:14 Well, it definitely is. I mean, again, as with any business thing, we have a ton of expenses with this business. So it does cost, it's a $45 a month membership fee. And that we rent a room in a hotel, and we offer breakfast and coffee for all the members every meeting. We also do happy hour where they get free drinks and appetizers once a quarter. Lindsey Holt 36:36 We're bringing in speakers every meeting and so that also helps, you know, the funds just help cover the costs at this point. So, I mean, we really want it to be affordable for women because we're moms and businesswomen, and we know that you don't always have the money or it doesn't seem possible. But at the same time, just how much value is in that in just meeting with other women and just encouraging each other. And it really has become such an amazing community and just women meeting together on some level and inspiring each other. Jillian Leslie 37:14 Yeah. Being together can make amazing things. What would you say the top two things are that you're hearing over and over again that these entrepreneurs are struggling with? What are female entrepreneurs struggling with in their businesses? Coley Arnold 37:27 Oh, gosh. I feel like there's so many. I'm feeling like the only one as the biggest one that we've heard over and over again, I'm going, "I feel like I'm the only one that can't feed my family and also post on social media at the same time," or, "I am the only one who's my numbers are down on social media," or, "I'm the only one who's struggling with this." And that's just a big lie that we let ourselves believe and it's not true. Lindsey Holt 37:53 Women are scared I think to ask, or to even like voice that feeling like that you're the only one because I think even like some of the women... So we meet and we have a speaker but then at the end, we meet around like round tables and so we break it down a little bit so you can go a little more in depth and have a real conversation. And I think a lot of the times, even then the women sometimes are scared to even like ask a question. But as they get more comfortable, then we're hearing now, like they're asking those questions, but it's still they were like, "Well, I was kind of scared to say that I had this problem because I felt like I was the only one that was struggling with that." But then once they say it, then everyone's like, "Well, yeah, of course, that's a normal thing that we all struggle with." Coley Arnold 38:46 The uniqueness of this group is there's a lot of women who are just starting are about to start a new adventure and then there's women who have been doing their business for 10-15 years. And all of them learn new things every meeting. So it doesn't matter where you're coming from or what your experience is, there's something that you can still walk way encouraged and uplifted and also learn from each other. And one of the things we've noticed is that when you've been in business for a long time, like we're at eight years, you kind of get tired. A lot of times it becomes monotonous like, okay, we're working, we're working, we're working. Then you have these women that come in that are just starting their entrepreneurship or just starting their new business and they're so excited. Lindsey and I look at each other, we're like, "You're right. We're excited, too." You kind of forget the excitement, that the reason why you started was because you had a passion for this and then it becomes work. So you do your job and you put your head down and you hustle, but it's so nice to have that breath of fresh air of these women that are coming in and going "Oh my gosh, I'm just so excited. Like, I have no idea what I'm doing. But I'm so excited." And we're like, "Okay, we sort of know what we're doing now." And I have to remember that we're excited too, you know. Jillian Leslie 39:58 I agree. I do. I think that one of the reasons why, for example, I love my podcast is because I get to talk to people like you and then I get to go, "Oh, yeah. This is super cool that we do this." Coley Arnold 40:11 Right. Jillian Leslie 40:12 How lucky we are that we get to be in our pajamas or what, you know, And again, can it be lonely? Absolutely. Can you feel like, Oh, you're the only one facing this. And other people don't quite, you know, the moms here in Austin don't quite understand what I do and so it can feel somewhat isolating. But, it's also I think so cool. Coley Arnold 40:35 Right. And I think one of the biggest advice that Lindsey and I tell women is you have to get connected because it can be isolating and it's hard work. When you're an entrepreneur, you hustle and you don't have a 9 to 5 job. You have a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It doesn't stop, your brain doesn't stop. And so I'm finding people that are like-minded as you and that you can share something that was a huge win that weekend, they cheer you on or you can share something that's hard. But even if it's through social media, like we've met some amazing incredible women through social media that are like our encouragers and support, and we've never met them. Or people who are in your community like a founders group. Or something where you can connect and have that time that you set aside for yourself that's only yours. and you can really focus on kind of filling your tank and being encouraged because it's hard. What we do is hard work and and it is lonely. I mean we're lucky to have partnerships, but not everyone does. Lindsey Holt 41:39 Well, yeah, even just to be able to bounce ideas off of some level. I mean, we thankfully do have each other and my husband that we work with. But at the same time, like so many women that we have met like they're doing it on their own every day, and then just to be able to like say, "Hey, I had this idea, what do you think? Like, is that a good idea?" Or is it, you know, like, "Would you be interested in that?" Like, just to be able to have that just kind of bounce ideas off of here and there is just so important just to be able to talk. We need to talk. Jillian Leslie 42:11 What do you think makes your partnerships so successful? So to an entrepreneur, you're looking, "Maybe I could have a partner in this," what would you say people should look for? What makes your partnership so successful? Coley Arnold 42:24 One of the things we always say is just make sure that you're... like Lindsay and I balance each other out. We have different strengths, but our vision and our passion is the same and it's aligned. So finding someone that maybe compliments you in different areas. So if you're weak in an area, looking for someone who has that strength in that other area. Then also just valuing each other's strengths because it can be easy sometimes in a partnership to go, "Okay, are you pulling your weight? Are you pulling your weight? Are you doing what you're supposed to be doing?" But just going "Okay, I know her strength and I'm so thankful for her strength, because her strength is not my strength." And so if you can really focus on that, then that's where you go, "Okay, I don't want to do this without her," because that means I would have to do what I'm not good at. Jillian Leslie 43:07 And what are your strengths? How would you define them? Lindsey Holt 43:12 Gosh. Well, so here's a very easy one. Coley is very outgoing and I am not outgoing. I am much more administrative. Like, I handle a lot of the emails and communication that goes out. But yet, Coley is more outgoing and outspoken and great when we're in a crowd of people. So we kind of again, we balance each other out in that that, you know, she has no problem walking up to anyone and having a conversation. I'm good once the conversation is started but I'm not necessarily the person that's going to start a conversation. So I think that's why we work. That's one reason why we work really well together. Coley Arnold 43:53 Yeah, and Lindsey deals with all the vendors and communication which I think I would probably murder people if I had to answer all the stupid emails. So I'm so thankful for her. And again, I think if you can focus on the strength of the other person and realize that, Okay, if they weren't here, or, if I went on my own, I would have to take on that job and that's not something that I'm good at. And so just then going, I'm so thankful for that in her and it's just easier, if you could focus on that. And I think that's true in marriage and in any relationship, like you focus on their strengths instead of their weaknesses. Because I have so many weaknesses. So if everyone was focusing on my weaknesses, no one would hang out with me. So just saying like, okay, here's your strengths, I'm so thankful for them, and then having that be your focus. And like, everyday, we do communication and just knowing that the other person's taking care of what they're supposed to be taking care of, and grace when things come up. Lindsey Holt 44:58 Yeah. I will say the unique thing for us is that we really did start and grow this business from like such a very small place where neither of us necessarily had any business background. And so, we've learned and had to grow ourselves and the business altogether at the same time. And so that I know is very unique. I think it also has led to us having a great working relationship because our friendship really grew with our business growing as well. Coley Arnold 45:37 And this business is like a joint child. Lindsey Holt 45:39 Yeah, yeah, for sure. Coley Arnold 45:42 Like co-parenting this child that we've made. Jillian Leslie 45:47 I so see that. And, again, I work with my husband and, of course, we have our daughter and we have our businesses and they are like different children, you know. They have different needs and they need different kinds of attention. Coley Arnold 45:59 Sometimes more needs than your actual children. Jillian Leslie 46:01 Exactly. That's a really good analogy. So what business tool do you guys use to manage your business that you can't live without? Coley Arnold 46:10 Okay, so I am not a I'm not a business tool person. I'm very like anti, and Kevin is very opposite. He is very like I want spreadsheets for everything. I always roll my eyes and give them the hardest time. However, he just got us hooked on Monday.com and I do have to say it's changed our lives. Jillian Leslie 46:26 What is it? Coley Arnold 46:28 It's like a task... Lindsey Holt 46:30 A task management. Coley Arnold 46:30 Management company, yeah. Literally, it's a thing where you can list, each person has a little color and you can assign tasks to each person and it reminds you and it sends you updates and you can mark like "I'm working on it" or "I've completed it." So we can always look at that and go "Okay, where are we at on these three things?" And we know someone's either working on it or getting it taken care of, or it's been done, or it doesn't have my name on it so I don't have to worry about it. It's just a really great organizational tool that we use for all of our businesses. Jillian Leslie 47:02 I love that. I'm going to go look at it after I get out. Okay, what are you excited about right now? I know there is a new baby coming and all of that. But what is getting you guys juiced up? Coley Arnold 47:20 You want to go first? Lindsey Holt 47:23 Well, I mean, we talked a little bit about The Foundress and I think this is kind of our new little baby at the moment that, you know, we just started in August and it's just really starting to take off. And so it's been really fun and exciting to just build that community. We did just have a happy hour last night, so we're kind of on that little bit of a high. But, you know, I think just meeting with other women like that and just being able to create the space where women feel safe and feel comfortable to come and talk and just encourage each other has just been really fun. And it's been really fun for for us to have a place too. I mean, we created it, but we created it so we would have a place to be able to... Coley Arnold 48:06 ...who selfishly created it. Lindsey Holt 48:08 Feel inspired and encouraged as well. I know that that's been just really fun for us the last couple months. And just a little something different. Like, the markets are fun and we love them. This is kind of our little off-season, if we have one. So we're coming up on our next big one here in February, which is also very fun and exciting. But it's kind of been fun to have this other little side project going on to get us, you know. Again, I think just that like you get in such the mode of just "go, go, go" and you forget about like we have created this amazing thing. We did create this Junk in the Trunk out of nothing. And so it's been good to even just see like where we've come from, like, "Oh, yeah, we did struggle with that. But look, now we came out, we're on the other side." Jillian Leslie 48:56 Yeah. I think as entrepreneurs, we fall into this trap of always looking forward, like "Oh, next year I'll be here," or, "If only I could grow my followers to here," or, "If only my revenue was here." And we forget that we started with nothing. Coley Arnold 49:15 Well, I remember. I mean, when we first opened social media, I remember literally checking my phone like every five minutes and being like, "Oh my gosh, we got another follower." And I noticed every single one and I celebrated every single one. And now that we have like 97.5 thousand followers, it's like you kind of forget about those little victories. And so we actually joke, we always take a screenshot when we hit like another thousand. And we said, we tell everyone like "We made it!" you know, because if you don't stop to celebrate those little victories, like you miss the big victories, too. Jillian Leslie 49:47 Completely. We just crossed over for Catch My Party, which is our original site, just recently, we just crossed over a million followers on Pinterest. Coley Arnold 49:57 That's amazing! Lindsey Holt 49:57 Oh, that's awesome! Jillian Leslie 49:58 And I remember thinking "Oh my God, one day, we'll get to a million." And I have to be honest and tell you it happened and I kind of knew it but didn't really even celebrate it. Then my husband had to go "Do you know we have a million followers on Pinterest?" And then I had to take a moment and go, "Oh, yeah, that's really cool!" So it wasn't my first instinct. My first instinct was, "What do I need to do today?" And then I had to go, "Oh, no, no, let's stop and let's pause and let's really take this in." Because we remember hitting our first I don't know, 50,000 and how cool that was. And now it's like, "Oh, okay, so not to take it for granted and not to be so thankful," because otherwise, again, you can push away every success you've had because there's always more that you're fighting for. Coley Arnold 50:49 Exactly. Jillian Leslie 50:51 So I completely agree. Okay, so when is your next market coming up? Where is it and how can people learn about it? Coley Arnold 50:58 Yeah. Our next one is in Pomona which is just outside of LA, and it is February 23rd and 24th. Lindsey Holt 51:06 Yes. The 23rd and 24th. Jillian Leslie 51:08 Okay. And if people want to learn more about you guys, about your business, about The Foundress, what should they do? Coley Arnold 51:15 They can head to our website, which is JunkintheTrunkVintageMarket.com. Or again, follow us on Instagram or Facebook and our our tag is just,yeah, Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market. Jillian Leslie 51:26 Wonderful. And we talked about how you don't want to just use the hashtag 'junk in the trunk'. Coley Arnold 51:31 Right. Jillian Leslie 51:32 Bad stuff will show up. Lindsey Holt 51:34 Yeah. Don't search us by 'Junk in the Trunk'. Make sure you remember the 'Vintage Market', that's an important part. Jillian Leslie 51:41 Yes, or people will get... Lindsey Holt 51:42 You'll be a little shocked. Jillian Leslie 51:43 Exactly. They'll get very shocked. No, I totally get it. Well, I have to say you guys, thank you so much for being on the show. It is, again, very inspiring for me to talk to entrepreneurs like you. Lindsey Holt 51:55 Thank you. Coley Arnold 51:56 Thank you for having us. If you like The Blogger Genius Podcast, please support us! Jillian Leslie 51:57 "If you're liking The Blogger Genius Podcast, please subscribe and please tell your friends. Tell your mom, tell anyone that you think would like it. It will just help get the podcast found. And I'll see you here again next week."  

  Welcome to episode 53 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. Today I’m interviewing Tori Tait from ToriTait.com. If you want powerful and easy Pinterest tips from a Pinterest insider, Tori is your woman!  Tori works for Pinterest, designing images for brands. So she knows how the platform works. You don't want to miss her tips for creating images that stand out, how to think about keywords, communities, hashtags, and more! If you use Pinterest to drive traffic to your site, you will LOVE this episode! Resources: MiloTree Thoughtfully Simple Mompreneurs Online The Grommet 2Modern Canva Catch My Party Tailwind * May contain affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I might receive a small commission at no cost to you.* Transcript: Powerful and Easy Pinterest Tips from Pinterest Insider, Tori Tait Host 0:03 Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Leslie 0:17 Hello and welcome back to The Blogger Genius Podcast. If you are a Pinterest enthusiast, if you want to take your Pinterest to a whole new level, you are going to love this episode. Today, I am talking with Tori Tait. Tori is an old-school blogger like me. We've known each other for years, and wait until you hear kind of how we bonded years ago over Padma Lakshmi, host of Top Chef. Anyway, Tori is old-time blogger but also, she's a Pinterest Insider. So what she does, she's hired by Pinterest to work with brands to create pins and campaigns for big brands, so she knows her stuff. What I love about her is she cuts through the noise. She's no BS. You want actionable high-level Pinterest strategy? She is your woman. So without further ado, here is Tori Tait. Tori Tait 1:25 Tori, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Jillian. Jillian Leslie 1:29 So we were just talking about how, first, like I've known you online forever, probably from when you started and when I started. And we just have this funny story which is we both were working with a… I think it was a wine brand, right? Tori Tait 1:45 Yes. How we bonded over Padma Lakshmi from Top Chef Jillian Leslie 1:45 And they, at the end of the culmination of this thing, they were flying us to New York and I couldn't go because I got sick. But the cool part was that we were supposed to go hang out with Padma Lakshmi from Top Chef. Tori Tait 2:02 Yes. Jillian Leslie 2:03 And I was bummed that I didn't get to go but then I got to interview her on the phone for my blog post, and I found that she didn't get me at all and that she was very serious when I tried to crack jokes. And then I took it very personally. And then you told me that when you met her in person, she was also very serious. Tori Tait 2:24 Indeed, she was quite intimidating. You know, just because she's beautiful and very tall and very famous, and well-known but also then she didn't come through as very friendly. She took her job as she should, I suppose, very seriously critiquing these bloggers who are competing in this party and food challenge very seriously. So I felt like "Man," I'm saying, "Oh, that's a cute presentation," and she's critiquing flavors and profiles and was all very intimidating in person. So it was not you… Jillian Leslie 2:59 So I felt relieved after talking to you about it because I was like, "Oh, my God. I tried to make some jokes about how my daughter was a picky eater and then she started scolding me about how I wasn't doing it right." So anyway, so I remember bonding with you and we were trying to figure it out, so you think it was at the BASH Conference where we actually got to meet in person? Tori Tait 3:18 Yeah, I think we did get to meet. We both attended I think it was the first BASH Conference and we finally got FaceTime after all of these years. Jillian Leslie 3:25 Yes. And we were sitting next to each other bonding over Padma. Tori Tait 3:29 Yes. Jillian Leslie 3:29 Which is really cool. Okay, so I've been following your whole career and I know that you've done a variety of things. So will you share kind of how you got into this whole online space and your blogging and your marketing and all of that stuff? How to get started in blogging Tori Tait 3:47 Definitely, I'd be happy to. So it's quite the windy road but every step along the way has really, I think, been very important to sort of how my career's unfolded. So in 2006 I was a recent college grad, I had a Communications degree and no clue what I wanted to do with it. I picked up a parenting magazine of all things and I had read this article about these women who had started this online forum called Mompreneurs Online for other women who wanted to do businesses online or, you know, entrepreneurial endeavors and I just logged on. So this is, you know, a chat forum way before there was Twitter or Facebook groups or anything like that. and I just started getting so inspired. It was a small group of women in this forum from all different walks of life across the country. There were lawyers, product designers, shipping consultants, bakers, just the gamut. And I decided I was going to start an online personalized stationery company. Jillian Leslie 4:51 Wow. Tori Tait 4:52 So this is before Etsy. This is before you could do and easily create a Shopify site. I didn't know how to sell it online. So I taught myself how to code and I began a website selling personalized stationary goods. During this time, I made these really great relationships with the women in this forum, and about a year in, I realized I didn't like manufacturing products or shipping or any of that. I love the marketing aspect. And Twitter had just came onto the scene, Facebook Pages were just sort of being rolled out and I realized I had become the go-to source for all of the other women entrepreneurs in this group for all things social media and branding online. So I took that as an aha moment, this is what I want to do. "Duh, you have a Communications degree, this makes sense." Jillian Leslie 5:42 Right. Beginning a career in social media Tori Tait 5:42 So I closed my stationary shop and began what has now been a 10-year career in social media and content marketing. At first, I worked sort of freelance with all of these smaller businesses as clients. And then about 2009, I joined a startup out of Boston called The Grommet. The Grommet sells unique products and gifts online. I joined and worked there for nine years as a director of content and community. Then just recently, I've joined a new company called 2Modern. And I do the same thing; I'm the director of content and community, we sell luxury furniture online. So sort of the one windy part of this journey is that entrepreneurial road that led to this marketing career. But interestingly enough, in parallel to all of that, at the same time, in 2008 I started one of the first entertaining blogs online. So I had this passion and love for entertaining in my home and throwing parties and there wasn't really much out there besides like the intimidating Martha Stewart of this space. And so, I started a blog called Thoughtfully Simple and began creating content and sharing my work around cocktails and food and entertaining. So really, for the past 10 years, I've had one foot in the marketing brand world and one foot in the blogger world, which has really given me I'd say a unique skill set and perspective really, that one has fueled the other. So my work in marketing has really fueled my success as a blogger and my work as a blogger has really allowed me to be a better marketer for brands. Getting hired by Pinterest to work with brands And one interesting thing that happened last year was that Pinterest hired me on as a contract graphic designer. So in both of my worlds as a blogger and as a brand, a lot of my work has gone into Pinterest, you know, how a brand will use it in success there, using it as a blogger working with, you know, sponsored posts and things like that. So this skill set has developed of really understanding what works on Pinterest, and at the same time, Pinterest as a company sort of outgrowing their capacity to help big brands create pins. So when you have a big brand like a Disney or, you know, name the brand, a Walmart who wants to create pins and wants maybe to test on Pinterest ads, Pinterest can then tap me to actually create them. So it's a really windy confusing road, but all of these things really work together. And I do all of these three things every day. Jillian Leslie 8:25 Oh, my God. Okay, so the way that again, you know, we are behind Catch My Party and I've always known about Thoughtfully Simple and you always make the most beautiful cocktails. Tori Tait 8:39 Thank you. Jillian Leslie 8:40 I get your email, I'm on your email list. So if anybody out there is looking for cocktail recipes, definitely check out your blog which is, again, and then I knew about all these other pieces but it's interesting to see how you put them all together or how you've been open to new opportunities leveraging off of your skill set. Tori Tait 9:04 Yes, definitely. I never am going to predict what's around the corner. I just sort of keep doing things I love, refining my skills, sharing what I know along the way and looking for new opportunities. It keeps it really exciting. And that's the beauty about working online in any capacity is you know things are going to change and there's going to be new opportunities tomorrow that you couldn't even have imagined. Jillian Leslie 9:29 Absolutely. Like, when we started, would we have even known that there was something on the horizon called Pinterest and it would know our businesses like completely and give you a new job? Tori Tait 9:38 Nope. Jillian Leslie 9:38 Not at all. So I love that attitude because I think that there are two ways to see it. One is, "Oh, my God, things are changing," and it's too intimidating and I wish it would go back to the way it was. And then the other attitude is, "Oh, I'm open, I'm holding on for the ride. I don't know where it's going to take me but I'm here," and I'm going to learn and I'm going to show up. The need to constantly be learning as a blogger Tori Tait 10:05 I know. I get bummed when I hear, you know, fellow colleagues or bloggers kind of in that first sort of bucket of frustration and defeat and, you know, just "I don't want to learn anything new, I just figured it out." Because really just a simple mind shift of like, "Oh, this is exciting. Let me learn something new," it just makes the work all that more exciting. Jillian Leslie 10:28 So I take it you've always been creative and artistic. Tori Tait 10:32 I have, yes. I am definitely more the creative side than the analytical side. But as a marketer I've, over the years, definitely had to build up that analytical muscle. It is important, too, but I am definitely more creative. Jillian Leslie 10:46 Okay. And were you a graphic designer at any point? I know you're a Communications major. Tori Tait 10:51 No. I say I am not a graphic designer, I just play with it on the internet. I'm just self-taught. That's it. Jillian Leslie 10:59 And how did you teach your self? Because, again you do have to weirdly become a graphic designer to be on the internet. Now, you can fake it, like I do, like using Canva templates and things, but like, how did you learn how to do this? How to learn to be a graphic designer Tori Tait 11:17 I Google stuff. Let me just not have a better answer than that. Jillian Leslie 11:20 I love that. Tori Tait 11:21 You know, it's a lot of practice, rinse and repeat. Practice, practice, practice and when I can't figure something out. That's the beauty of the internet. There are YouTube videos to teach you how to do anything and everything. And look, I had no formal training in Photoshop but I made it, you know, a commitment and sort of a passion to refine my skills. And now, I work for Pinterest as a graphic designer designing for big, big brands, you know, and so it's doable. I don't know if you're familiar with Marie Forleo, but my favorite quote is, she says "Everything is figureoutable" and that has definitely always been my motto from figuring out how to code a website to how to create great graphics and Photoshop that looks really intimidating. All of it, we can figure it out in groups and together Googling. There's always a way. Jillian Leslie 12:13 And I will say that like I can't tell you how many times… so my husband is my partner and he's the technical person and so I'm always coming to him with technical questions. His answers to me, probably 8 times out of 10 is "Google it, Google it." And I'll be like, "Yeah, but I got some weird error." And he's like, "Google it. Like, put the error in there and see what happens. Like, somebody else has had that error." Tori Tait 12:38 That is the beauty of people who are willing to share their experiences and those of us who are willing to seek out answers and ask for help because it's all there, right? Jillian Leslie 12:48 Absolutely, absolutely. And it's funny because you, I believe, probably do have this really interesting perspective about for marketing because you are also a blogger, so you see it from a variety of different angles. Tori Tait 13:06 Yes, I think it's definitely helped me on both sides. You know, one being a blogger and, you know, in blogging communities and at conferences and with friends, I'm able to say, "hey," these things brands are doing, bloggers can easily do too. So it's kind of like here's this inside knowledge, right, from this, you know, what might be sort of unknown marketing world, what are the brands doing. You know, they are just people sitting around and Disney, just like us, thinking about what they're going to post to Twitter and what's working on Pinterest. Why being in both the blogging world and brand world is helpful So I have sort of this access, you know, to sort of this thinking and understanding that I can bring it to bloggers and this is a very approachable way to do things that you can do to. And as a blogger, we've got all those scrappy skills, right, and all that the feet on the ground kind of information that I can take back to those marketing conversations and kind of get ahead of the game. Because oftentimes in marketing roles or larger companies, there's a lot of red tape and processes and I've always just been able to bring sort of that scrappy "let's just try and do it" mentality that bloggers seem to have. So yeah, definitely I love having one foot in both worlds. Jillian Leslie 14:26 Yes. And for us, for example, like we built MiloTree for Catch My Party because we're bloggers and we have a site and then it worked. And then we're like, "Oh, we could roll this out to help other bloggers like you, you know, grow their following," but we're also boots on the ground. So we're not some big company who, you know, has this SaaS product and whatever. No, no, no. Like we we straddle both worlds so that we understand the world of food bloggers or parenting blog, whatever, like we get it because we're there. And so, it has helped inform us to go deeper because we understand the pain points, because we live those pain points. Tori Tait 15:12 Yes, definitely. Jillian Leslie 15:15 So can we talk about Pinterest? Tori Tait 15:18 Yes. Jillian Leslie 15:19 And some of these insights that you have because you get to work with… like the main advantage I would say for brands is they have more money, so they can throw more money around but you're right, which is because they can throw more money around, they don't have to be as crappy. You don't need a lot of money to succeed on Pinterest Tori Tait 15:36 Exactly, yeah. And you don't have to have a lot of money to have success. All of bloggers right now out there know that because I'm sure, most would say most of their traffic is coming from Pinterest and they're not paying for it. So, you know, I like to say "think like a marketer, act like a blogger." Jillian Leslie 15:57 Oh, I like that. Can you explain that? Tori Tait 16:00 Yeah. So, you know, marketers think a lot more strategically about certain things. Take Pinterest, for example. They're thinking holistically about not only what their creative looks like -- and that in itself is one of my favorite topics and we could talk forever about that. But, you know, a lot of thought and planning goes into what they're designing, what their description is and keywords, where that pin is going to land people, what the landing page looks like, what people are going to do once they get to that landing page. You know, are they trying to capture sales, emails, you know, are they re-targeting people. So there's a lot of thought that goes into it. Advice: Think like a marketer, act like a blogger But then that also oftentimes means for bloggers or for marketers, pardon me, it's a slower, longer process. You can spend months doing that. So when I say think like a marketer, I say yes, think strategically and the whole picture of your Pinterest marketing efforts, but act like a blogger. Do it fast, do it quickly. Be nimble. Test things change. Because that's what's going to get you ahead of your competition. And the truth is that on Pinterest, you know, a food blogger who is, you know, two years in, their competition is Kraft. It is all of those big brands because we're all sharing the same type of content on Pinterest, going after the same eyeballs. Kraft can put out a recipe for, you know, an appetizer. A food blogger can make a very similar appetizer. You're competing for the same people. So you can think strategically but move quickly, and test and iterate, and just keep plugging away, then they're going to have the advantage. Whereas, sure Kraft might have the money and it might take them two months to plan, you know, some content they're going to create, show design, you know, get approval. But if you are there first quicker, their money is not going to count, it's not going to count as much in capturing those eyeballs because you already have had that content there. Jillian Leslie 18:06 I love that. Okay, so down and dirty tips. When you were just talking about that whole… I would call it kind of like a whole journey, right, from like to map this out. So let's start with… I love this, I always do this. Let's start with you're a food blogger. And so initially, your job is you want traffic. Tori Tait 18:32 Yes. Jillian Leslie 18:33 So walk me through and then we'll go like food blogger who's selling a cookbook or something like that, but like, walk me through how you would unpack that and we can, you know, do a variety of examples. But let's say I just want traffic. What do you recommend I do in terms of my pins and where they land and keywords and things like that. Tori Tait 18:55 Yeah. I mean, there's so much that goes, you know. At face value, Pinterest seems pretty simple. Create a graphic, pin it. But there's so much that goes into it and we're talking about the strategy. But I'll start with the easiest win out there. The one you just might be like either overwhelmed because they're just starting or like kind of at a plateau. Easiest way to win on Pinterest, design more engaging pins The easiest win is improving your creative. So the truth of the matter is, like, you've got to capture someone's eyeballs and you want to stop there scroll, right? If someone is on Pinterest looking for something, a recipe, a cookie recipe and they're just scrolling like as fast as you can imagine, they're probably half paying attention. Maybe they're standing in the grocery store line or laying in bed at night. We don't do that, right, but yes, we all do that scrolling on our phones. And you've got to stop there scroll. What's going to matter in that moment is your creative. Jillian Leslie 19:55 And by the way, for everybody, creative is your image. Tori Tait 19:58 Yeah, sorry. Like your actual image of your pin. And so I think this is just one of the easiest ways to improve your Pinterest strategy, it's an easy win. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> If you're designing pins the same way everyone else is, your content isn't going to stand out. If you're just doing the same thing that everyone else is doing. And I can give you an example and you're going to immediately know what I'm talking about. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Maybe three years ago someone wrote an article that the best way to lay out a pin is like have one image and then a big color block with some text and then an image below. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So if you look up chocolate chip cookie recipe on Pinterest, you're going to see a lot of images that look exactly the same. But if you're doing the same thing everyone else is doing, you're not going to stand out. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I like to tell people find your own creative image pin quote recipe. And there are so many ways that you can design a pin. It might not seem like that at face value but there really is when you start thinking about it. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> You can play with collages versus really large long images you can zoom in on parts of an image that really might pique someone's interest. You can play with different ways to do that text overlay that isn't just that typical slop-it-in-the-middle. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> There are so many ways you can sort of play with it. It's one of my favorite things because it's one of the lowest barriers to entry. Everyone can do it, you can do it in Canva. If you're more advanced and you have Photoshop, there's not a lot of barriers. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> In fact, my Pinterest, I have a Pinterest masterclass and 4 of my 12 lessons focused solely on this -- creative strategies of designing pins that just stop the scroll. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> Use pattern interruptions to get attention on Pinterest <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 21:50 Isn't it also this concept of we want to interrupt the pattern. So for example, I'm looking in my office right now and everything kind of looks like how it normally looks. So I don't see it. But if, for example, like every, you know, all of a sudden something moves in the background, I notice because it interrupts what I think of as this is what it's supposed to look like. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So if a bird flies, I don't know, close to my window. And, you know, I will notice that because boom, there's something that draws my attention. And I've heard this, which is think about when you're scrolling, you're almost like in a trance and you're seeing the same kinds of images and you keep going. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> But all of a sudden, if let's say there was an image there that really interrupted the pattern, it would get your attention. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 22:45 Yes, that's definitely it. And, you know, kind of wanting to squash the notion that you've created, say, this recipe, say it's for a chocolate chip cookie that you can only create one pin to represent that blog post, that is absolutely not what you should do. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> Create multiple pins per post <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> You should be creating four or five different versions of that pin uploading to Pinterest and linking back to that, linking back to that blog post with the recipe, one, because Pinterest's algorithm really likes that. They love when there's different images linking to the same content. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 23:21 So these images don't all have to be in the blog post? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 23:24 They do not. I mean, they should definitely feel like the same content. So, you know, it should feel like they're in the right place if you find that image on Pinterest saying click through. But you can rearrange the images, combine them, zoom in on them, zoom out on them and create different versions of pins that point back to this recipe. And one, that's going to make the Pinterest algorithm, God, so happy. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And two, it's going to allow you to then start to see "Well, which of these images is driving the most traffic?" And that'll help you sort of develop, you know, what I was calling sort of your Pinterest creative recipe, like your layout, to come up with some different ways that you can, you know, combine images or represent blog posts that aren't just the same thing every time. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> You'll be able to start to see what's resonating and what's not based on what's getting saved and what's driving traffic. Because ultimately, that's what you want. Right? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 24:24 Totally. And do you get surprised? For example, you're working with Disney, let's say, and you make them four images. And you think, "Oh, this is the one that's going to do it," and then it turns out that it's another one that you didn't anticipate would be driving a lot of traffic. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 24:43 There are some surprises and I think a lot of it has to do sort of with if you get stuck in that rut, like you were mentioning, you know. I design probably for 3 to 4 big brands a week for Pinterest. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And when I start seeing all of their sort of requests come in looking very similar, you know, they want the same kind of layout or they're suggesting the same kind of copy or treatment, you know, I'm like, "Ah, that's going to be stale, like let's shake things up." <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I'll start designing kind of, you know, shifting strategy a little bit creatively because I think it's easy to sort of… even big brands, they get stuck in the rut. "Oh, there has to be a copy here. There has to be our logo here." <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And the surprise is, I think more happen on their side when they allow me or when bloggers themselves allow themselves to sort of push the creative boundary and do something different. And then it works. So I love those surprises. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 25:48 I was reading this article once and they were talking about why all SUVs look alike, right? And they all kind of look like I think like the Lexus SUV because Lexus was one of the first companies to come out with that kind of luxury-ish SUV. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And then what they discovered was that's what people in their own minds thought an SUV looked like. And so therefore, they all kind of look like that because what they have found is you want to look like the Lexus SUV. But here, I think you wanted… so our natural instinct also is to say, "Oh, what does a chocolate chip recipe pin look like?" <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 26:29 Yeah. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 26:30 But again, you want to get out of that rut and not make your SUV look like the same SUV that everybody… even if it's nice. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 26:38 Yes. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 26:41 So again, I think that there are reasons why we love pattern matching. So if I'm in the market for an SUV, for whatever reason, I know in my head what an SUV looks like and maybe that does drive SUV sales. And if something were outside the box, I'd be like, "Oh, that's not an SUV." <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> But in this situation, I would say you want to go against your own instincts. Like these brands who are comfortable in their images will say to you "Make something that looks like this, like this SUV?" And I love that you're saying, "No, let's shake it up a little bit." <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> Be creative in the images that you make - shake it up <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 27:14 Yeah, I mean the reward is so great. The risk is so little, especially for bloggers if you're not, you know, it's organic content, you're not paying for ads and why not test a bunch of different things? Because there's no risk. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 27:32 Right. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 27:32 You can place something that really resonates and stands out and that is different from every other food blogger or, you know, anyone else in your space and it's sending you traffic, why not? Why not? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 27:46 Or if you feel the need to make that beautiful chocolate chip recipe pin that everybody makes, make it. And then force yourself to make something different and then test it. See what happens. I love that, I love that. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Okay, so we're talking about let's say, okay, your first piece of advice is shake it up, make a whole host of pins, make some that look very different. Some of it looks somewhat different and see what happens. And then what do you tell people? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 28:16 Well, you know, here's one thing that I don't always say the most popular things when it comes to Pinterest strategy just because, you know, I'm going to speak from experience and what's worked for me and what's worked for brands that I've, you know, worked with. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> Don't worry about pinning other people's content <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> The number one mistake I think people really get hung up on is this idea of worrying about pinning other people's content. I know that's not really popular to say. Sure, as a Pinterest user or a blogger, you want to support, you know, content from your colleagues or your just regular person who wants to pin stuff that's not your own, like your own recipes and decor ideas. I am not saying you can't. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> But people really get hung up on this ratio idea of, you know, they have to pin only a percentage of their own stuff to other people's stuff. That does not matter at all. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I like to ask people like what sends you traffic when you pin someone else's content or when you pin your own content. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So this idea of like, if you have, you know, limited time to work on Pinterest, why would you be spending it worrying about pinning 80 percent of someone else's content? There's not a downside. There's an upside for you, honestly. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I say the biggest mistake people make is they just don't pin their own content enough. Pinning, re-pinning, pinning different versions of your post, pending old posts, pinning new posts, that is where the effort should lie, in my opinion. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> I have never focused on pinning other people's content since I joined Pinterest I think in 2010. I pin 95% of my own stuff and I always have. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So again, I think another low barrier way, very easy lever for someone who has limited time and resources, create stunning pins like we just talked about, test new things, and then pin them like crazy, pin your own stuff. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 30:24 Yes, there used to be that limit. And again, I'm sure, you know, for most people, they would never even reach it where Pinterest said you can only pin 200,000 pins in the lifetime of your account. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Now, for us at Catch My Party, we were concerned about that. Not super concerned but we're like, "Okay, if we pin at this rate, you know, we'll hit that in like, I don't know, two years or three years." But then Pinterest took it away and said you can pin unlimited numbers of pins. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So you never have to worry about over pinning. Then I had heard the same thing, though, from Pinterest, which is, yeah, we don't really care if you're pinning other people's content, as long as you continue to pin on the platform. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 31:05 Yeah, I mean, all they want is for fresh new content to be added regularly from you. They don't care if it's your own or your best friend. It doesn't matter. And by fresh new content, that just means images packaged in a different way, images pinned directly from your blog or website. It doesn't mean you have to go do a whole new photo shoot. Or even needs to be a newer blog post, it's just to be newly added to Pinterest. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I think one of the biggest mistakes people really get hung up on is they spend all of this time and energy worrying about they've got a pin from a variety of sources and pin, you know, 80% other people's content, 20% theirs, and I would just say let that one go, folks. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Just pin your own, you know, take care of your own house, pin your own content. Get it packaged great and get it on Pinterest because that's how you're going to get traffic. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 32:03 Right. And I think people feel like, "well, I need to flesh out my boards." And I would say people aren't really going to your boards. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 32:11 People do not go to boards. I mean, I think the only people who really go to boards are bloggers because they're stalking each other. Like, what is she pinning about. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> A regular Pinterest user who is in fact who we're trying to capture, you know, a busy mom looking for a quick Christmas cookie recipe, they're not going, they're not seeking this out by name and going to our boards. They're discovering us in their feeds. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 32:37 Right. And through search. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 32:39 Yes, yes. They're typing, you know, they're typing Christmas cookie. They're looking at that, you know, then they're scrolling through their feed and either we're capturing their attention overnight. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 32:50 Right. I will say that your board descriptions matter to Pinterest because again, it's data for them in terms of search. So you want to be mindful about filling out your board descriptions with keywords. You want to make sure that the pins in those boards relate to the board because again, you want to be sending these clear signals to Pinterest. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 33:12 Definitely. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 33:13 But I agree with you completely about like, who's going to boards? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 33:18 Yes, I mean, if you're doing nothing else, make great pins. Pin fiercely your own content. And there are a lot of other things like you're mentioning, you know, keywords and descriptions and board titles. But those two things are just very easy levers to pull in order to see some some increase in traffic. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> How to grow your traffic from Pinterest using MiloTree <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 33:42 "I wanted to take a short break to talk about MiloTree. I have evidence that MiloTree works. Our Catch My Party Pinterest account just crossed over to 1 million followers. And the way we did it was by using MiloTree. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> I don't know if you know this but we built MiloTree predominantly for that very reason. We built it for Catch My Party to grow our Pinterest followers. And it worked. That's why we decided to roll it out as a separate company to help people like you. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> If you are trying to grow your Pinterest followers, not just any followers but your most engaged Pinterest followers, I welcome you to head over to Milotree.com, sign up, you get your first 30 days free. Try it out and really watch your followers grow. And now back to the show." <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So now I've got my pin, I've got a variety of pins that I'm testing. I am pinning my content religiously. And what would you say in terms of descriptions and hashtags and things like that? Now, again, even you, my hunch is that it's not like you get like the manual on how the Pinterest algorithm works. Or do you? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 35:09 So I do get, you know, early insights to a lot of things. Okay, yeah, as do others who work in some capacity with Pinterest. But I am highly allergic to changing strategies to very new things that seem like their tests. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So, you know, I'm not worried about hashtags, I think they'll go away soon. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 35:36 Do you? Say that again. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 35:36 I think they'll go away. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 35:36 Really? Okay. Tell me. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> Focus on the core things that work on Pinterest, not their new features <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 35:39 There are a lot of things that kind of get rolled out and Pinterest tests and then they kind of fizzle out. So I like to just focus on core things that have been important since 2010 and that are still important today. And the little outlier things like… <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 35:57 Communities? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 35:59 Yeah. Communities, hashtags, I'm trying to think of other things that have come and have already gone. People get really worked, "Oh, board covers." You know, people get all worked up. Like this, where people get all flustered and they're like, "another thing to figure out." <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> I really just like to focus on the core things that make sense, like, it makes sense that people are using Pinterest like a Google search, right? People are going to Pinterest to search. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So if that's true, which we know it's true, then it makes sense that the copy and your descriptions and your board titles need your focus, that you should be thinking them more like a search. Right? A certain SEO. So those things all make clear sense to me. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Outlier things like communities or hashtags, fundamentally, I don't see how it's going to radically change anything. So I'm going to maybe test and play and pay attention, but I'm not going to totally, you know, be flustered or shift strategy or now only use hashtags or anything like that. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I would say, you know, it's important to keep your pulse on new things that are getting rolled out, but not important to like, go crazy. Like, here's an example. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 37:12 Go, go, please. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 37:13 I ask my Pinterest contact what their thoughts were on communities and they're like, "On what? I don't know. I am going to ask my team. We haven't heard anything about it." Like because sometimes they're just tests going on in the background. But even Pinterest themselves haven't been briefed on. So, they might not stick. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 37:31 Yup. Well, I have to say things like communities make me stressed and feel inadequate because I don't know how to use it, it's another thing on my plate. I'm not exactly sure. My goal is traffic for Catch My Party. I have no idea how a community is going to send traffic to my site. So I like that you're saying this because you're making me feel less inadequate. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 37:56 I think it's a test. It's a test to see, you know, can we turn part of Pinterest into a social platform. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 38:03 Facebook Groups. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 38:03 From a community standpoint, yes. The only way Pinterest is social is, I guess, if you're collaborating with like your sister on her wedding on a group board. But other than that, it's not stirring conversation. You're using it to solve your own problems or be inspired. You're using it like a Google search. And you're saving some things for later. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Like, you know, you would old days rip something out and put it on the fridge. And, you know, other than that, I'm not sure communities are going to stick. Maybe they will and I'll be surprised. But, you know, I wouldn't advise anyone to just feel inadequate or get stressed out about it. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> What about video on Pinterest? <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 38:40 Now, what about video? I know that Pinterest is dying to get into video and they were trying to do video ads and stuff. But that is one of those things which disrupts. I'm scrolling and video is there? And I go, "I don't want video here." <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 38:56 It's interesting. So I would say that's the biggest trend I'm seeing right now on Pinterest is this effort to from bloggers and brands to sort of tap into the video space. So video used to be only available to some top advertisers, then it rolled out to all advertisers. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And now, I don't know if it's still only available to some, but I know my account I can now, you know, upload videos organically. So what I'm seeing in the trend is starting in the brand side where they're asking for Pinterest videos. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I think it'll be interesting to pay attention to see do they stick or it almost is starting to feel like they're just instantly becoming commercials because so many brands are testing the video and they're designing them like their commercial. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I think it would be interesting for bloggers to sort of, you know, if you're a blogger who's already creating video content, the ratio square, it works on Pinterest. That's what they're recommending anyway. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So why not if you have the ability to test it out and you already have the video because I think if video is going to stick, it's going to be from content creators and bloggers because we're creating video that is more in line with what someone, a typical user is looking for. They don't feel like commercials. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I don't think the branded videos are going to see as much success because I think they're creating them like commercials. I just don't think that's going to resonate with most people. But maybe there's room here for a recipe video or a DIY video and maybe that'll catch on. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 40:45 Right, right. I think that's good advice. So if you can do it and it's easy, test it. I think that's great. I think that's great. Okay, what would you say then? So with the hashtags, you say, "well, we'll see." But what would you say in terms of optimizing your description on your pin? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> How to optimize your Pinterest pin descriptions <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 41:04 Yeah, there's definitely some science behind it. I would say you want to think like a pinner, that is just the number one lens you should have. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So if you're going to go on to Pinterest and you're going to search for something, how are you going to search for it? And so I would say, number one, do that. Do that to test. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> The really great thing about Pinterest is if you search in, say, chocolate chip cookie recipe, they're going to have the suggested words underneath that are like filters based on how people are searching for that. So yes, it's a free tool. I mean, just go on and look it up and see how in fact are people searching for this type of content. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And then, you know, come up with a popular phrase that really relates to what your pin is and then use that in your description. I would say, put it in the beginning of your description. So that's sort of the Pinterest bots, if you will say. Read it first. And make it conversational and it's not full of keywords. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> I don't think most people are reading the descriptions. So, you know, you're writing them really for the Pinterest algorithm, so that you return in search results. But if someone should read your description, it should be conversational. It's really not that hard to turn a keyword phrase into a sentence, right? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> That and do it for every pin. And back to the idea of creating multiple versions of your pin for the same content, switch up your description a little bit so that it also seems fresh and new. You know, it doesn't take a lot of time to come up with one Pinterest description and then rewrite it three ways. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I would definitely suggest that is effort, you know, well spent in coming up with descriptions that really will capture what people are searching for in a conversational way. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 43:05 And do you think you should always have a call-to-action in your description? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> Adding call to actions in your pin descriptions <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 43:10 I don't think it can hurt. I always put one at the end of mine. You know, see recipe, get download, browse, GIFs. I mean, there's just so many. It can't hurt. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 43:19 Yup, I would agree with that which is, I would say definitely because, again, people on Pinterest, you're kind of in that that trance and almost like, I want somebody in a trance where it says like click to see because then they go, "Oh, I just click," like you're being told what to do. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Rather than, "Oh, so pretty." But it's like, "Oh, I could click on it." You know, even though you know this, but it's like, why not tell the person here's what to do next. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 43:48 Yes, and that is definitely where my marketer hat comes on because we would never create anything that didn't have a clear next what we want you to do, the next pass. You just have to tell the people what to do. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 44:02 Yeah. And tell them nicely. But, you know, like, send them on the journey. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 44:07 Yes, definitely. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 44:08 And especially if the journey is one where somebody gets value, you're leaving them high and dry if you don't tell them. Like, it's good to tell them you have a food blog, you're really proud of it. You know, make sure they know to click through. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 44:22 One hundred percent. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 44:24 And do you recommend short descriptions, longer descriptions? Do you have any thoughts on that? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 44:32 I say a sentence or two. Yup, a sentence or two. You can't do everything in the description nor should you because your pin is really about one thing, you know, even if it's leading to a blog post about five holiday pie recipes or five DIYs to make for your mom. Like, it still is about one thing. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And so, you know, your search phrase might be like DIY gifts for mom. You don't need to make a whole paragraph out of that, right? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 45:05 Right. So don't think about it like you might think about Instagram which can be like a mini blogging platform. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 45:10 Oh, yeah. No, you know, what is this content about? What do you want them to do with it? Do you want them to click, get the instructions or whatever. One to two sentences is all you need. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 45:22 I like that. And what I really like about what you said too is to be mindful about what your goal is like to get traffic and to really do the things that, you know, will do that, like keywords and not get distracted by all this other stuff. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Like Instagram keeps rolling out new stuff and then, you know, again, there's that feeling of like FOMO of like, "Oh, my God, I got to be doing this now and this." And it's like Pinterest works because it works. Because it's for people to be inspired or to, you know, solve a problem. The end. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 45:54 Yup, the end. Definitely. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 45:57 So it's not the same. Whereas you can get a whole host different things from Instagram. It's like, nope, Pinterest, this is what people want, this is why they go to the platform. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 46:05 Right. One hundred percent. And if you can solve someone's problem or inspire them, then your job is done. That's all you have to do. Someone is searching for something, they want a gift idea for their husband, if you can inspire them with your content, your two lines of description in your pin, and get them to click through, you've just made their day. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> If someone's searching "how to get wine out of my T-shirt" on Pinterest and you can solve their problem because you have an article about that and this pin that represents it, your job is done. Like, it's really a problem solve. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> People are either going there because they're looking for something specific. They have something they're searching for or they want to be inspired and they have sort of an idea like kitchen remodel or gift ideas. So if you are creating content, and we're all creating content that either can solve a problem or inspire someone, so package it up, get it in front of the people and your job is done. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> How big brands are thinking about Pinterest right now <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 47:03 That's great. Okay, do you have any specific insights working with these big brands of what they're doing, or what is trending, or what they're asking for. Like, are you seeing anything on the horizon? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 47:15 I guess I would say the video is the biggest thing on the horizon, where I'm seeing a lot of brands paying attention to. They're definitely paying attention to video. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Other than that, you know, I work with so many different brands. You know, designed recently for Ralph Lauren to Pandora. So, I think the biggest thing, especially this time of year is they're just trying to capture sales and traffic during the holiday season. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> One thing that, you know, this really isn't a trend, but one thing that I don't think we talk about enough is the opportunity bloggers have that brands don't. So brands have sort of the hand-up this time of year. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> The advantage bloggers have over brands <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Bloggers, we don't really have that luxury. But that's okay because we know that most people began searching two months before the season or event or what holiday is happening. And the brands start typically playing in the space back then. They wait to the last minute, throw a bunch of money. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I think a really good opportunity for bloggers to keep in mind is just to be ahead. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 48:43 I like that. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 48:44 You might not want to be pinning St. Patrick's Day in Easter right now, but you should be. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 48:50 Ooh, I like that. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 48:52 The average user is going to start searching for that. And if your content is plentiful, and seeded, and you're regularly pinning this content every week, you're going back and pinning new Easter ideas or things for the spring time, your content is going to be they're capturing attention when people are actually searching for it versus when the brand's waiting to the last minute and put a bunch of money to push ads out into feeds. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I think, you know, it's not really a trend at all but I'd like to see it being a trend where bloggers are just way more ahead of the game because they understand that they have a bigger opportunity. And hopefully brands can maybe, you know, from the brand point of view, probably could spend a lot less and capture more attention if they acted more like bloggers and kind of did things earlier in that editorial cycle, seasonal cycle than waiting to the last minute. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 49:45 But a lot of times, though, when you're a marketer, in a marketing department, you get allocated money quarterly. And if you don't spend your money, but it's not like, "Oh, you can usually then roll it over to the next quarter." <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So there are these incentives that you can, as a blogger, work to your advantage, which is you go "Oh, when they zig, I zag." So they're putting a lot of money now. They're wanting to use up their budgets, so they're going to spend like crazy. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So this is if, for example, you advertise, this is not your time to advertise. But come beginning of Q1, at the beginning when they are like, "Okay, we've blown through all this money for Christmas," that's your time to advertise because chances are, CPMs or cost per clicks are lower. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So know when, okay, if you're going to think about advertising now, I wouldn't do it. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 50:42 No, I completely agree. Just to back up so no one feels like "Oh, man, I'm not going to be creating content right now for Easter. It's Christmas, my Christmas tree is up," it doesn't mean you have to be creating the content, you just have to be pinning your old content that you already have. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> I'm sure we all already have something that's, you know, relevant for the spring time or, you know, January organizing or, you know, home refresh or goal setting. And all we have to do is be pinning it now so that we're not stressing out on December 15 still pinning our cookie recipes when you have, you know, flower companies paying tens of thousands of dollars to capture that audience because they're waiting to the last minute. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 51:24 I think that is great. Now, have you explored at all smart loops or anything like that from Tailwind? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 51:31 No, I don't. In all of my roles as a blogger and working for Grommet, working for 2Modern, I'm a native girl. I don't use specific tools. And not to say that they can't be helpful. Part of my job is Pinterest. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So, you know, it's not like I'd forget to pin for 10 days. In that case, you know, using a scheduling tool would be helpful, definitely. Because you need to be showing up and pinning consistently. I don't have a problem doing that and so I've never utilized a tool. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> You can have success without pinning scheduling tools <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And yeah, but I would say you can have success without smart loops and tools. My whole thing is pin for 10 minutes a day. And that served us very well at The Grommet. We ended up getting a case study by Pinterest on their business website and it was a huge channel for our company's success there. And we didn't need any fancy tools. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I say that, you know, not that all tools are fancy but to say like if you're into it, you can buy paying another subscription or doing something differently. You can have success just logging into Pinterest every day for 10 minutes. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 52:47 Yes. Now, how do you think about this? Because you've got your blog and you've got your marketing career, how do you split your time? Like, how do you think about your blog? Are they both work? Or is one kind of a nice counter to the other? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 53:03 I would definitely say that one, they complement. So I've been asked over the years like, why aren't you just a full-time blogger? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And my first answer is because I'd probably hate it, you know, just knowing my personality I started it as a hobby, but also I love my career as a marketer and I'm always learning and being challenged and being introduced to things that I probably wouldn't be if I was just a blogger team of one. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So I love working with the team and really kind of wearing that marketing hat. My time, you know, definitely "9 to 5" like I am a marketer and it's my full-time job, it has been for 10 years. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And so when it comes to Thoughtfully Simple and, you know, it definitely ebbs and flows based on my energy level. The seasonality and, you know, some time like Christmas time there's a lot more content to be created at the end of the year just because there's a lot of sponsored post opportunities. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> I like to host a lot of parties in the summertime and since that's mainly what my blog is about, I'll be putting more effort around it then. I would say when I'm not creating fresh content for my own blog, I'm spending about five hours a week and that's pinning, maintaining, SEO stuff, sending out newsletters, kind of resurfacing old content and participating sort of in that blogging space and with my community on social. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Then I would say I spend probably about six hours a week in my role as a contractor for Pinterest and then the rest of the time I also teach a Pinterest masterclass So, I spend several hours a week updating that content and working with students who are taking the course. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So pretty much do the blog, Pinterest work, and the Pinterest course in the evenings and weekends and it ebbs and flows. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 55:10 Wow. Okay. And what is the course so people who want to sign up can get there and how would they find it? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 55:16 You can go to ToriTate.com. And that's T-O-R-I-T-A-I-T. And they're actually… I have been over the past couple years just sharing insider tips and strategies that I use both as a marketer and as a blogger. I just really think that we can learn from each other and when, you know, when we share, magical things happen. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So, you know, I don't really hold anything back there. And on that site, you can also see the link to my Pinterest masterclass. So, I put together 12 lessons. It's about five hours of video courses with all the bells and whistles, extra cheat sheets and all of that. That is for the intermediate to advanced Pinterest users. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> So someone either who thinks they have a pretty good handling but wants to take the next step and are like, "What else can I get out of Pinterest?" or maybe feels are at a plateau, I just sort of share all the insider tips and tricks there and work with students. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> We have a private Facebook group and all of that, but just my way to, like, Pinterest is my favorite topic. I just had to get it all out. I just had to get it all out and share it. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 56:28 I love that. Okay. And if they want to see kind of your personal stuff and your beautiful drinks, I mean, you also do beautiful recipes and hors d'oeuvres and things like that. But I just always think of you like if I need some sort of cocktail, I look at your stuff. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> And also I will say that somehow I'm on your email list, I get an email and it has a pretty drink in it. And so I kind of go "Oh, that's so pretty and I wish I were sitting on a beach drinking that drink." <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 56:58 Yeah, it's 5:00 somewhere. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 56:59 Yeah. And also on that site you have MiloTree, right? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 57:04 Yes, I do. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 57:05 Growing your Pinterest followers. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 57:06 Yes. So my blog about cocktails and entertaining is called Thoughtfully Simple. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 57:13 Okay, great. And if people were to want to reach out to you, what is the best way? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 57:20 I would say the quickest way would be Instagram. I'm @hostesstori and I'm not ashamed to say it's the channel I'm most frequently on, it goes obviously with me everywhere. It's in my pocket. And just leave me a comment or slide into the DMs and I'm always happy to chat. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 57:42 I love that. And I feel like we need to do a part two where we talk about your Instagram strategies. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 57:48 Yeah. Social media is so fun. It's always changing, right? <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 57:53 Absolutely. Well, Tori, I have to say thank you so much for being on the show and sharing all that you know with all the many hats that you wear. Like, I just love that you get this really broad perspective. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 58:10 You're very welcome. Thanks for the invitation. I love, you know, sharing and learning from others as well. And so anytime, anytime. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 58:20 Awesome. Well, thank you. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Tori Tait 58:22 Thank you. Have a great day. <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> If you like The Blogger Genius Podcast, please support us! <!-- /wp:heading --><!-- wp:paragraph --> Jillian Leslie 58:25 "If you're liking the show, there are multiple ways to support us. One, tell your friends, tell your friends who you think would like it about it. Also, make sure you've subscribed on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, anywhere you get your podcasts. And if you'd like to review us, please leave reviews on those platforms or reach out to me. I'm always open to suggestions for guests for what you'd like to hear how I can be of service to you. And until next week…" <!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading -->

Welcome to episode 52 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. Today I'm interviewing Andrew Wilder from the site NerdPress, previously known as The Blog Tutor. In this episode we discuss the simple technical mistakes bloggers make and how they can easily fix them. We talk about how Andrew started as a food blogger, then when other food bloggers kept asking him for technical help, he found his new career. We talk about techy stuff like site speed, recipe markups, and what he thinks of the new WordPress editor called Gutenberg. Make sure you're covered on the technical aspects of blogging, so definitely listen to this episode! Resources: Blogger Genius on iTunes Blogger Genius on Stitcher Blogger Genius on Google Play The Blog Tutor (NerdPress) Eating Rules International Food Blogger Conference Metorik Woocommerce ManageWP 1Password Dashlane First Contentful Paint WP Recipe Maker Google Search Console ShortPixel Imagify Gutenberg TinyMCE Food Blogger Central Facebook Group   Transcript - What Are Simple Technical Mistakes Bloggers Make with Andrew Wilder Host 0:03 Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Leslie 0:13 Hey everyone, welcome back to The Blogger Genius. I have to tell you, I'm incredibly excited for this year. We've got some really cool things in the hopper. If you have not subscribed yet to the podcast, please do so. You can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play -- really anywhere you get your podcasts. And that way, you won't miss an episode. Today, I am interviewing a guy named Andrew Wilder. Andrew started as a food blogger and then what happened was he was really good at the technical side of blogging. So when people kept asking him questions, he decided to create a new business called The Blog Tutor where he helps people with the technical side of blogging. In this episode, we are going to be talking about how to get traffic to your blog, easy wins for SEO, what you need for 2019 to keep your blog up-to-date. Andrew is not only delightful, but he shares so much that will be useful. So if the technology gives you a headache, like it does me, please listen to this episode because I know you're going to really enjoy it. So without further ado, here is Andrew Wilder. Andrew, welcome to the show. Andrew Wilder 1:40 Thanks. Happy to be here. Jillian Leslie 1:42 Okay. So I have to just say how we met which is you not only are a food blogger but you also run it, you you have a service where you help bloggers with the technical side of blogging, and we'll get into that. But you had recommended MiloTree to a customer, the customer reached out to me and said, "Oh, I'm excited about MiloTree. Andrew recommended this..." you know, our pop-up tool. And so I emailed you and said, "I just wanted to say thank you," and then I said, "Hey, would you come on the show?" Andrew Wilder 2:14 And I said I'd love to. How did your food blogger journey start? Jillian Leslie 2:15 I love that. Okay, so we have to discuss how your blogging journey started and also then how you also have this whole other business. So, tell me. Andrew Wilder 2:26 Sure. So I'm in the middle of my second and third career simultaneously. So I originally started-- Jillian Leslie 2:33 Wait. What was your first and second? Andrew Wilder 2:35 Well, my first career was as a theatrical lighting designer, so I did lighting for live events and theater. And I actually worked for a while designing shows for Princess Cruises and so I was I was traveling the world on cruise ships for a while, and it was awesome in my 20s. Then by the time I got to my 30s, not so much. And I kind of burned out on that, decided to move on. And around the same time, this was in the late 2000s, I was out of a long-term relationship and I wasn't feeling great, I wasn't taking great care of my body and I realized something needed to change. I kind of had an aha moment after reading Michael Pollan's work and I sort of had a year of transformation where I got healthy and started exercising pretty much for the first time in my life. Jillian Leslie 3:21 Wow! What kind of exercise? Andrew Wilder 3:25 I started with yoga, that's a great way to get into it. Jillian Leslie 3:28 Yoga works? Wait. YogaWorks? Andrew Wilder 3:29 Actually, I was doing yoga at home. I found a video podcast called YOGAmazing. And they were, like, 20 minute yoga sessions, so it was super great for beginners. I could, you know, do it in my living room and fall over and nobody would be looking, which is really nice. So, it's great If you're really just starting out. And I really liked it, my body really responded well to it. I actually started running after that. And I was the kid who would throw up after running a cross country in PE. It was horrible. And I went to a very sports-focused school and I was the kid in the theater who was puking. So I got over that and I actually started running and enjoying it. I realized as I was transitioning out of my writing career, I'm like, "Okay, I don't know what to do next." And everybody always says follow your passion and the money will come, right. I'm like, "Okay, well, what am I passionate about?" I'm really focused on all of this and I want to help other people. And so I decided to start my own blog about healthy eating and diet and nutrition. So I actually started my blog, which is called Eating Rules. The double entendre is intended, right? So I started that in April of 2010. Jillian Leslie 4:37 Wow. So a while ago. Andrew Wilder 4:40 Yeah. Well, what's funny is, I thought I was late to the blogging party at that point. I went to the International Food Blogger Conference that summer and I was meeting people like Elise Bauer and David Lebovitz who started in like 2004-2005. And I thought I was, like, late. And turns out, there is an attrition to blogging, right, and now I'm, like, old guard. So there is that. Yeah, it feels like I've been blogging forever. I mean, it's what, almost nine years now. So yeah, when I started I was, like, nonstop. I was writing six posts a week. I wasn't doing anything else other than working out, so I had time. That quickly went to 5 times a week and then 4 times a week because, you know, it's hard to maintain that. Jillian Leslie 5:31 And now where is it? Andrew Wilder 5:34 Once every six months. Jillian Leslie 5:35 Ooh! Okay. Got it. Andrew Wilder 5:38 But yeah, we're not going to talk about that so much. So that's because I'm busy with the third career really. Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in computers. And in the '90s I had started building websites, and actually, throughout the 2000s, I had a one e-commerce client that I just kind of had as a client on the side while I was doing all the travel. So when I started my blog, I had an advantage because I knew the tech already, and so that definitely helps. I was sort of inherently focused on SEO and speed and various things like that, so it made it a lot easier for me to get started. But then when I got into the food blogging community, which is amazing, I got involved with the Food Bloggers Los Angeles group. And I went to the Camp Blogaway conference, which was up in the mountains, about three hours east of LA. That conference isn't running anymore but it was awesome. It was about 100 bloggers in a mountain retreat for a weekend. And most of those folks were LA-based because it was hard to get to otherwise. From there, they asked me to speak at a Food Bloggers LA meeting and I put together this presentation on Google Analytics. I didn't know what I was getting into, so like, I did a deep dive. I printed out 14 pages of stuff for everybody because I didn't have a projector. It was, like, three hours and people just hammering me with questions about Analytics. Afterwards, people swarmed me. They're like, "Hey, can I hire you to fix my blog?" And I was like, "No, no, no. Don't pay me. I'll be happy to help you out." And people were like, "No, no, I'm going to pay you. What's your rate?" and they insisted on paying me. That's kind of when the light bulb went off and I'm like, "Hmm, wait a minute. Maybe there's something to this." And from there, Blog Tutor was born. Jillian Leslie 7:24 Which is your third business. Andrew Wilder 7:26 Which is my third business. I was just doing, like, hourly fixing stuff. I was doing blog redesigns and just helping people out with the stuff that came up. Over a couple of years of that and working on, I don't know, dozens or maybe a hundred sites, I started to see patterns of what everybody kind of needs to be doing but isn't. And I'm like, "Oh, I'm setting this up on every site," you know. Why you need to make backups of your site or blog And like backups is a perfect example. Like so many people don't make backups of their site. And so I would set up backups and I found the backup systems that worked reliably and were also easy to restore if something happened, because that's also really important. So out of that, I kind of started to standardize what I was installing and setting up, and I turned that into a maintenance and support subscription. So instead of working hourly for folks, which is very unpredictable for me and for my clients, instead, it's a fixed monthly rate. We include various services with it. And that's really been a game changer for everybody. It allows me to help more people because it's consistent and I can optimize what I'm doing on my end and I can hire people to help me with some things, so I can help more people that way. It's also made my income more regular and predictable, which is I've never had that in my life. Jillian Leslie 8:47 Nice, nice. Andrew Wilder 8:49 I can run a report on Metorik, I'm not sure how he pronounces it, which is a WooCommerce website. M-E-T-O-R-I-K dot com. A game changer. Bryce (the guy behind that) is brilliant, so I'm going to give him a shout-out on that. Jillian Leslie 9:04 Great. And I'll link to it in the show notes. Andrew Wilder 9:07 Excellent. So yeah, I can go to Metorik and see exactly, you know, if nobody signs up for my plans and nobody leaves, I know exactly how much money I'm going to earn in the next 12 months. Jillian Leslie 9:15 That's amazing. How many blogs would you say you manage? Andrew Wilder 9:19 We are managing a little over 200 sites right now. Jillian Leslie 9:24 That's amazing. Andrew Wilder 9:26 That's also why I'm spending 12 or 13 hours a day, every day in front of my computer. Jillian Leslie 9:30 I get it. Why it's important to hire help when you're a blogger Andrew Wilder 9:31 So I'm tired. But I've actually hired help. I have two guys working with me who are awesome. I brought Sergio on about a year ago in October of 2017. He and I met at WordCamp LA, which is a WordPress conference. We ended up sitting next to each other at a session on the WordPress command line interface and he showed me some tricks. And I'm like, "Hey, you're cool and you're generous, and let's talk." We just totally hit it off and became friends. And he's awesome. Then my more recent hire is Ben Meyer who is also a food blogger. He found me through Food Blogger Pro. He's active in the forums there and I'm one of their resident experts. I had been planning on like working on hiring somebody in October and he reached out in September, just sent me a cold email. I had seen him around, but his email was excellent. You know, so he wrote a really good cover letter and I'm like, "Wait a minute, let's talk." So both Sergio and Ben kind of fell into my lap, so to speak, and they've been great. And, you know, I could not be managing this many sites on my own at this point. Why solving a problem for others can turn into a business Jillian Leslie 10:42 I bet. A couple things that you said that I really resonate with. One, people came up to you and said, "Hey, help me with my blog." And boom, there's the problem, you're the solution. Like, there was your business. So again, I always say this to people, which is, look for what people are responding to you about your... you know, it could be something, you know, here you are this food blogger wanting to talk about health and healthy eating and then who knew that people would want this other service from you. So that was terrific that you saw that opportunity and seized upon it or seized it. Andrew Wilder 11:16 I mean, it's just kind of the path. You know what, you have to be out there doing stuff, right? Jillian Leslie 11:20 Yes. Andrew Wilder 11:21 And if you're doing that, then paths will appear and then you get to choose which path you want to take. Jillian Leslie 11:25 And people will appear because as you just said, "Wow, I met this guy at this conference, or this guy reached out to me." So just my piece of advice is: be open. Andrew Wilder 11:35 One thing, one piece of advice I like to give about going to food blog conferences. So I love going to conferences and, at this point, I tend to like going for the social aspect because I get to see a bunch of people I don't see very often. Right? How to meet people at a conference But when I started, when I went to that first IFBC conference, I didn't know anybody, literally. Like I started using Twitter a week before and through Twitter, actually, I found I was sitting on the same exact train going into the city with another blogger from LA and we happen to have been on the same plane. So we connected and walked to the hotel together. But so, you know, finding ways to reach out and connect with people is amazing. But what I started doing at the conference was we have these, like, 15- or 20-minute breaks between sessions and I would give myself the assignment of go and meet three new people. Jillian Leslie 12:19 Oh, I like that. Oh, it's so uncomfortable. Andrew Wilder 12:22 Totally uncomfortable. But you know, people are really friendly. Jillian Leslie 12:24 They are. Andrew Wilder 12:26 And, you know, as long as you're nice, people are going to be nice to you, I think, or I believe. And so, what I would do though is I go introduce myself politely. I wouldn't like burst in and interrupt a conversation or something. But after a couple of minutes, we'd exchange cards. I'd say, I'd literally tell people, "I've got to go meet two more people. It was nice meeting you. Let's talk soon." And I go meet two more people. And people actually got a kick out of it. So like, you know, so I also didn't get stuck talking to one person and as opposed to, you know. And from that, I met some very dear friends who, you know, I consider my closest friends now. Jillian Leslie 12:59 Right. And what I find... and again, I've talked about this on the podcast. I also like going to conferences and meeting people that I may know virtually, but all of a sudden, you meet them in real life and it just takes everything to a whole different level. And bloggers do share. Like, they're kind and they they will help. I have found that there isn't this feeling of like, "Oh, I have to keep all my secrets to myself." The people are very generous, like, "Oh, I've been doing this on Facebook and it's been working," or, "You should try this with your email," or whatever. And I have always found that so helpful and generous. Andrew Wilder 13:40 I completely agree. And it's amazing because food blogging is incredibly competitive. You know, like, I like to say there's room for all of us, but realistically, there's only 10 search results on the first page. And there's only so many pins and so many eyeballs. And so, you know, clearly it's a huge market and there is room for anybody who's really dedicated. But it's amazing to me how supportive bloggers are of each other when you're supporting your competition. And I can't think of any other industry that's like that. Jillian Leslie 14:10 And there are ways that if you work together, you can help each other grow. Andrew Wilder 14:14 Absolutely. And what's really special. I mean, I love working with food bloggers, like, they're nice people and they're nice clients. When I started working, when I was working for the cruise ships, they would take six months to pay us and it was like an ordeal, we'd have to helm that. And like, food bloggers pay me in advance, and I solve a problem and then I get, you know, a huge thank you. It's nice. I'm not, like, banging my head against the keyboard, you know, and it makes me want to keep helping people. Jillian Leslie 14:41 Totally. Now, back to what you had mentioned. Okay, so people came to you and you kept seeing certain problems over and over again. One was backups. But what other... So again, we all need to be backing up our sites. Andrew Wilder 14:55 Yes. Jillian Leslie 14:56 And can you talk a minute about that? But also, what were these other problems or mistakes or things that people were struggling with? Technical mistakes bloggers make Andrew Wilder 15:04 It sort of falls into, I don't know, three or four buckets. So backups is one of them. The key with backups is, well, first of all, you have to back up files and your database because you need both of those things for WordPress to be complete. And then you have to back them up off-site and it should be on schedule. Like if you just had a calendar reminder to do it once a week, that's not sufficient really because you're going to forget. And the last piece of that is you have to know how to restore your site if something goes wrong. So backups are a little tricky to do. The other thing is, don't ever trust your host to do backups. Some hosts do backups and especially the Manage WordPress posts. But unless you are absolutely sure that they're doing backups and you can access them, and it's not just like the whole server disaster recovery kind of backup, that's not usually sufficient. I had one friend who had a hosting company. Her hosting company disappeared overnight. It was a smaller company, obviously, and she didn't have any backups and her site was gone. Emails started bouncing. Like, nothing. She totally lost her entire site. Jillian Leslie 16:06 Wow. The need to backup your site Andrew Wilder 16:06 That's like the extreme horror story, right? So I can't emphasize backups enough. The other reason I start with backups is you can screw anything else up, your site can get hacked. It doesn't matter if you have a backup you can restore from, you can get back in business. So it's this massive safety net. Jillian Leslie 16:23 I think we back up our sites every day. Andrew Wilder 16:26 I hope so. On my services I take backups so seriously that I actually am doing three different backups nightly. We're using ManageWP now to do incremental backups through a plugin. We're also using CodeGuard, which is a third-party service that doesn't require a plugin or Wordpress's system. It's blogs directly into the server against the backup. And we're also using UpdraftPlus to make a local backup nightly, which that one's more for convenience than security. But that way, you can just make a really quick backup before making any changes or anything. So that's that's how seriously I take backup. Jillian Leslie 16:59 Okay. So everybody, take that seriously. Okay. And then what are the other mistakes or problems that people are facing or were facing when they reached out to you? Making sure your site is secure Andrew Wilder 17:11 Security is a big one. WordPress is not inherently insecure, right? It's an active product that's being developed, but vulnerabilities are discovered. Vulnerabilities and plugins are discovered. Basic stuff like not sharing passwords through email. It's a big one. Email is not secure and that password will sit in both people's archives forever. Reusing passwords is a bad practice, right? Like, what was it, Target that got hacked? If your email address and password were hacked in the Target breach and you use the same email address and password on other services, it's not hard for hackers to make that connection. So using strong passwords and unique passwords on every platform, it's important Jillian Leslie 17:52 My husband who is a technologist forced me to start using 1Password which is a password service and it's not an easy system to use, but it makes everything that much more secure. Andrew Wilder 18:14 Are you on Mac or PC? Jillian Leslie 18:15 Mac. Andrew Wilder 18:17 I'm on PC and I don't love 1Password on PC. I've heard its really good on Mac, but maybe not. Another good one is Dashlane. I also found a free one called Buttercup recently and I started playing with it. And it looks like it might actually be good. So that's another one people could check out. Jillian Leslie 18:32 Yeah. At least with 1Password, and I think 1Password has like kind of a subscription plan that makes it easier, but I will say it's a little bit of a learning curve to use it. But once you do, then you don't know how you'd ever live without it. Andrew Wilder 18:48 Exactly. It's once you get it set up, it makes your life not only more secure but it actually makes your life easier. Jillian Leslie 18:54 It does. So I would recommend investing the time in some sort of password plugin or program or something like that. Andrew Wilder 19:04 Absolutely. And then security scanning is also important, having a good firewall. There's all this technical stuff you can do to help protect your site. Update your site often to fix security vulnerabilities Then the next big, big thing that people aren't doing and should is updating their sites. There's all these plugins and updates are released regularly for a lot of them. Sometimes updates are just new features. Sometimes though, they're fixing security holes. As soon as there's an update to fix a security vulnerability, that becomes a known vulnerability. So hackers actually know this and they can start testing that for sites that haven't updated yet. So one of our tiers of our support plans, we take care of the updates. The other part of it is if something breaks during an update, we'll fix it. That's part of the the peace of mind aspect. Because what happens when you hit update and there's a bug in the new update and you get a white screen of death, if you don't know how to fix it, you're going to be stuck and your site's going to be down. So we're able to take that burden off of people. One of the other advantages of working on so many sites is we see patterns emerge very quickly. So for example, there was a vulnerability in a GDPR plugin, the WP GDPR compliance plugin recently. It was a very bad one, actually. And we were able to find that very quickly. Then we just found all of our sites that were running that plugin and updated them immediately so that they wouldn't get hacked. Jillian Leslie 20:32 Can we talk about plugins in general? Andrew Wilder 20:34 Sure. Jillian Leslie 20:34 Okay. So I know as we just talked about previously, for MiloTree, we built MiloTree so that it was incredibly light and incredibly fast. And the big, I guess, criticism of plugins is they slow down your site and you don't want too many. So can you speak to that and what that means? And how many plugins you'd recommend? Andrew Wilder 20:55 Sure. With plugins, it's not about quantity, it's about quality. You know, most people don't realize how complicated WordPress itself is. I've actually been wanting to do a search and figure out how many millions of lines of code there is on WordPress. And a plugin could be literally two lines of active code, or it could be... so it could be a very lightweight plugin that doesn't do much. And that will be, you know, assuming it doesn't, like, have some problem with it, that won't slow things down at all, you know. But it could be a very large bug. Like, Woocommerce is a huge plugin, right? It's a good plugin but it's huge because it does a lot of stuff and it takes a lot more work for your server to process that. Pick WordPress plugins based on their quality and speed So really focus on quality and size and scope of plugin, you know, if it's well coded and fast. You know, MiloTree has been designed from the ground up to be fast, right? Jillian Leslie 21:49 Right. Andrew Wilder 21:50 So that makes a big difference. I've seen a lot of pop-up plugins that really bog things down, or sometimes they'll keep track of their stats, and I'll log in and check the database and their stats database will be like 200 megabytes, and it's slowing everything down because of that. I can't give you a number of like "Oh, it's okay, to have this many plugins." You know, in general, less is more; and fewer plugins, it's going to be faster because it's less for your site to do. But you really want to focus on on the quality and the speed and the weight. The other thing to consider is, what does the plugin do? Does it add a feature in the dashboard? Or does it add a feature on the front end? Or both? Adding stuff to the front end will add, you know, maybe JavaScript and stylesheets and other stuff. Some plugins are very greedy. The EasyRecipe plugin, for example, I think it added four stylesheets and four Javascripts to every page load, whether there's a recipe on it or not. And in this age where Google and everybody's pushing for more speed, you don't want to bog your site down with that. Does site speed matter? Jillian Leslie 22:53 Can we talk about that? Because my husband is like a speed freak, okay. All he cares about is site speed. He will get mad at me if our photos are not resized, that kind of thing. Could we talk about why speed... like, is he right that speed is so important? Andrew Wilder 23:15 Yes, to a point. So, speed is critical. It is a ranking factor for Google. But it's also good for users. If you click through on a search result to a chocolate chip cookie recipe and you see a white screen for five seconds and then you see an ad pop-up before anything else, you're going to click away before you even get to the recipe, so it needs to load fast. People are on their phones which don't have as fast a connection to the internet and a slower processor. So part of it is just thinking of the user and making sure the site loads quickly because people don't have time, you know, in this millennial age. If it's not there, almost instantly forget. They're going to hit the back button and try a different search result. At the same time, you don't have to be obsessive about speed. In terms of SEO and ranking, actually you don't get a boost in the rankings for being faster inherently. You actually can be penalized for being slow though. And that's also relative to your vertical. So you want to be faster than other food blogs. Jillian Leslie 24:23 Got it, okay. Andrew Wilder 24:26 If you're running a food blog. Jillian Leslie 24:27 Okay, okay. Andrew Wilder 24:29 But faster is better. The other places with a lot of confusion is people are like, "Oh, my page took 20 seconds to load." The total page load time is not really a useful metric. Because what happens during those 20 seconds? What you want to have happen is your page starts showing something very quickly. Within two seconds, the visitor has to see something happening. Within three seconds, they should be starting to read your content. So you want to be looking at, like, First Contentful Paint. It's like basically the first time the browser paints anything or draws anything. Because if your header image and your post title and your first picture, and some of your actual blog post content starts showing up within three seconds, your site's going to be crazy fast to the visitor. Then if other stuff around it kind of loads while the person is reading, they may not even notice. So it's not so much the total time, but it's more about the perception of speed. Jillian Leslie 25:22 Oh, interesting. Andrew Wilder 25:24 And starting to really break down what's important on the page. Jillian Leslie 25:27 Interesting. Okay, so we've touched on, wow, okay, so we've touched on security, we've touched on site speed, we've touched on backups. Anything else that bloggers struggle with? Why you need recipe markups if you're a food blogger Andrew Wilder 25:45 Recipes and recipe markup -- that's a challenge. Jillian Leslie 25:49 Can we talk about what that is? Andrew Wilder 25:51 Yes. Most people, I think, are aware of this now, where you want to use a modern recipe plugin that basically lets you format your recipe on the page. And it looks good, like you have your recipe card, as it's usually called. But it also in the code has markup to tell Google, "Hey, this is the ingredient, this is the description, this is the cook time, the prep time. This is the number of ratings it has." All that stuff is actually in the code and it gives that information to Google. And if you have enough of that information in, Google will reward that by showing what's called a rich snippet in the search results. The little thumbnail image and the rating and, you know, the cook time and stuff. And the more of that information you have in the search results, the more likely somebody has to click on it because it looks much more appealing. So the trick is, you need to fill out all the information or as much of it as possible. If you consistently don't fill out the cook time, you're missing out on opportunity. So it's real tedious to go through and make sure everything is, you know, filled out completely or as completely as possible. But it really does pay dividends on that. Jillian Leslie 27:01 What is your favorite recipe plugin, card plugin? Andrew Wilder 27:05 So there's a few good ones. The one I currently include with my support plans is WP Recipe Maker. The other one I'd recommend is Tasty Recipes. That's from the the same folks who do Food Blogger Pro. Jillian Leslie 27:17 Yeah, I know them. Andrew Wilder 27:18 I know them, I like them a lot. Jillian Leslie 27:20 Me too. Andrew Wilder 27:21 When I started doing WP RM, it was the only plug-in at the time that was fully Google compliant So I started including that as a service for my client. You know, I see that sort of as a value add with my services. It's not sort of as much as of a core component. But it's really helpful. For folks who have ZipList Recipe still or EasyRecipe Plus, you're going to see a big improvement by converting over to WP Recipe Maker or Tasty Recipes. What I always recommend is when somebody's doing a conversion, they do them one at a time; they test for accuracy and completeness. That's the same time you go through and say, "Oh, wait, this is missing the prep time," and you add that or it's missing keywords, or whatever information it is. Jillian Leslie 28:05 Interesting. So, keep going. Andrew Wilder 28:08 I was going to say, then you can also... if you have your site configured in Google Search Console, it'll show you a report of which recipes are missing information. It does take a week or two to update sometimes, so you have to be patient, it's not an instant thing. But as you're working through stuff, you know, once a week check on your Google Search Console and you'll start seeing, "Oh, these recipes are all complete now." Why MiloTree is such a powerful plugin to grow your social media followers Jillian Leslie 28:31 "I wanted to take a short break to talk about how powerful MiloTree is. And why is it so powerful? Because MiloTree is taking your traffic -- people who have been on your site and converting those people into followers and subscribers. And what happens when you take people who love you, who know your content, who then become followers, what happens is those people become engaged. Those people interact with your content on social. And what that does is it signals to the social networks the your accounts matter and will show your content to more people. So these aren't just any followers and subscribers. These are the cream of the crop. And that's what MiloTree does. So I invite you to head on over to MiloTree.com to sign up for your 30-day free trial to see how it works for you. And it also will work on WordPress, we have a WordPress plugin. But there's also a simple line of code that you can install on your Shopify store or any platform where you own your site." And now back to the show." Now, here's the thing. The name of the game -- I was just having this conversation with David, my husband and partner -- and what we were saying is, it doesn't matter how great your site is. What really, at the end of the day, matters for you to make money is traffic. So when you think about that for Google so that you can get traffic, what are your strategies? What are your tips for how to use your blog technology to drive traffic to your site? Andrew Wilder 30:24 It's a lot of what we just talked about from a technical perspective. You know, the site has to be fast, it has to be up and working. And it has to be mobile-friendly. Beyond that, you have to have great content. That is still the number one thing, is great content. When you're optimizing for SEO or any traffic, the most important thing is, think of your visitor. Are they having a good experience? Is it immediately obvious what your site's about, who you are, I can't believe how many people still don't have a smiling picture of themselves at the top of the site. People want to know who they're reading. Why it's important to show Google you are an authority in your niche And Google is also focused on expertise, authority and trustworthiness (the E.A.T). So when Google is looking at your site and humans from Google look at your site too, they want to see that you are an authority and you're trustworthy and you're an expert. So you have to kind of drop those clues. Having a nice picture of you smiling at the top. "Hi, I'm Andrew. Welcome to Eating Rules." It doesn't have to be much. In fact, it shouldn't be much. But rather than some random chocolate chip recipe, it's, "Oh, hey, this is my daughter in my food blog," or whatever your hook is, right? You got to hook people and draw them in and then you have to give them some good stuff. Edit out your redundant blog photos -- show the steps One other thing I've been paying attention to a lot is your photos. You know, everybody knows you have to have great photos, right? But when you take 12 pictures of that cake, with the perfect slice cut out of it, and all the pictures are almost identical and you put all of them in the blog post, you're not really adding value for the reader. Instead, you have one beautiful shot at the top of that cake, right. And it's like, "Oh, want to make that." And you start scrolling, scrolling, you know, reading through the blog and you talk a little bit about how you make the cake, and maybe the process shots of, you know, step-by-step photos of how to make the cake. So like, if you're layering, you know, raspberry filling or whatever in the middle, show a picture of that so people can see how it's done because then you're providing value. And make sure that picture looks nice and it's compelling. That way, you're kind of holding people's hand through this experience of making the cake and they're going to get better results because you're showing them how to do it better and they're going to trust you more. Jillian Leslie 32:29 Right. And especially because people consume content on their phones. So to have photo after photo after photo that's just a slightly different angle, you know, I'm on my phone so I don't want to be scrolling through those photos. Andrew Wilder 32:44 And I know it's hard for people to edit. You know, you get the cake to look beautiful, you set up your light. You've got the camera, you've got all the gear. And, you know, you shoot 200 pictures of this. Show three. Jillian Leslie 32:59 Yes. In fact, I was given that piece of advice for SEO, which is to take out really, like be hypercritical taking out photos in your posts. You know, back in the day it was like throwing in the kitchen sink. And it reminds me, I was a writer in Hollywood and there's always that thing about you need to be able to kill your babies, which means you have a joke or a piece of something and you love it so much. And to become a better writer, you need to learn to delete stuff even if it's good. Andrew Wilder 33:33 Exactly. So, from a user perspective, it's good to get rid of those photos. You know, I don't want to scroll through 12 of the same picture. As I'm scrolling on my phone, those pictures all start to look the same anyway. But from a speed perspective, it's huge too. You know, images compared to anything else are enormous. You know, you might have a 200 kilobyte image. And if you have 12 of those, just the images in your page are over a megabyte, which is slow anywhere. And all the Javascripts and all the HTML probably won't even add up to that much. Jillian Leslie 34:03 Right, yes. Aren't there plugins that resize photos and things like that? Andrew Wilder 34:09 Yes. Jillian Leslie 34:10 And you recommend the? Use an image optimizer to reduce the size of your photos Andrew Wilder 34:11 I do. Actually, I include image optimization on my Inner Peace support plan because it's such an important thing. So not only will we compress the photos, we will actually scale them down, if needed, as well. Because, you know, if you upload right out of your camera, you might be uploading a 4000 by 3000 pixel image that's four megabytes. There are some ways to mitigate that with image source set, which usually only works on mobile. But still, you're better off scaling the image to the size it's going to be displayed. Optimizing it or compressing it with the JPEG compression before you even export out of Photoshop or Lightroom or wherever you're editing. And then when you upload to have an image compression plugin, like ShortPixel or Imagify, that will squeeze out a few more kilobytes and optimize the image. The other reason it's really good to have an image optimization plugin is when you upload an image to WordPress, it generates thumbnail images. So it will basically take your, let's say, your 700 pixel wide image that you upload. It might also create a 500 by 500, and it might create a 300 by 300, and a 150 by 150. So it creates these little thumbnails that are used in various ways. Which images it creates basically depend on your plugins and your theme. But those images will also be optimized by the plugins. So it runs in the background automatically. So once you have it set up and configured, you don't have to do anything, which is really nice. It doesn't add any burden to your workflow. It doesn't make life harder. Jillian Leslie 35:39 Right. Andrew Wilder 35:41 So, ShortPixel is my favorite one. Jillian Leslie 35:42 Okay. And we'll have all these in the show notes. Okay, so here is my next question. So it seems like every so often, pretty often, there are new technical things that come out. Like Google doesn't want you to show intrusive pop-ups on mobile or GDPR. Like, I feel like people's heads exploded. What do you see coming down the pike? What do I need to know about Gutenberg, the new editor is WordPress? Andrew Wilder 36:04 Well, the big, big, big one is Gutenberg. So Gutenberg is the new editor in WordPress. It's been under under development for well over a year. It was originally going to come out this past spring and then it was going to come out the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and then it was going to come out the Monday after Thanksgiving. And it is still not out yet. I'm very glad they didn't release it right before Thanksgiving. It is a beautiful way to create content. It's sort of similar to Medium, if you've ever seen their editor. And it thinks in terms of blocks. So paragraph is a block, and image is a block. Jillian Leslie 36:41 Isn't it very similar also to say like MailChimp or any of those email services where you're constantly adding the blocks? Andrew Wilder 36:49 Yes. Mad Mimi works kind of the same way. So, I think Gutenberg is a great thing for the future. It's, you know, the old editor, the TinyMCE, that's what it's called, is kind of clunky. You can't really do much but write paragraphs and dropping some pictures. It's hard to extend and do things like tables or, you know, three columns or something like that. So, Gutenberg is going to add a lot of that functionality and really modernize things. The trick is, any plugin that works in the editor has to become Gutenberg compatible. They're catching up but Gutenberg has been changing so rapidly that it's been very difficult for plugin authors to keep up. So what my recommendation is, is basically I'm bullish on Gutenberg long term, but I'm bearish in the short term. If you've got an existing site, it may not be worth changing to Gutenberg just yet. So what's going to happen is right now, if you want to use Gutenberg, you have to install it as a separate plugin. When WordPress 5.0 comes out, it will be built in and it'll be the default editor. If you want to stick with what you've got, you can install the classic editor. It's a plugin to the repository that basically as soon as you install it, it just keeps things as is. You can install that now before 5.0 is released. Then when 5.0 comes out, you can update and you'll still have the classic editor. So what I recommend is doing that now, you know, especially in Q4 when everybody's got crazy traffic from the holidays, like don't break anything right now. Then in January or February, we can revisit this and then maybe time it to test out Gutenberg. Okay, so don't rush. Don't rush into it. There's there's going to be benefits but at the moment, you could really kind of shoot yourself in the foot. I had one client who installed Gutenberg and it seemed to be working. and then they had their VAs going through and editing lots of recipes for two weeks and then they discovered problems where things weren't saving properly. They had to go back and fix a lot of stuff. Especially if you don't catch a problem right away, it's really hard to restore from a backup and they had to fix all of this manually and it was a lot of work. So, tread lightly. Gutenberg is going to be great but it might not be there yet. Jillian Leslie 38:58 Right. My husband has a similar philosophy like when iOS comes out with new versions, he waits like a month or two or three or I don't know how long because everybody gets excited and downloads it, but then typically, they kind of fix stuff in the beginning. So patience a little bit kind of can get you further. Andrew Wilder 39:22 I actually set up a playground for my clients where they could log into just a fresh WordPress installation that has Gutenberg installed so they can tinker with it and get a feel for it without having to risk breaking their own sites. Then I installed common plugins like I installed Tasty Recipes and WP Recipe Maker which we both now... yep. So both of those plugins are Gutenberg compatible now officially. Jillian Leslie 39:44 Okay, got it. Andrew Wilder 39:46 But, you know, that's only until Gutenberg changes something and it breaks something in the plugin, and plugin authors have to fix it. So, it's going to be a little rough for a little while. Jillian Leslie 39:54 I get that. Now, here's a question. I know of a blogger who recently changed their theme and their Google traffic like halved. Is that a common thing? Andrew Wilder 40:09 It shouldn't happen. But I wouldn't say it's not common. You know, it's hard to say. It depends what changed. And I'm not a forensic SEO expert, I could refer that person to some great people who might be able to pinpoint what happened and what went wrong. It could be a number of things. It could be that their speed suddenly tanked and the new theme was actually much slower. Or it could be that there was a technical problem or maybe they changed their URLs by accident and didn't realize it. There's so many variables here that it can happen for sure. If you do it "right", it shouldn't happen. If anything, Google, should... you know, you should be making things better, not worse. So, you should long-term at least be rewarded. You know, sometimes when there are big changes, Google will kind of drop things until it gets a chance to re-index. So it might just be like a dip for a couple of weeks. That can happen too, so don't panic necessarily. It could also be bad timing. It could be that there was a Google algorithm change around the same time and, you know, you think it's because of your theme but it's not; it's because of something else. Jillian Leslie 41:19 Interesting. Okay. What's interesting is you're technical and you're a food blogger. So how do you think about social media from a blogger perspective, a technical perspective, or however you want to answer that question? Andrew Wilder 41:34 So I burned out on social media, to be honest. I may not be the best person to ask because I'm kind of down on social media. Jillian Leslie 41:42 As are a lot of people, yes. Andrew Wilder 41:45 I know Instagram exploded and I found it wasn't doing anything for traffic, so I kind of lost interest. You know, Twitter doesn't drive traffic for the most part, so it's really all Pinterest. You know, Facebook drives very little traffic. If you make videos, Facebook is great, but otherwise, forget it. Jillian Leslie 42:03 But I would say that Facebook is good at rewarding your Facebook page, but not necessarily driving traffic even with videos. Andrew Wilder 42:13 Yeah. You know, because they want to keep people on Facebook to get their advertising dollars. Right? Jillian Leslie 42:18 Exactly. Andrew Wilder 42:20 So, you know, on my own food blog, I did okay on Pinterest but I never quite cracked the Pinterest code, to be honest, you know. I was kind of phasing out of Eating Rules and more focused on Blog Tutor. And for Blog Tutor, I'm not really doing a lot of social media because I don't need to. My business is growing organically through referrals. You know, because food bloggers all talk to each other. So I'm blessed that I don't have to do a ton of marketing right now. You know, where I do use social media is Facebook for support groups like Food Bloggers Central is a great place for folks to get advice. Jillian Leslie 42:58 Is that a Facebook group? Big Facebook groups for food bloggers to check out Andrew Wilder 42:59 Yes. There's a few really big Facebook groups of 2000 or 3000 or 4000 people in them, but they're very active. So if you have a question you could ask there and get an answer very quickly. I often answer questions in there to help people out which is of course, great marketing for me. So Facebook groups are really, really useful. I mean, that's sort of replaced other forums. But yeah, if you can tell me Pinterest secrets. I will be listening to that podcast. Jillian Leslie 43:27 We do. Well, actually, Pinterest is very, very important for Catch My Party. In fact, we're approaching a million followers. Andrew Wilder 43:34 Oh, Mazel Tov. Jillian Leslie 43:36 Thank you. And again, we take what Pinterest says very seriously. When Pinterest talks, we listen. That drives millions of page views for us and that's how we ended up building MiloTree was to support, to keep our Pinterest followers growing. So I was curious, especially since you're a food blogger and, you know, Pinterest is I think such an important platform for food bloggers. Andrew Wilder 44:04 I think for me, some of it is it's the the cobbler's kids' shoes. Jillian Leslie 44:08 Yes. I so get that, the manicurist's nails. Yes. Andrew Wilder 44:13 I'm so busy working on other people's sites that it's hard at the end of the day, you know, to spend any time on my own. Jillian Leslie 44:18 I get it. Andrew Wilder 44:20 And that's okay. I've made peace with that. Jillian Leslie 44:22 I get that. Okay, so what is one, just randomly, one piece of food advice that has helped you that you think has really helped your health? Andrew Wilder 44:33 Recently, I've cut out carbs. I don't want to say I jumped on the keto bandwagon. But I feel much better. I think it's because I'm eating more vegetables instead of bread and cheese when I'm working all day and I have to go grab something out of the fridge real quick. When I grab carrots instead of crackers, that makes a difference. Jillian Leslie 44:55 And have you lost weight? Andrew Wilder 44:56 I have. Jillian Leslie 44:57 Naturally without trying? Andrew Wilder 44:59 Yeah. I'm using a meal delivery service for lunches called Territory. It's expensive but it's really good. It's great because I get my five lunches a week delivered and the food's excellent. It's basically lots of vegetables and various proteins, and they have keto-friendly ones, or low-carb ones ready. Because I've been so swamped with work that it's sort of an indulgence, you know, to not have to cook for myself, but it's actually kind of necessary because I don't have the time right now. Which leads me to one big point actually that, like, I'm hiring help. And right now, the help I need is for somebody else to make me lunch. Jillian Leslie 45:47 I like that, I like that. I'm a big believer in that. Advice: Learn to hire people for your business Andrew Wilder 45:54 Inherently, everybody I'm working with, they've learned or they started to learn to hire help because I'm the help they're hiring. And it's something that I've been trying to learn in my own business. It's like, "you know what? Just because I can do this doesn't mean I should." Jillian Leslie 46:05 Right. And there is a process of letting go and that somebody might not make your lunch the exact same way you would and that's okay. Andrew Wilder 46:15 Although, at the same time, I'm often pleasantly surprised that, like, they might make the lunch better than I would. Jillian Leslie 46:22 Exactly. Andrew Wilder 46:25 That's something I've been working really hard on leaving the door open to like because I'm kind of a control freak and I'm, I'm pretty good at a lot of stuff. I like to say I'm good at a lot of things. I'm not excellent at everything. You know, like, I'm not super niche down. So it's hard for me to find people who can do the breadth of stuff, but I'm finding people who can do certain things much better than me. And that has been so liberating, and to take that kind of stuff off my plate which frees me up to do other stuff. And so, you know, it takes time and and leaps faith sometimes to find that but when you do, it's so great Jillian Leslie 47:04 It is. And if you can find the one thing that I am very careful of, intentional about is the people I hired to help me and if they are people that I like and that do great work, and they make my life so much more pleasant, and so I would say take the time to really find those gems because they're out there. Andrew Wilder 47:31 What's the phrase? Hire slowly but fire quickly. Jillian Leslie 47:34 Yes, I believe in that. Andrew Wilder 47:36 Easy to say but hard to do. If it's not working, cut it off. Jillian Leslie 47:40 Immediately, because it's not going to work. No matter how much you try to make it work, you will know, I believe, and it's just, you know, I believe that in so many areas of my business, try something. If it's not working, pull up, pull up, pull up. So well, I have to say, this has been such a treat and I'm sure that a lot of my audience is going to go "How do I reach out to this guy? How do I learn more of what he's talking about, what he's doing? How do I hire him?" So could you share how people can find out about you? Andrew Wilder 48:12 Sure, you can go to BlogTutor.com. That's B-L-O-G-T-U-T-O-R dot com. Then there's some information on the homepage. But then if you need WordPress help, there's a big old button that says "Get WordPress help" and that will show you all the information about our support plans and our pricing and the various plans that are available. Then you can sign up from there or reach out to us. You can also reach us at support@blogtutor.com. So you can just shoot us an email with some questions. So, Ben, Sergio, and I all check that inbox, so we're all we're all working on that. I will drop a little hint. I'm actually about to change the name of the company. It's a long time coming. But you know, when I started, I was originally going to write courses for food bloggers, actually very similar to Food Blogger Pro. They did it better than I ever would have. But that's why I called it Blog Tutor and, you know, it's kind of a descriptive name. We do do sort of a lot of tutoring in our emails back and forth with our clients. You know, I believe in explaining what we're doing to our clients so that they're empowered to know what's going on with their sites. We don't just fix something and then say, "okay, it's fixed." We tell you what we did so you can learn from it. But we've kind of outgrown the Blog Tutor name. So I'm in the trademarking process right now so I can't tell you yet what the name is, but it's so much better than Blog Tutor. So I don't know when this is going to air. Jillian Leslie 49:29 Probably in maybe four weeks or so. Andrew Wilder 49:33 Okay, great. I am hoping to have changed the name by then. Jillian Leslie 49:35 Okay. Well, you know what, if you reach out to me with the new name, I'll add it so that people can read the show notes and see. Andrew Wilder 49:44 Excellent, and I'll set up a redirect from Blog Tutor, so you'll be able to find us through BlogTutor.com either way. But I'm super excited about the name and I can't wait. That waslike my last big project for 2018, so I'm coming down to the deadline and we'll get there. Jillian Leslie 49:59 Nice. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for being on the show. Andrew Wilder 50:03 Well, thank you for having me. This was a pleasure. Please spread the word about The Blogger Genius Podcast Jillian Leslie 50:06 "If you're liking the Blogger Genius Podcast, there are many ways to support the show. The first way would be to share about it. If you have a friend who you think would really benefit from it, please share it. Also, if you haven't subscribed yet, head on over to iTunes, Stitcher. Google Play, anywhere you get your podcasts, and please subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Also, you can review us on iTunes. Just log into iTunes and tell people what you think, tell me what you think. I'm always open to idea. And I'll see you back here next week for a new episode." Why you need to sign up for MiloTree I invite you to head to milotree.com and start growing your business faster. If you’re trying to grow your social media followers and your email list, MiloTree will do it on steroids. It will grow your followers 24/7 and your email list, and it does it while you sleep. Watch your followers on Instagram or Pinterest or Facebook or YouTube or your email list explode! Sign up for MiloTree now, get your first 30 DAYS FREE, and set it up in under 3 minutes!

Welcome to episode 51 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. This week my guest is Gina Bianchini, founder and CEO of Mighty Networks, an online platform to help you build your brand in a variety of ways. Gina and I go into detail on how to build a vibrant online community, why Facebook groups are waning,  and why there's real value in getting your fans to interact with each other.   Resources: MiloTree Mighty Networks Teachable Kajabi Patreon CoCommercial The Happiness Project Zoom Crowdcast Catch My Party * May contain affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I might receive a small commission at no cost to you.   Transcript: How To Build A Vibrant Online Community with Gina Bianchini Host 0:04 Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Leslie 0:11 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Blogger Genius Podcast. I'm really excited about my guest today. Today, I am interviewing Gina Bianchini. Gina is a legend in Silicon Valley. If there is a list of female founders, she is always on it. She is the CEO of Mighty Networks. Many of you have probably heard of Mighty Networks or are using Mighty Networks. It's a place where you can build your own community. So without further ado, I bring you Gina Bianchini. Gina, welcome to the show. Gina Bianchini 0:48 Thank you for having me. Meeting Gina Bianchini of Mighty Networks Jillian Leslie 0:50 I was thinking about it and I think we met about five years ago. So we both went to the Stanford Business School at different times and there was a conference. You remember this? An entrepreneurship conference, and you were leading a session on product-market fit. Gina Bianchini 1:10 Yes, I do. Jillian Leslie 1:12 And I reached out to you afterwards and said, "Hey, we should get together." And then we met in your offices in downtown Palo Alto. Gina Bianchini 1:19 Yes. Jillian Leslie 1:20 And we sat down and we were talking about our business models and things like that. You were so kind. I remember you being like, "I totally get what you're doing. And any way I can help, I'm in." Then recently, somebody I was talking to mentioned Mighty Networks -- at the time it was called MightyBell, right? Gina Bianchini 1:41 Yes. Jillian Leslie 1:42 And I was thinking about you and I thought, "Oh my God," I wanted to reach out to you, have you as a guest on the podcast. What my audience probably doesn't know is that I think of you as one of the original "girlboss" founders in Silicon Valley. Gina Bianchini 1:59 Which makes me feel so feel old. Jillian Leslie 2:01 I don't mean it to make you feel old. Gina Bianchini 2:04 Okay, okay. I'm just going to, like, embrace it. Jillian Leslie 2:06 Embrace it because you have seen a lot and you have built businesses. Gina Bianchini 2:13 Yes. Jillian Leslie 2:15 So let's start. So can you share then your story and how you became an entrepreneur, how you founded businesses, and where you are today with Mighty Networks. Gina Bianchini 2:25 Sure. And I almost want to start with where I'm at today because I always think that that's sort of the more fun, you know spot, to begin with. What is Mighty Networks and who is it for? So Mighty Networks is a software platform. We sell it as a service, so people pay us money although we do have a free version to build brands and businesses that bring people together. So our passion is how do we enable and unlock for... We think about it as niche entrepreneurs, but it can be anybody from a small business owner to a creator to a lifestyle influencer to... actually, big brands use us as well. The really special secret sauce of a mighty network is that because you have in one place what you're probably using today as a group on a big blue platform... Jillian Leslie 3:25 It shall remain nameless. Gina Bianchini 3:27 Right. An online course on a platform like Teachable or Kajabi, an email list over here, a website over there. All the time you're spending in social media. We actually let you bring those things together. And when you bring those things together, something magical happens, namely, the thing we learned about at Stanford Business School which is called the "network effect," meaning you can create a brand or business that brings people together such that it gets more valuable to everyone with every new member who joins. That is the reason Facebook is as powerful as it is today. That's the reason we're using Skype right now for this podcast. And it's the reason that each and every one of us has the power and potential to take a small business and make it a lot bigger. Because if we bring people together in one place such that your courses, your groups, your website, your content, your events, and your messaging are all in one place under your brand, you are able to create something that gets more valuable with every new member who joins. So I share that as kind of the the opening because everything in my life and career has brought me to this moment in this place where I am absolutely obsessed with the notion of how to enable niche entrepreneurs to bring people together and create something much more valuable as a result. So I grew up in Cupertino down the city, where Apple was founded and is headquartered today. I grew up amongst orchards. My grandparents owned a nursery and I watched how the orchards got taken over with office buildings. But what I learned which was just sort of a function of where I was. My dad was a history teacher. My family was obsessed with thinking about how does social change happen and how have cultures changed. I was always really fascinated by people systems and how we've gone from one culture to another culture. Then being in the heart of Silicon Valley, looking at technology through the impact it has on culture, I feel like everything in my life led me to the moment that social, you know, at the time was called web 2.0 really in the early aughts. But fundamentally, It was about "Oh, I get this." I have been surrounded by technology. I worked in the Goldman Sachs high technology group. I understand technology, I understand engineering, but my passion just happened to be how do you bring people together not as robots but as human beings. Jillian Leslie 6:40 And I remember the first time we talked and we sat down, and you said that to me, so your message is incredibly consistent. Like, this is what gets you going. It's not the things. It's funny because this is stereotypical but there is some truth here, which is women like people, men like things. And so you found a way to use technology for people. Gina Bianchini 7:03 Certainly, I hope so. There's certainly moments when I feel like, "Oh my gosh, am I I working on the right stuff? Is this going to be successful?" We all have those moments of fear, vulnerability, but what I know to be true is whenever I have followed my own curiosity and hit the send button on something that scared me just a little bit, the results have been profound. At times that's kind of all we've got in terms of what drives us and what motivates us. I feel very fortunate that I was born in the right place at the right time to be able to do what I really believe in, which is how do we push out to the edges of the network in a really dorky technical way of saying it. What it really means is how do we push out to beautiful individuals with the ability and curiosity and passion to bring people together and allow them to create network effects. You know, again, create a brand that brings people together without needing to be an engineer or commute from Palo Alto to San Francisco. Or whatever it is. You can be anywhere in the world and as long as you have a passion, a niche that you want to bring together, that the tools and technology exist for you to be able to do that and create something that gets more valuable with every new person that you bring into that tribe, you bring into that niche. Jillian Leslie 8:57 Okay, so let's break it down. My audience is somebody who might be listening to this probably started as, let's say, a food blogger and they loved food, so they started putting their recipes out there and then they started getting visitors. Then they started growing social media networks, social media accounts, and then they started to monetize. And this is very true, which is I think that a lot of online entrepreneurs especially female entrepreneurs kind of start with their passion. Then they figure out over time, "Okay, how do I monetize this? So usually, first, you put up some ads and then you say, "Oh, I can work with brands." Then you say, "I want to create my own products and I want to grow my social media accounts," and they start building that way. So could you talk about how you think about that and what happens? Gina Bianchini 10:00 Absolutely love this question. Jillian Leslie 10:02 Oh, wait, wait, but I just want to say because what happens is the people who you start to piece together these stacks of technology. "Oh, I need to make a course, I go over here." "Oh, I need a Pinterest Scheduler, I go over here." Whatever it is. So we end up with all of these different things that all you hope kind of talk to each other. Gina Bianchini 10:25 Yep. Jillian Leslie 10:26 So talk about then the organic growth of somebody's business and how you could help them. Gina Bianchini 10:32 Yeah. And you forgot the podcast. Jillian Leslie 10:34 Oh, and the podcast! Gina Bianchini 10:35 Yes, you forgot the podcast. You forgot like, "Hey, wait a second. Should I be doing a YouTube channel?" "Oh, gosh, there are no more ads. Should you know, should I launch a Patreon subscription?" So, I love this question so much because it's our world. Jillian Leslie 10:57 Oh wait, and one last thing. My audience, typically, is not super technical. They are much more creative. So I think I told you we created a little like a SaaS business called Milotree. And our intention -- our users are bloggers and people like that don't care about the technology, so we took on the technology. Because my husband's my partner, he's a technologist -- I am not -- but we made it really smart and really easy to use because we said, "Uh-oh, we're not going to give you a lot of options. If there's a good option, we're going to make this choice for you so all you have to do is just install it," and it works. And I feel like philosophically, we are speaking the same language. Gina Bianchini 11:44 Yes. Jillian Leslie 11:45 Okay, so go for it. Gina Bianchini 11:48 Okay. So the first thing is, let's just celebrate for a second that wherever you start, following your passion is awesome. It just is. The hardest step is... and I sort of think about it as the courage to focus. The hardest step is the first one, which is launching that first blog or launching that podcast or launching whatever it is the first thing that you decide to do that expresses your passion in a way that can bring people together. So, yay, like this is awesome. The interesting thing and the part for us that we passionately believe is that it's actually great for all of these different platforms and terrible for the entrepreneur, the business owner, the food blogger in this example, to be trying to use all of these different services at one time. And there's the obvious reason which is it's a heck of a lot of work. You're also paying SaaS fees for each and every one of these services. Or you're giving cuts of things. A cut over here, a cut over here, a cut over here, a cut over here. But the big problem with having 10 different services, you know, because we haven't even talked about like what if you want your people to start meeting up or you're going to go on a live event podcast tour? Jillian Leslie 13:35 You wrote a cookbook and now you're going to go around and talk about it. Gina Bianchini 13:39 So the problem -- and this is something that again, I think it's a really positive thing in terms of the opportunity for Mighty Networks, but it makes me mad as a technologist and as a Silicon Valley person, which is it's absolutely a missed opportunity for every entrepreneur, every food blogger who is not first and foremost thinking about "how am I bringing my people together in one place, so that when I want to launch events, it's one click to turn it on." Jillian Leslie 14:13 Right. Gina Bianchini 14:13 Or when I'm ready to launch my course, I don't have to go use a new service, it's right there. It's already in my mighty network, in this case. Again, I'm biased. But the reason why we've invested millions of dollars in building out this type of functionality is because when you bring together the option of turning on groups, for example, or the option of launching a course or deciding, "Hey, I launched a course, and instead of it didn't work as well as I wanted it to, I just turned it off." But I don't have to move my people anywhere, I don't have to, rebuild in each and every one of these different places, and the most important thing. We talk about Mighty Networks as like the simplest way to build a business online today because your subscriptions are in one place so you don't have to go use Patreon separately. Jillian Leslie 15:07 Will you just explain what Patreon is because I'm not sure my audience knows. What is Patreon? Gina Bianchini 15:11 Sure. Patreon is a service that is actually really, really good. It started because YouTube channels, the sponsorship money for YouTube channels kind of went away. So people who had a large following on YouTube would go to patrons on Patreon who they would essentially ask. Almost like a Kickstarter where it was like $5 to join my exclusive Facebook group, $10 to get exclusive access to this kind of content first if I have a new post coming out, for example. Or you get to hear my podcast before other people hear it in a week. So, it essentially shifted the business model for YouTube creators from sponsorship to subscriptions. Jillian Leslie 16:01 Right, right. And, in fact, there are certain podcasts that I give money to on Patreon because I love the content and they've decided not to do ads. So, I'm willing to pay $5 a month to get access. Gina Bianchini 16:17 So we built that into a Mighty Network alongside with online courses or groups or events or questions and polls. So the idea is you don't have to go to four more different services over time as you want to add various things to your business. It's all an on-off switch directly in your Mighty Network. So at whatever point you decide to use a Mighty Network, you might just use it upfront to replace your website or instead of a Facebook group. But what's awesome is that you never have to go somewhere else when you're ready to grow your business in another way. Jillian Leslie 17:04 Okay. So is like an email service provider? Gina Bianchini 17:08 That is the only thing we don't do, but we have notifications built in. So if you want to create, for example, an article and let everybody know that the article is up, that's all built in. If you want to run a separate weekly newsletter, that's something you go to MailChimp. But here's an awesome thing. Actually different from every other service out there, we give you access to all of your data. Jillian Leslie 17:39 What does that mean? Gina Bianchini 17:40 Meaning that when you create a group on Facebook or even, you know, even on Slack, you don't actually get anybody's email address, location, the topics they're following, anybody that they referred into that group. We give you all of that information. Plus a bunch of analytics that make it so you actually know what people are doing with your content or conversations or we think about it as engagement plans. So what that means in practice is that, one, you're not beholden to a Mighty Network. We want to lock you in because it's awesome, not because you have no alternative to leave. But more importantly, again, when everything's in one place and you can turn on different features when you're ready to expand, it means your people can actually meet each other. You do less work when your community can come together And if your people are actually meeting each other, your followers, your fans, your subscribers, when they're meeting each other, it means that you actually are going to do less work. Jillian Leslie 18:50 What do you mean by that? Gina Bianchini 18:52 They're not relying on you exclusively for all the posts. They're not relying on you to build all the content. They're not relying on you for any reason that they would pay attention to your comeback. So there's a woman. I'll give you a very specific example. There is a woman named Tara McMullin, formerly Tara Gentile. Tara has been a long-time creative, live small business guru. I learn from her every day. She woke up one day and was like, "I am exhausted. I don't want to actually be the person who is front and center and have it be all on my shoulders," which is the reality of life for whether it's us as bloggers, or, I mean, I feel that when I've run a blog or when I have been the face of a company or whatever. So she launched a Mighty Network called CoCommercial, and CoCommercial she describes as a virtual co-working space for online small business owners. She charges a subscription fee for basically it's a one-time annual price of 199 to be a member of CoCommercial. And she's posting in CoCommercial. It doesn't mean that she hasn't in any way, shape or form stopped posting on social media. But what it has meant is that she not only has another revenue stream (subscriptions) but she's freed up her time so that when people are sending her emails, and this happens a lot especially to podcasters... She's got a great podcast as well, where it's like, "Oh, my God, I don't have time to answer all of these fantastic emails coming in from my followers or my subscribers, I wish they could talk to each other." So that has a thriving Mighty Network in CoCommercial. And even the name is not about her, it's about what people are doing together. They are co-creating their businesses together in the context of this network. Jillian Leslie 21:10 So they can ask advice, that kind of thing, help each other, kind of raise each other up. Gina Bianchini 21:16 Exactly. As we all know, anybody who's listening to this podcast, is listening to this podcast, in part, because all of us have tough days. This is a tough path that we have chosen. There are moments of absolute and utter delight when we have that sense of accomplishment of having posted something, or added that video, or made that recipe -- and it's awesome. And then there's the next day where you're like, "Oh, my God, I have to do this all over again today and then I have to do it all over again tomorrow." Jillian Leslie 21:47 Yes, it is. It's like you're Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill and then it rolls back down. Absolutely. Gina Bianchini 21:54 Choose a model where you're consciously building a business that brings people together, that goes away, and you become much more closely aligned. You're a host of a party which is very different. It's like I always think about it as the difference between when you have to give a speech and dread it for two weeks and work really hard on the speech. Versus hosting a party is really, yeah, you have to set up the room. But for the most part, people are there to meet each other. And you get to engage as much as you want or as little as you want and it doesn't change the fact that people are there interacting and engaging with each other and creating something special that you've still brought together these people. But you've done it in a way that is not exhausting. Jillian Leslie 22:48 Okay, so let's go back to the food blogger who starts with a food blog. Then she says, "Hmm..." I or he, I want to build this into a business into a business with multiple income streams. So they sign up for Mighty Networks. Would they move their blog, first of all, to Mighty Networks because you're a blog platform? Gina Bianchini 23:10 It depends, Okay, so here's the beautiful thing. It's a free country and you get to do it in whatever way that you want. The beautiful thing is, you know, we have tens of thousands of active thriving Mighty Networks and they're all doing it a little bit differently. But here's what I would recommend. If you want to move your blog, great, move your blog. What I think is better is to replace your website. So if you have a website or something that's static, we have sort of a very simple landing page that you can fully customize. So the idea is, replace one of the things that you're doing. Bring together, replace your website. Definitely think about migrating a Facebook group, or if you're using a Slack team, that's really where where a Mighty Network shines. Why you might move your Facebook group to a Mighty Network We have some really specific kind of 123's for how to do it well because we've worked very closely with a number of very large Facebook groups who have moved over to a Mighty Network. Jillian Leslie 24:18 I would say a lot of my audience either has their own Facebook group or participates in Facebook groups daily. Gina Bianchini 24:25 Yeah, absolutely. Two years ago, I would say the kind of overall sentiment was, "Oh, my God, why would I ever leave Facebook? Everything is already on Facebook, I'll miss things like..." You basically would tell group admins they were idiots if they were moving. Fast forward to today... Jillian Leslie 24:49 Yes, how things have changed. Gina Bianchini 24:52 So now, actually, the crazy thing and I'm still sort of surprised by it is that now... I actually talked to a podcaster two weeks ago now -- time is flying -- two weeks ago who said he runs a retirement podcast, and he's like, "I was ready to start a Facebook group. My members, I sent a survey out of what would they want, and they were like, 'Do not do this on a Facebook group. We don't want the distractions. We want to actually be able to meet people in sort of its own space." So instead of feeling like you're in sort of a crowded bar, the idea that you're in sort of a room where people can talk to each other, it's like the back private room. And, then there were other concerns about Facebook that I don't, unfortunately, think are going away anytime soon. Jillian Leslie 25:54 What do you mean by that? You mean in terms of privacy and data and stuff like that? Gina Bianchini 25:59 Just the fact that you really have no predictability around what people are actually going to see. The outcomes are so challenging that where six or seven years ago, people would organically see all of your posts. Jillian Leslie 26:16 I know, yes. Gina Bianchini 26:17 Today, 1 to 3 percent. So the thing I can promise anyone who goes to a Mighty Network is, you know what, you have 100% guarantee people are going to see your stuff. And that's pretty powerful. So basically, we have some nice little tools that make the transition from a Facebook group to a Mighty Network just a little bit easier. Then there are some great best practices that are awesome, that have been done over and over and over again. The momentum in terms of the number of people who are moving their Facebook groups has really accelerated in the last 90 days. What's exciting from my perspective is that people are actually really excited about moving, and people love a Mighty Network. So what is happening is we're seeing larger and larger YouTube channels and bloggers. I mean, one of our earliest adopters of Mighty Networks, actually, is a woman named Gretchen Rubin who I'm sure your audience knows from The Happiness Project, or her latest book called The Four Tendencies. She has a podcast called Happier that's extremely popular. She chose two years ago, almost two and a half years ago now, to move her brand and build a new one on a Mighty Network called Better. The reason was that she wanted people who followed her, especially around The Four Tendencies, which is basically a way to think about how you react to expectations that are placed upon you. She actually launched it a year before she released the book and it went to the bestseller list in part because her most passionate fans were all at the same place. Because they had a deeper connection with the content and obviously with Gretchen but it was really about the content because of the relationships that they had with each other. The book went to number one, and she just successfully launched her second cohort of The Four Tendencies online course which has basically sold out in a week. Jillian Leslie 28:44 Wow. Gina Bianchini 28:44 This is all because she brought people together, she created a network effect. She focused not on "Oh, shoot, I'm going to stay in this sort of fragmented... I'm doing all these different things in all these different places." But rather, she knew that hub of her activity and her brand needed to be about bringing people together because it's highly scalable, meaning more and more people can use it without any more work from Gretchen. Everybody gets more value with every new person who joins. And she has full access to the data and the activities so she can see what people are doing, and get to know her followers and fans even better. So, as she's planning out her next course or her next book, or we're coming up on the 10-year anniversary of The Happiness Project that she can really think about how does she get that to what does she do for her most passionate fans and followers, but then how she harnessed their energy to get it out to more people. Jillian Leslie 29:54 One thing I talk a lot about is that to build a business, you don't have have to have the scale of Amazon. Remember, like, you need 1000 true fans. Gina Bianchini 30:06 Yeah, that's a great piece. Jillian Leslie 30:07 Exactly. And I've talked about it a lot, which is those are the people you want to cultivate. You don't want that person who's saying "Yeah, whatever." You want those people who go "Wow, I am all in." That's how you want to build this sense of community and this interaction where one plus one is five, and also where you can then get them on your side and get them to buy from you. Gina Bianchini 30:39 Yeah, I could not agree with you more. The other thing is that even Amazon, even Facebook, they started narrowly. They started with a niche. And the reality is that while a niche sounds like it's small, it just means that it's narrow. And anyone who's driving in their car, listening to this podcast is capable of building a compelling niche that brings people together by just simply framing these techniques that the best and brightest in Silicon Valley, all these moguls who unfortunately control a lot of our time and inputs -- media and books. But fundamentally, any of us can do it as long as we're not just plugging along, trying to do a little bit over here and a little bit over here and a little bit over here. The reality is that Gretchen Rubin, Tara McMullin, these amazing entrepreneurs and creators know who their customers are, they know who their followers are. And if all you are doing is building followings or building groups on other people's platforms, you will never achieve the level of success that they have because you don't know what your people are doing. Jillian Leslie 32:12 It's a little bit like putting a spike in the ground and saying, "Here's where I live and you can find me here, and you can find my people here." This is like the hub. Gina Bianchini 32:26 Yes, exactly. Jillian Leslie 32:27 Versus, "I'm a little bit over here and a little bit over here and a little bit over here," and you have to reach out. You can reach me but, like, personally, I'm not as good at getting back to people who DM me on Instagram, but if you email me, I will definitely get it. But other people are like, "Oh no, I spent all my time DM-ing on Instagram," for example. Gina Bianchini 32:49 And also for every DM that you have on Instagram -- because here's the problem. Your fans can't really meet each other that well in the comments section of Instagram. Why you don't have to worry about algorithm changes So now imagine instead of you having to answer each and every one of those DMs, your emails, that you can jump into a community that people are answering each other's questions. They're DM-ing with each other. And you get to come in. First of all, your brain just has more time to be creative. Then when you jump in, you can do what make the conversation just take off and participate in as deep or as light of a way that you want. That is the magic and also the sustainability of our businesses. Jillian Leslie 33:38 Right. And we talk about this all the time. So a lot of us have been in this business for a long time and we have seen algorithm changes and just you are beholden, you're a sharecropper if you're building your business on Facebook or Instagram or wherever. My audience flips out when Pinterest changes stuff because Pinterest drives lots of traffic. And it's kind of the nature of it, and the nature is you have to be flexible. But what I like is you're coming and saying "No, no, no..." I mean, you do have to be flexible but you don't have to be at the whim of all of these services. Make your own -- make your own business. Okay, a couple things. One, let's say I want to join one of these communities. Can I go to Mighty Networks and search for Gretchen Rubin's community? Is there some sort of directory? Like with Facebook, I can search for groups. Gina Bianchini 34:34 Yes. So we have a "Find a Mighty Network" function. It is not something we invest heavily in at this point. So we're not going to be your best source of new traffic, but at the same point in time, neither is Squarespace or Shopify, Jillian Leslie 34:57 So you think of yourself as, say, a Shopify store or a Squarespace, meaning people are discovering your network on Mighty Networks. They are learning about it and then using the platform like you might with a Shopify. Gina Bianchini 35:11 Right. Jillian Leslie 35:11 Okay, that makes sense. Gina Bianchini 35:13 Yeah, and part of that is it is very consciously, because we want you to be able to create the Mighty network that you want. Jillian Leslie 35:21 Got it. Gina Bianchini 35:26 When you start to do a lot of discovery as a service that like what you get is some spam and potentially bad actors or other bad things that can necessarily happen. We'll get there as we find ways to do it in ways that are positive, optimistic and awesome. Jillian Leslie 35:45 I like that. Yes. Gina Bianchini 35:47 What we are focused on right now is how do we allow a creator, that food blogger in our example to have everything at their fingertips that they may want to experiment with next on that online course, on that podcast. Jillian Leslie 36:07 Is the backbone of a Mighty Network then like a feed? What does it look like? Gina Bianchini 36:14 Yeah. So we do have an activity feed that is personalized for every member, meaning that they can opt in or out of topics. If they're using a course, that course update will show up in their feed. People they follow will show up in their feed. But the difference is that the host, as we call the people who are it's the equivalent of our group admins, a host or a creator at any point in time can make sure that everyone sees something that they have added. So there are some override features and also some just really nice discovery features we've added as well that that allow for that feed to be augmented with topics, with groups, with events, with courses and other features. Why MiloTree will grow your social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube Jillian Leslie 37:06 I wanted to take a minute to talk about MiloTree which is the company that I have built with my husband, David. MiloTree is a group of pop-ups that you install on your site and they help grow your social media followers. So you can have an Instagram pop-up that will say "follow me on Instagram" or a Pinterest pop-up that will say "follow me on Pinterest," or Facebook, or a YouTube pop-up that says "subscribe to my channel," or even an email pop-up that says "join my list". You get all of these pop ups in one MiloTree account. If you head over to MiloTree.com and sign up right now, you'll get your first 30 days free, so you can try it out. And again, it takes your traffic and converts your traffic into followers. To be honest, what better followers could you get than people who've already been on your site who've already liked your content. In today's world, you want engaged followers, MiloTree grows engaged followers. These are people that will interact with your social media channels and will read your email list. So if you're trying to grow your business, it's worth checking it out. So head on over and I invite you to head over to MiloTree.com and sign up today. Now, back to the show. Why Might Networks is good for authors Lots of people write books. So I like that example that you used from Gretchen Rubin. I write a book and I'm going to maybe self-publish it because it's the internet today and I can do that. But I need to get people to discover my book. So instead of, again, creating a Facebook group and trying to be active on Instagram, or Pinterest, or Facebook or whatever, I would go to Mighty Networks and I would start a network. Gina Bianchini 38:59 Yes. Jillian Leslie 39:00 And then I would be directing people to my network. Gina Bianchini 39:04 Yeah. Think about it as a hub. So you're still going to have these folks on Instagram or on an email list or on Facebook or on Twitter or on Pinterest, but you're sending people to one place -- and that one place allows them to meet each other. It allows you to launch new things. So, take a book. If you have a book and it's a nonfiction instructional book... Jillian Leslie 39:37 Right, let's say it's a cookbook. Gina Bianchini 39:38 It's a cookbook. That is a perfect online course. That is a perfect series of events. That is a perfect way to do live Zoom or Crowdcast. The way to think about it is that you can sell more books by having this type of Mighty Network and you can extend the life of the book in all of these other ways. And Gretchen Rubin, if you go to Betterapp.us, it's fantastic. It's public, you can you can see everything kind of in one place. It is a wonderful example for those who have instructional books, or a cookbook or a finance book or anything in between. And you can find more ways to not just promote your book to your most passionate fans and followers but also extend the life of it in all of these other ways. Jillian Leslie 40:41 Got it. Wow. Again, I feel like it's funny because you're right, two years ago, it'd be like you're crazy not to have a Facebook group. And today, it's a little bit like that you want to kind of be able to step away from these large platforms and really build something. I think it's like the power of Shopify, for example, which is you might have started with an Etsy shop. But then you don't own your Etsy shop where all of a sudden with a Shopify store, I can own my e-commerce site and I can do all of this cool stuff, but it's mine. Gina Bianchini 41:22 Right. And by the way, we have a great, great way to integrate Shopify stuff. So, I just digress. Jillian Leslie 41:30 Oh, no, no, please because I want to know all the things that can integrate. So if, in fact, I have multiple cookbooks and I put them in my Shopify store with all of my cooking tools, I can then integrate that into Mighty Networks. Gina Bianchini 41:45 You can add a link in just the upfront navigation. There's a couple of different navigation spots where we let you put custom links. Then we also have this really cool feature which is we call it the "Welcome" and "Featured" sections, meaning that you can actually do like a full article promotion and then basically put it in a place where everybody sees it. It's like first when they come in and then when they come back. So you get to have those spots where you can promote additional products and services. Jillian Leslie 42:19 And if I post in my Mighty Network, can I make it so that everybody gets some sort of notification? Gina Bianchini 42:27 Yes. So we have something called "Notify All" that is only available to the host or creators of the Mighty Network and that then notifies everybody that you just posted something. And it's totally opt in. It doesn't happen automatically. But it's a really nice way of having 100% confidence that everybody is seeing something that you just posted. Jillian Leslie 42:57 Is it the groups that are the most active that you think are the most successful? How active then? Because if you are the host of your own party, you do need to be walking around and making sure everybody's happy and making sure everybody has a drink, let's say. What are some best practices for hosts? Gina Bianchini 43:19 So here's the good news. I was thinking about it this morning, actually, because I was writing something up. We run our own Mighty Networks. While it may just seem like it's good business to make it really easy to manage a Mighty Network and do quick things that actually pack a punch, we do it for very selfish reasons, namely, that we run our own Mighty Networks. We're sitting there and were like "ugh" and without doing this thing and it's a total pain. So some of the ways that we let you automate the drink, making sure everybody has a drink, obviously, we have the normal ways of moderators and other people that you can deputize to be making sure everybody's having a good time. Again, another basic thing is scheduled posts or scheduled features. So you can basically line up a bunch of stuff for the week and let it go and know that it's going to get out without you having to do anything. But there are some very specific features that we have put in place because of our own expertise and experiments that we run that are awesome for getting the conversation started in a very low effort way on the part of hosts. One, we, we have something called an icebreaker question. An icebreaker question basically drives up the number of people who start contributing in their first session. So they join and they're asked a very simple question that a host can set up. We love the question, what do you want to get from a community of peers? Or what do you want to get from people who love the food blogger? And the answers people will contribute in their first session are so rad. So right then and there, more and more of your members are already getting comfortable contributing. And for everybody who contributes, other people see it and can say "hey, welcome." The second feature that we have that makes it really easy to manage a Mighty network, which is we call it "Welcome All". So we were manually welcoming every single person that was coming into a Mighty network that we were running a few years ago. At the end of a Saturday where I had probably welcomed 300 people and I was like, "Oh my god, there's 1000 people that joined in the last 48 hours," we built a little feature that lets that process get automated, namely, I go in and for all the members who have joined since the last time I click this button, they get a welcome email from me. A personalized one from Gina saying, "Hey, welcome to this particular mighty network." And then there's a button that says, you know, say thanks or say hello, and then I can start conversations with people. But everybody gets that warm welcome from me and it's one click. Another feature that we put in place are polls. Polls are one of our favorite features because a quick hot cold poll which is basically a pole that says are you positive or negative on X, Y or Z, or for or against X, Y, or Z. We also have a poll that's what we we call a percentage poll, meaning what percentage of your time are you spending listening to this podcast, or what percentage of your time do you spend cooking each week. Then you can compare your time or resources or whatever to the rest of the membership. So there's just some really fun ways to use polls that for the host, it takes like five minutes to post the question and it takes on a life of its own. Jillian Leslie 47:18 Got it. Gina Bianchini 47:18 So those are just that. Another thing that our hosts do, you know, when they're... Tara McMullin, again, is deep in building a book and doing some amazing half marathons and things like that. So what she does is just sets up a weekly live Zoom call or Crowdcast chat -- I think she uses Crowdcast -- where she can just take questions and people can meet each other. It's once a week and it's live. So it feels like it's almost like just this coming together of everybody at the same time and then it reactivates and reengages people in CoCommercial, her Mighty Network. So what's fun about this is that there's all sorts of different ways to keep it interesting, to keep it fresh, and to really set it up so that it's no more than a few minutes every day or an hour to set up kind of the week ahead. Then when you have online courses, for example, that's certainly more of an investment that your listeners are probably already doing or thinking about doing because people will pay for courses today. But you set that up and people are meeting each other in the context of a course, and you don't have to do a lot. So we continually find ways to make Mighty Networks in the technical term 'self-organizing'. But what it really means is that you as a host get to set it up, you can decorate it. Why Mighty Networks is good at bringing people together Some of the best parties any of us have been to have had a big bag of Costco chips and some root beer. But it's fundamentally about the people that you bring together. And again, it doesn't mean that you can't decorate your Mighty Network to the nines and really make it your own, but it also means that if you bring people together and have some really compelling questions, that can make something wildly successful. Jillian Leslie 49:27 What's interesting, I'm just thinking about it for myself, which is, so I've talked about this on the podcast. I have very siloed businesses. So for example, when we first met, my husband and I started a company called Catch My Party. It still exists, it's still growing, and it's completely separate from MiloTree, which is our SaaS app (software as a service app). Then, out of that, I grew the Blogger Genius Podcast. And I had this SEO expert on and we were talking about this and this has come up a variety of times, which is that if we take Catch My Party out of the equation, the Blogger Genius and MiloTree, they're different but they're kind of related and I have a very difficult time integrating them in a more cohesive whole. And you're getting my, you know, like the wheels are spinning, and I have a Facebook group called the MiloTree Mastermind Group. And again, you and I have real business backgrounds and my goal with the Blogger Genius is to interview people like you, people who have been successful, people who have ideas to share, but also because I want to help and I want to share what I've learned being in the trenches. And I want to share that with my audience. I want to say exactly what you were saying which is some days, it's really hard. Some days, I don't want to get out of bed, and other days, I am so excited to get out of bed. Anyway, so for me in my businesses, I'm thinking "Wow, I am all over the place." I am on Facebook and I am on Pinterest and I am on Instagram -- and it makes my brain explode. Gina Bianchini 51:21 Yep. Jillian Leslie 51:22 So we're gonna have to have a conversation after this. Gina Bianchini 51:25 You know, I don't know that it's our tagline at Mighty Networks but there's probably something along the lines of Mighty Networks to help you make your brain not explode. Jillian Leslie 51:37 Yes, yes. I like that. I think you should should trademark that Gina Bianchini 51:43 I'm going to get on that. Jillian Leslie 51:44 Well, Gina, okay, so if as a female entrepreneur who has been at this and again, we have meant to but just there is something really special I think about having somebody like you on the show who has rolled up your sleeves and really just you've dived in there, dive, whatever it is really like talking the talk, what piece of advice would you have for other entrepreneurs? Gina Bianchini 52:15 It's interesting, I really try to stay away from advice because I think it shuts conversations down as opposed to stories and experiences and ideas that kind of continue the conversation. But here's what I would say. I would share that no one who it looks like they have it all together, that looks like they're wildly successful, that looks like that they're perfect, none of them are. Each and every one of us gets up every morning and has a little bit of terror, a little bit of fear of what if this doesn't work or what if this goes away, Or if I'm walking into some kind of bad news situation today. And what I've learned is, the more that I view what I do as a series of experiments and the opportunity to learn, the happier I am. Jillian Leslie 53:28 I like that. I like that. I really like that. Oh, well. Okay, Gina, how can people reach out to you? How can they learn more about Mighty Networks? Gina Bianchini 53:36 Yes. So first, my email address is what you think it would be. Just Gina@mightynetworks.com. Our website is Mightynetworks. com. It is free to create a Mighty Network. We have also tons of resources, and they're only going to get more and more, fun and deep in the new year related to not just how to get the most from a Mighty Network, but really like how to grow your brand and how to grow your business as you start to really take your niche, take that food blog, take that unique category that you are building and expand it into a podcast, into a series of events, into a VIP subscription, into an online course. You don't have to do any of these things all at one time or juggle things that are more than what you want to juggle. But there is something really powerful of just experimenting and just trying things. I tend to post on LinkedIn occasionally. It's probably where I do the most when I write something. One of my goals for 2019 is to get a little bit more comfortable with putting a video on my face and talking, I'm not there yet. Like, I look at myself and I'm like, "Oh, I should really, really start to actually want to wear makeup," which I don't. So hopefully, I will do more of that in the new year. But for the most part, you know, send me an email, join Mighty Networks. We're friendly, Jillian Leslie 55:25 Awesome, awesome. Well, Gina, thank you so much for being on the show. You have given me so much to think about, especially as I try to wrap my arms around my own business, and I'm sure for all of you. I like what you said, which is to experiment. You know, it's funny, we met at that session. You led on product market fit, and what I have learned over the years is you will never know if you have product market fit unless you are experimenting like crazy. That's the only way to find it. Gina Bianchini 56:00 And that is something I relearned every few years. Jillian Leslie 56:04 Me too, me to. Gina Bianchini 56:07 And so this notion that anybody knows... that anybody is doing it really well, it's just they're better at busting through the fear. Jillian Leslie 56:17 Yes, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Gina Bianchini 56:21 It's my pleasure. Have a great rest of your day. Jillian Leslie 56:24 Oh, you too. I hope you liked my interview with Gina and I invite you to head to milotree.com and start growing your business faster. If you're trying to grow your social media followers and your email list, Milotree will do it on steroids. It will grow your followers 24/7 and your email list, and it does it while you sleep. Watch your followers on Instagram or Pinterest or Facebook or YouTube or your email list grow faster! Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

The tables are turned in this episode. Paula Rollo, community manager of MiloTree and founder of Beauty Through Imperfection, is interviewing me! I this episode we talk about my background as a blogger and entrepreneur, how I stepped away from a career in Hollywood when my daughter was born, what it's like working with my husband, and why I try to embrace failure as much as possible! Please reach out and let me know what you think. I hope you like it! Resources: MiloTree Catch My Party Beauty Through Imperfection SiteGround UpWork Fiverr   Host 0:03 Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Leslie 0:11 Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I am approaching my one year anniversary of doing the podcast and so this week, what I decided to do was to have Paula Rollo (who is our community manager at MiloTree and my very good friend) interview me and ask me all the questions that she's been wanting to know, and maybe you guys have, too. So I think you'll like this. It was really fun to do. I love this podcast, I am super committed. And so here we go. Paula, welcome back to the show. This is really exciting for me because this is signaling the end of my first year as a podcaster. And all of a sudden now that the the seats are switched and you get to interview me and ask me anything that you want, so I don't know, I'm excited and nervous to get started. Paula Rollo 0:42 I'm excited too. It's like pulling back the curtain, you know? Jillian Leslie 1:06 Yes? Paula Rollo 1:06 You know? And seeing like all the magic that happens behind the scenes. And I'm excited for everybody listening, because I feel like I have this inside track to Jillian, that like we talk about things all the time and like I'm always talking to your brilliant mind. But on Blogger Genius, we only get you talking to other brilliant minds and little tiny glimpses of your genius shining through sometimes. But I think this is just going to be a treat for everybody to get to hear the real you and how brilliant you are at this. Jillian Leslie 1:37 Oh, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Paula Rollo 1:43 So, are we ready? Jillian Leslie 1:44 I'm ready. Jillian Leslie's background as an entrepreneur and blogger Paula Rollo 1:45 Okay, so I want to start with your background and your entrepreneurial journey. I know in various podcasts we've heard that you have a business degree and you used to be a writer in Hollywood, which is so cool. But I want to know how you pictured your life as a kid or as a teen, whenever you started saying like, "This is what I want my life to be." And then you've changed careers, you've gone from working for someone else to owning your own business. So how did you go about building a life that you loved, and how did that morphing change as you have grown up? Jillian Leslie 2:22 Wow, okay. When I was younger, I always wanted to be creative and I always wanted to be entrepreneurial -- and I didn't know what that meant. But I had this feeling that I didn't want to work for other people. But again, like, you know, it was all just kind of mushy. And I would say that there are always these two parts of me and they're not in conflict as much as they kind of like, as you know me, you kind of know these two sides. One, I am incredibly analytical. I love numbers. You know, I love digging in. And I love research. I nerd out in so many ways in my own free time. And I am incredibly creative, and being creative really feeds my soul that if I weren't creating every day, in some capacity, a part of me would die inside. So I've gone back and forth in both of those areas like going deep in one and then deep in the other. So when I was younger, all I did was dance and draw and write and do things like that. And then as I got into high school, for example, I got really academic because it was what was demanded of me. And I went to college, I went to Stanford, and I was really academic. That's what I cared about. Because somehow I knew that my goal was I wanted to be financially independent. And again, I didn't know what any of this meant, but it was like that was the way to do it. So I did that, and I got out of college, and I got a business job at Disney working in their strategic planning department, which was this organization that was making all these big decisions for Disney. And it seemed cool, and I hated it. Working at Disney and hating it Paula Rollo 4:11 Oh, my gosh! How did you hate working for Disney? Jillian Leslie 4:14 Isn't that weird? It was so funny because I'd call people up from my job and I'd be like, "Hey, this is Jillian Tohber calling from The Walt Disney Company." And people would say to me, "Oh, my God, you work at Disney! You must be so happy, you must love it." And I'd go, "Oh, my God, I totally do." And I'd get off the phone with them and my day would be so crappy that I would just be crying at my desk. So it was this weird disconnect. And I thought to myself if this is what work life is like, I am really unhappy. And I felt like they rented my brain Monday through Friday, and anybody who was kind of smart could do this job, but it had nothing to do with me. It was so inauthentically Jill. So I said I need to find another job. And I ended up getting a job working for Bette Midler. She had a production company on the Disney lots. Because I thought to myself, "I need to be creative. This is the least creative job ever. I need to go that way." I started working for her and I kept always in life looking to people and going who has the better job and who has the more casual clothing. That was always the way that I thought about it. I'm working for Bette Midler and, by the way, I was like, a scrub, I was getting coffee, I was making copies. I was that person. But the writers would come in, they would be in jeans. And everybody would listen to the writer and I'd be like, "Ooh, that looks cool." Like, maybe I could do that. But kind of as an aside, I had gotten into business school during this time. I had applied and I had even deferred it for a year because I was like, "Hey, I'm working for Bette Midler. Sorry, guys." But ultimately, I decided, you know what -- because again, I have these two sides to myself that I would go to business school. I went back to Stanford and I got my MBA. And by the way, I loved it. Because I went back to Stanford and it was very different than the first time I was there because I just kind of thought, "I'm going to do something creative." So I don't really have to care that much about like my classes. I did things like I took directing and improv and acting and all these. Becoming a writer in Hollywood I was like the weird business school student. Yeah. When I got out, I was like, "Okay, I know you guys really like business but I'm going to go to Hollywood and become a writer." And I did. I went to Hollywood. By the way, I lived in my crappy apartment. All my friends were getting these really big jobs and I was really struggling and writing scripts. And yet then I ended up like getting back working at Disney as a writer and it was really cool. And as a writer, I was like my own little business person because it was like my own career and I was navigating my own career. And then as I shared previously, I had my daughter, and that changed everything for me. And all of a sudden, I said to my husband David, "I want to take my fate more into my own hands, into our own hands and let's start a company." My husband at the time was working at MySpace. He was like a senior person at MySpace. How we built Catch My Party And we started Catch My Party. And I think I've shared this previously. It was a sight for teen girls because that was how we conceived of it, because all my husband was doing was, you know, who was on MySpace. Teens, teen girls. Paula Rollo 7:38 Right. That's the audience you knew, yeah. Jillian Leslie 7:40 That was it. And I was writing teen comedies. So it was like, we own this space, this is it. We get our audience. And, lo and behold, teen girls did not care about Catch My Party. They didn't want to share their party photos. But moms did. Paula Rollo 7:57 Interesting. Jillian Leslie 7:58 That was like our first moment of saying, "Whoa! Wait a second. We had this all planned out and it didn't work." But we found another audience to serve. Paula Rollo 8:09 Right. Jillian Leslie 8:10 And that was how it evolved. So I'd love to say that this was all planned, and that it has this great linear path, but it doesn't. And then now we have MiloTree on top of this and the podcast. And what I would say is, they've all been what I like to call "emergent", meaning they are authentic to where I am in my life. And they don't necessarily make sense in terms of just like if I had a plan, "Oh, this would be the next piece." No, not at all. But they've all been organic and I always am listening to what I feel is the right next step, and what people are kind of informing me is the right next step. Paula Rollo 9:01 That's so interesting. I think you brought like a second piece to the average, normal advice that you hear because people always say I guess like when you when you're graduating high school, they're always like, "Go towards what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." And like "Follow your dreams, follow your heart, just do what you love." For entrepreneurs, that stream of advice doesn't stop, right? That's always what we're hearing and we're always trying to get to this special day where it doesn't feel like we're working. Jillian Leslie 9:33 Yes. Paula Rollo 9:33 Then those of us who are actually entrepreneurs are like, "No, that doesn't happen. I do stuff I don't like all the time." Jillian Leslie 9:40 All the time. Paula Rollo 9:41 Because your business is you and you have to do those things, and that has to happen. But I think that what I hear you saying is that you identify things that you love to do and that are life-giving, and those set your direction so you're always headed in a direction you love. Sometimes you have have to do things that you have to grit your teeth through. But because it's on the way to a direction that you adore, that's okay, and and you're willing to grit your teeth. And that doesn't make it fun to do the little jobs that are just menial and that are not fun you know your direction is you. Like starting MiloTree, starting a new business is not fun, but going towards something that's organic and that's creative and that has all of these strategic numbers, that makes sense for you. How being an entrepreneur challenges you Jillian Leslie 10:26 Absolutely. What I would say is being an entrepreneur looks so cool on the outside and it is so challenging on the inside. Paula Rollo 10:39 For sure. Jillian Leslie 10:40 It will challenge you though on a whole host of levels. It will challenge you in terms of one, that you have to work when you don't want to work, and you have to do crappy stuff. And you don't have a boss necessarily, so all of that motivation has to somehow be intrinsic. And that can be a struggle. It will challenge you in how you see yourself and it will question everything about you. But for me, it's also like the most satisfying path I could ever choose. And it's very humbling. Because we talk about this all the time. You can think you're really smart and you can think you have a brilliant idea. Then you start working on it, and you start hitting walls, and it can be so demoralizing. Entrepreneur depression, what is it? You know, there's something I read a lot about other entrepreneurs and I read about entrepreneurs at these huge companies raising all these rounds of money. And I don't know if people know about this, but there's something called like "entrepreneur depression." Paula Rollo 11:46 No, I don't know about it. Jillian Leslie 11:47 And I would have thought, "No, no, these people..." Like, "Oh, my God, I just raised $60 million," like, I should be on top of the world. And there's a real thing where entrepreneurs hit these walls and get really depressed. And, again, I thank God we have not raised $60 million but there are times where I'm like, "Oh, my God, why did we set out on this path?" I mean not every day is puppies and rainbows And in fact, there are times where it's really cool. Like, you get to speak at stuff or people come to you for advice or they email you how much they love what you're doing. But that's like such a small piece of it. It has to be some place inside that is feeling satisfied by what you're doing day in and day out. Paula Rollo 12:41 Yes. I think one of the things that like -- not to try to psychologize all entrepreneurs, but I think that, at least for you and I both, one of the things that has helped with the entrepreneurial depression, and maybe avoiding that a little bit is that we've never made our business define our life. How not to let your business define your life Jillian Leslie 13:02 Yes. Paula Rollo 13:04 We have our business, like we have this entrepreneurial thing that we're doing, and that's wonderful. And we love it most of the time. And then we also turn it off and we have our life over here. We have our kids, we have our family, and we have those two separate things. So thinking about that from that perspective, I would think kind of helps you prevent that depression and prevent that burnout. Because it's not my identity, it does not rise and fall on my business. My identity is over here with my family with things that I love to do outside of making money. And so there's less stress of like, "Well, I raised $60 million, but next year, I've got to raise$ 70 or I'm a failure." But that doesn't matter. My failure or success is not just my business. Jillian Leslie 13:47 I would totally agree. You know, it's funny, because so many people were like, "Wait, you were a writer in Hollywood?" and I go, "Yeah, I really was." And they go, "How could you have ever left it? It's so glamorous!" And I said because my whole worldview shifted and it was no longer as satisfying for me. I always have gone toward what feels right. I mean, I try to make very informed decisions, but I'm willing to jump. It's funny because David, my husband, who's also my partner, is much more grounded than I am, which is great because he kind of holds us down on the earth. But I'm the one who says, "Let's do it. Let's go. Let's do it." I would say that that's probably one of my best skills, is I'm willing to jump into the unknown with, again, with preparation, but you can't ever fully prepare. Paula Rollo 14:45 Right. You can't know for sure what's going to catch you because things change so quickly. Especially in our industry, things change so quickly. Making micro adjustments in your career Jillian Leslie 14:52 Oh, my God, all the time. And I believe this. Somebody said this to me when I was in my 20s, and they said life should be about micro adjustments because that way, you don't end up with a midlife crisis. Paula Rollo 15:04 Oh, interesting. Jillian Leslie 15:05 And I have lived by that, which is, "You know what? This isn't fitting me anymore, so I'm going to go this way." Then I'll see how that feels and if it doesn't work out, guess what, I can always course correct. So I'm a big believer in course correcting. Paula Rollo 15:19 Right. Just don't do something that can't be changed later and then you can go forward a lot easier. Jillian Leslie 15:25 Exactly, exactly. Like don't get yourself into a lot of debt or... I don't know. But just kind of making those smart choices but then be willing to say, "I'll try it. And if it sucks, I can change." So we just recently, as you know, moved to Austin and the way that I could do -- and by the way, we have no family in Austin. We barely knew anybody in Austin but we liked it, and we're like, "Let's do it!" And my daughter was like, "What are we doing?" And I said if we hate it, we can always move back. And again, that would have been a big deal, you know, but something about it made us braver and that we can do it. And guess what? We're loving it. I'm so happy we did this. Paula Rollo 16:10 I love that. I love that. Welcome to Texas. Jillian Leslie 16:13 I like Texas, Y'all. Paula Rollo 16:17 Yes, y'all. I end up saying 'y'all' on so many interviews and in professional settings because it's just the word I've grown up with and I get laughed out a lot for that. Jillian Leslie 16:28 I think it's like the cutest, sweetest word ever. Paula Rollo 16:32 It's just our word. I don't even have a Texas accent but I do say y'all." Jillian Leslie 16:37 I love it. I love it. Paula Rollo 16:38 But in light of these shifts and these leaps, I want to ask kind of two questions at one time -- and that is, what has been your biggest business success and then what has been your biggest life success? And I'm asking them that way because like we just talked about, it's not the same. You have these two sides to yourself and keeping those things in view I think is really important, and really encouraging to those entrepreneurs listening that if you haven't reached your business success yet, remember all of your life successes like "this baby I have" or "this house I bought" or those things because it's not just your business. And that's life. My biggest life success Jillian Leslie 17:21 My biggest life success is my little family. It is my husband and my daughter and our extended family as well. But we are this really fun threesome and there is nothing I like better than spending time with them. And it is weird because again, I work with David, so we're together all the time. But there's nobody that makes me laugh more than he does. Paula Rollo 17:49 Aww. Love it. Jillian Leslie 17:52 So, by far, what has given me purpose is definitely having my daughter, and I would say my husband feels the exact same way. Again, people can't believe that we work together. Because they're like, "I would die if I had to work with my husband." But we met working together during the dot com bubble. And so we bonded over work and so I knew exactly what he was like to work with. And there's nobody I think that's smarter or more committed or engaged than he is. So that made perfect sense for us. But I feel like our biggest creation, our best creation is our daughter who's just so fun and awesome. Which by the way, does not mean that she can't be a huge pain in the butt, and that it hasn't been difficult at times. It is. Parenting is one of those things where I always say this, like the least sexy thing you could ever do is have a child. Paula Rollo 18:52 Yeah. Jillian Leslie 18:53 But I think it is one of the most meaningful things you could ever do. Paula Rollo 18:59 Absolutely. Jillian Leslie 19:03 It brings natural happiness to your life -- it can. But it also can bring a lot of pain, but I think it does bring meaning. Paula Rollo 19:14 Yeah, yeah. It doesn't magically fix things, the problems that are there. Jillian Leslie 19:20 No. And it can make a lot of things worse. Paula Rollo 19:22 Right. It makes everything deeper. Jillian Leslie 19:26 That's a great word. Paula Rollo 19:26 Pain is deeper, love is deeper, happiness is deeper... all of it. Jillian Leslie 19:30 Exactly. When I compare that to, say, my businesses which are like babies, we talk about this, I am so happy to have them because they are outside of... I mean, they are kind of part of my family because I work with David but they are also separate. There's something that I'm building, they're very personal to me. I would say that those are also a big success and are like a big satisfying piece of my life. But having both does balance me. And that I am not one who just wants to be a bazillionaire and who doesn't care about my family. I care about them all so deeply, you know. So I don't know if that answers the question. Paula Rollo 20:22 It does. So what was your biggest business success? Jillian Leslie 20:26 I would say that my biggest business success was really making it happen, that we've we've done this and we built now two businesses. I look back and I go, "Oh, my God," you know, we didn't know when we started Catch My Party whether anybody would ever add a party to our site. And we now have tens of thousands of parties that people add and tons and tons of content and millions of people who come to our site. So I think that when I think back -- Paula Rollo 20:59 Which is crazy. Jillian Leslie 21:01 What did you say? Paula Rollo 21:02 That's crazy that that happens, you know. Jillian Leslie 21:04 Yeah! Like when I think back when we were like... I remember my mom going like, "How do you think you're going to do this? And I was like, "I don't know. The teen girls are going to show up." Paula Rollo 21:15 They're going to come in droves. Jillian Leslie 21:17 Exactly. Paula Rollo 21:18 And then they didn't. Jillian Leslie 21:19 And then they didn't! Paula Rollo 21:19 Yeah, it's just incredible. Jillian Leslie 21:22 So that's what I would say is, when you're in it, it's very difficult to see your successes because you only see what's in front of you and what needs to be done. You think, "Oh, if I only get to this point, then I'll be happy." I fall into that trap as well. So I do do those things that seem kind of cloying where I do force myself to come up with what I'm grateful for and to continually use that as my narrative. Even if I'm saying "Well, I'm super grateful for X," but in my heart, I'm going "Yeah, but if only I had Y." Because I do feel like just even putting it out there and making myself go through that exercise is really helpful and loosening the grip of the grasping, of the wanting, of the longing, of the thinking I'm not full or complete. Paula Rollo 22:16 Yes. I think because entrepreneurs are such dreamers and visionaries, we do get stuck on what could be. And we miss like "I created something out of nothing." And that's amazing. Jillian Leslie 22:30 I totally agree. Paula Rollo 22:31 Even if you haven't taken off yet, even if your business is still strong, like there was a website that didn't exist and now it does because of you. There are people that you're speaking to that weren't being talked to now before and now they are because of you. And that's amazing. it's incredible. I remember one day, like the numbers we throw around, you're like, "Oh, yeah, millions of people come," like it's no big deal. But if you try to picture millions of people in your head, that's insane. Jillian Leslie 22:57 I know. When you know you've arrived as a blogger Paula Rollo 22:58 And if you try to talk to all of those millions of people that you literally talk to every day, you couldn't. Jillian Leslie 23:03 I know. We were living in LA when we started Catch My Party. And my husband is the biggest realist in the world. I think that our page views hit something like 30,000... our unique visitors, 30,000 unique visitors a month. And David goes, he goes, "You know, that's the size of, I don't know, some place in LA like Santa Monica or something." And I go, "Oh, my God, that would mean like every single person at Santa Monica has come to our site? And he goes, "Yeah," and I go kind of like, "We've arrived!" And I remember him go, "No, no. That number, in order to make any money has to get However, many times bigger." I remember being like, "Oh." But I did have that moment of like, "Oh, my God! Everybody in Santa Monica has come to my site?" Paula Rollo 23:48 Yes. And I think it's important to have those, like we need to have those goals we're ruling but also be like, 30,000 people, like that's such a small number in our industry, right? We're like, 30,000? You can barely get into MediaVine with that. Jillian Leslie 23:59 Exactly. Paula Rollo 24:00 But like, 30,000 is crazy. Jillian Leslie 24:02 Crazy. Pretty crazy. And so I think you're right, which is, you know, we all sit at our computers in our own little worlds and we don't really understand the impact that we have. Because there are all these people who are coming to our sites who are learning or getting entertained, or whatever it is. And you're right there is that... So I do recommend everybody out there to take those moments and force yourself to be in gratitude, to force yourself even if it feels really icky and uncomfortable. Paula Rollo 24:32 Yeah, yeah. Jillian Leslie 24:34 To make that a habit. Paula Rollo 24:37 It's so encouraging. It's so encouraging to do. Even I remember one time I was really down on myself I think it was after a algorithm switch, so my page views went like cut in half. They probably went from like 300,000 a month to 150 or something like that. And I was like, really kicking myself about it. I felt horrible. And my husband was like, "Wait, you're at 150,000 people a month? Do you know how many people that is? I talked to like 10 people this month. You talked to 150,000 people this month about something that you care about? That's a pretty big deal." And I was like, "Oh, right." I'm just thinking of it in terms of like, "Well, Jillian talked to a million and I only got 150,000." And they're not people in my head. They're just a number because I have my avatar in my head and that's it. I'm not thinking about there's 150,000 of my avatar that I get to talk to and that's amazing. Jillian Leslie 25:30 And touch. Paula Rollo 25:31 Yes. And change for the better whether it's with a recipe or a craft or whatever it is that you're doing, you're impacting these people or they wouldn't be on your site. Jillian Leslie 25:40 Exactly, exactly. Paula Rollo 25:42 So, I love it. I love it. I love our job. Jillian Leslie 25:45 I do, too. I really do. And by the way, remember I'm always looking for the people in the most casual clothes. I am sitting here in my sweatpants and my sweatshirt. I have not showered and I couldn't be happier. Paula Rollo 25:59 Same situation. It's like the entrepreneur dress code. Jillian Leslie 26:05 Totally. Paula Rollo 26:06 Lack of shower -- that's how we roll. Jillian Leslie 26:08 Yes. And I do that thing, which is really funny, like I compare myself to Steve Jobs, which is I buy the same sweat pants in every color, even the same color, just so I have a uniform. Paula Rollo 26:21 Yes, I love it. That's hilarious. Okay, so pivoting a little bit from successes, the other thing that you and I I feel like talk about a lot is how our failures are not just necessary or a necessary evil but they're actually a vital part of our business. Talk about a little bit how specific failures have shaped the way your business looks today and what failures have propelled you into something great. The need for more "at bats" in your business Jillian Leslie 26:53 Ooh, okay. The one thing that I would say -- David and I talk about this a lot and we call them "at bats," like you're at bat as a baseball player. That instead of thinking about something as a success or a failure, we think of it as an "at bat" and the goal is to have as many as you possibly can, realistically speaking. I was reading this article about Nestle. I think this is right but it could be no. But Nestle hit it out of the park, with Nespresso and it grew their business incredibly and they have not had many successes since then. The reason is because they captured lightning in a bottle, it was like the right idea at the right time and it, boom, exploded their business. But catching lightning in a bottle and betting your whole business so you're going to find another one of those is not a good business strategy. Paula Rollo 28:01 Oh, that's good. Jillian Leslie 28:02 So not many things you try are going to work, and somehow recognizing that makes it feel less personal. And I've started to really think that. So we had this idea recently where with MiloTree, we're way into this, you know, remember we're geeks, so we're into the technology. And what we realized is lots of people were using sites that were not secure, right? We know about HTTPS versus HTTP. We noticed a lot of our users were not using secured sites. So we decided, "Hey, here's an idea." What we could do is we could help these people get on to I think, we were looking at SiteGround because we really like SiteGround. That we would help them move their blogs to SiteGround off of, say, Bluehost or something, a site that wasn't secure at the time. And we're like, "Hey," and that could be good for us because we could make affiliate money by doing this and what we would offer is we move your site for you. So we looked through our data and we found all these people who did not have secured sites and we reached out to. I reached out to maybe 100 of them. And I said, "Hey, here's the deal. Just, you know, your site's not secure. This is not a good thing." I explained why. "And what we'll do, we believe in this host called SiteGround and will help you do this." And we thought, "Wow, this could be a great income stream for us" and we'd be providing our users a service and, you know, it would be a win-win. Nobody wanted to do it. Paula Rollo 29:48 Wow. Jillian Leslie 29:49 Nobody. In fact, people were a little, I want to say, kind of almost offended. What we realized is that it's kind of risky for somebody to move their site. Most of us, except for David, are not super technical. And that's like, "What? who are these MiloTree people coming in and saying, "Hey, well, you know, you got this problem and will help you, but why would I trust you?" Even though, again, they might be using MiloTree. They might know me still. And I noticed, I started to feel bad like, "Oh, wow, that didn't work." And then I thought like what a dumb idea. I started to personalize it. Then what I realized was, "No, no, that was just one at bat." And by framing it that way, I thought, "Oh, okay. We need to come up with more ideas." So this one didn't work, well, okay, but we're looking. And then what you do is, ultimately, you do find stuff. It's like, you know, dating. You kind of have to date a bunch of people until you find that right one. And so that's really the frame through which I think David and I have pivoted our thinking about failure. The more failures I have, the better, because that means I'm on my way to finding that thing that will work. Paula Rollo 31:12 What did you get from that specific example? Were there things that you learned from it that helped you with your next at bat that you framed the next one differently or something from it? Jillian Leslie 31:25 What I would say is it taught me that that it showed me again, that our customers, they're much more creators than they are interested in the technology. So again, that's something that we're always thinking about. And so when we build MiloTree, we're always trying to take the technology piece out as much as we possibly can and not focus on our features and all this cool stuff we do. We want to do that in the background so that the creators could go create. Paula Rollo 32:04 Yes. And in framing it that way means more responses, more purchases. Jillian Leslie 32:11 Exactly. Like we've got your back. So what we're trying to say in these emails was, "We've got your back." But, ultimately, it was too big of an ask. Paula Rollo 32:18 Right. You just overwhelmed me with technical jargon. I have no way to check if you're lying to me. I have no way of understanding. And that's ultimately not what I come to MiloTree for either, right? It's shifting in this direction that you're thinking, "Oh, I can help all these people," and these people are thinking like, "I just want you to get me Instagram followers." Jillian Leslie 32:40 Exactly, exactly. So that's what I would sa,y like how we learned about it and how it has helped inform us. So my husband is a typical guy. He loves the data and he's like, "Maybe we could create a dashboard for people's Google Analytics." And I'm like, "No, I don't think that our users would have any interest in that." Paula Rollo 33:03 Right. I'm sure some people would but it's not like the next step you need to take because the percentage isn't there. Jillian Leslie 33:09 Exactly. So it helps us, again, further define who our customer is and that even though we identified the pain point, they didn't perceive it as such. Don't solve a problem people don't think they have Paula Rollo 33:21 Yes. That's so important to like, if you solve a problem people don't acknowledge, it doesn't matter that you've solved that problem. Jillian Leslie 33:29 Exactly. It's like creating, you know, like think about in your own life, I don't know, like do you need a better way to sit down than a chair? You know, a chair is pretty good. So it's like that. Paula Rollo 33:44 It's like the people who invented the banana slicer? It's like, yes, your product is more efficient. But did I need it? Jillian Leslie 33:52 Exactly. Paula Rollo 33:53 And you created something that did work better than a banana slicer and it would have helped, but the way people are looking at it is just like, "No, this could cause me just as many problems as it solves because now I have to wash it, then I have to store it somewhere. They don't understand enough to know that this is actually going to help. Jillian Leslie 34:12 And typically what I have read is that if you have a new solution to a problem that already has a solution, it has to be 10 times as good for somebody to switch. Paula Rollo 34:22 So true. We've seen that with every new social media platform that has tried to launch like Ello tried to be a thing and all these other places. And because they're just Facebook but Ello. Jillian Leslie 34:35 Right, right. Paula Rollo 34:37 I'm not going to go over there because you only have one new for each feature, two new features, and all my friends aren't there yet. And there's nothing to get me there. But with Instagram, when Instagram came out, it was new, it was shiny, it was completely different. When Pinterest came out, same thing. It was new, it was shiny, it was completely different. And so people came over because it was 10 times better or different even though at the end of the day it's just social media. And my same friends who are on Instagram are also on Facebook. And my same friends are on Snapchat and all the other ones. But it's different enough that I'll do it. Entrepreneur advice: Make sure you're solution is 10x better than the next option Jillian Leslie 35:08 Absolutely. So think about that. Just if there's a problem that you're trying to solve, how much better is your solution than what's already out there? Paula Rollo 35:17 That's so good. That's so good. I guess that that can be like a way... a follow-up question is just like how can entrepreneurs look at their failures and so they don't just ball it up and throw it in the trash and forget about it. But what keys do you look for to say, "I'm going to take this small thing from the failure and try my next at bat." Like, how can we not waste those failures? Jillian Leslie 35:40 Ooh, that's a good question. I think depersonalizing them which is the more you can say, "I'm not a failure," the more you're willing to be curious about why this failed. And to use that curiosity to say, what does this tell me about my assumptions and does it tell me about my customer, my avatar, and how are they not connecting. Paula Rollo 36:12 Right. Jillian Leslie 36:14 And then there is always this piece that you won't know. You will make these assumptions but then that's why you need the at bats because you think, "Okay, I'll go this way then" and you try that. And if that doesn't work, okay, what is my next hypothesis? But the more things you can be testing and trying in the most down and dirty way, the better. So, for example, and don't be afraid to do stuff that doesn't scale. So in this experiment, to see if we could help people secure their sites, all I did was I said, "David, please send me..." I think I went to our most recent customer, something like that. And I went to every single site and I looked to see if it was secure or not secure. And if it wasn't secure, I took a screenshot of where it says "not secure" in the browser and then I came up with an email, and then I would email these people with using the screenshot where it says "not secure", and like this was not scalable. But I wanted to see what feedback I got. Maybe I went through 100 accounts, maybe I sent 25 emails and got almost no responses. I think I got one... No, I don't think I got any positives and I got one kind of nasty email back. Paula Rollo 37:48 Wow. Jillian Leslie 37:50 So that was a very strong signal. Paula Rollo 37:52 Yes, this is the wrong way. Jillian Leslie 37:55 This is the wrong way. Don't go this way, go another way. So again, it's like, maybe I spent a couple hours on this but I was in there mining. You know, I've written about this which is you're a miner when you're an entrepreneur, looking to monetize. And again, there's a lot you won't know. Paula Rollo 38:19 Yes, but it's worth looking at, to see what you can identify. Jillian Leslie 38:24 And there are times where you go, well, maybe these were the wrong people you reached out to. Maybe if you reached out to the next hundred people. And that's the thing. I don't know. Maybe that's true. So you don't ever really know whether your test was a good test or whatever but you kind of have to make a lot of assumptions and kind of figure out what your next at bat is. Paula Rollo 38:46 Right. And then from there, see if maybe you need to start back at the first one or not. Jillian Leslie 38:50 Yes, exactly. How is your avatar different from you? Paula Rollo 38:51 I think what's interesting in what you identified from this failure, it sounds like to me, is that, okay, so most entrepreneurs, we have our avatar like this is a common common phrase we know. And for most of us, we are our avatar, right? It comes from, "This is what I know and so that's what I can speak most to." But I think what's key that you identified there that we don't talk about as much is how your avatar is different than you. And you have this really unique thing where you like numbers, which is very foreign to me, by the way, I hate numbers. If it involves a number, I'm not going to remember. Like, no, I feel like my brain just rejects it as soon as I hear a number. My brains is like, "No, I don't like it." Jillian Leslie 39:32 That's funny. Paula Rollo 39:33 I just like creative and I like strategy. I like charts that have pictures, not charts that have numbers and just that's how I am. But you were able to look at this and say, "Okay, I am my avatar. I'm reaching these entrepreneurs." But there's this big key way that your avatar is different than you and then finding that is really helpful for your success going forward because next time, you can frame it in a different way that, "oh, maybe they don't like the number but they would like this." Maybe they don't like this technical jargon but like you're saying, they like hearing how it frees them up to be more creative. Jillian Leslie 40:08 Exactly, exactly. Paula Rollo 40:11 With Jillian as my avatar, you would have never realized that. Jillian Leslie 40:14 No, and in fact, it makes me more empathetic. So what I want to say is you can trust me because I've got David. I like numbers, yes, but I've got this technical powerhouse behind me, and we're trustworthy, that maybe there's a way I could take more of the technical burden off your plate. Paula Rollo 40:41 Right, exactly. Instead of sending them an email chock full of numbers and nerdiness and geekiness of how this works. Jillian Leslie 40:49 But also, I think too by sending them an email with a screenshot where it says "not secure with your URL," there's a little bit of shaming that I might have done. Paula Rollo 40:59 Yeah. Jillian Leslie 41:01 Like, "Ooh, I don't want to look at that. Why are you doing this?" I think it was not received in the way that I anticipated it was. And again, did I have a moment of shame and ickiness? I totally did. But then I was able to go, "No, no, this is just what you do as you test stuff," and you see. Paula Rollo 41:24 Right. Well, and it was also where the only thing you lost was your time because it's not like those 25 people went and deleted their MiloTree accounts and demanded refunds because, "how dare you?" They were just like, "I don't see what she's doing." The one person got mad. But it wasn't something you couldn't take back. It wasn't something that was going to be, like we were saying before, like go ahead, jump out, try it. But make sure it's something that you can just completely retreat on. Jillian Leslie 41:53 Exactly. Exactly. So that was definitely a really good learning. And I want more at bats. And the hard part too as an entrepreneur is where do you find the time for that, to carve those out. So what we do is we try to, you know, have a list of ideas and go "We need to test these things." What does Jillian's typical day look like? Paula Rollo 42:16 That's good. Well, I was just going to say like, in that, what does your typical day look like? How many at bats do you try? How many days? Is it just like, "I have to share on Facebook. I have to pin on Pinterest"? Jillian Leslie 42:31 Okay, that's a really good question. And I wish I could tell you that my days are more kind of structured and organized. I live with Post-It's and I have Post-It's all over my desk because they're immediate. I've tried all these all these places like Trello. And I do use Trello but just in terms of what's most immediate, I have like my days set out in Post-It's. And I have really neat handwriting. Paula Rollo 43:04 I didn't know this about you. This is very interesting. Jillian Leslie 43:08 Okay. I have like my most important tasks up on Post-It's. What I typically do is, first of all, I drink a lot of green tea during my day because I find it very calming and soothing. But I have different teams. Jillian's Catch My Party and MiloTree teams So I've got you as my MiloTree team, so you, David, and me. And then I've got my Catch My Party team, which right now is my assistant, my lovely assistant in Portugal, Ana. And then I have another assistant in the Philippines named Marie who kind of comes in. And I've got different Slack channels. So I've got Catch My Party as my Slack channel, and I've got MiloTree. And then I also have another group of designers who live in South Africa that we work with a lot. Then I also have some consultants that we work with. We're working right now with Deepak who has been a guest to work on SEO. So we've worked with ad consultants, or SEO consultants, or different designer consultants. And so I always have some kind of project working. I'm usually working with some outside help. And I usually then check in in the morning with my teams and see what's going on. Ana does a lot of the heavy lifting for Catch My Party, but together, we are coming up with strategy. We are coming up with blog posts, she's creating them, and then I'm editing them and pushing them out. What I have found is it's all about the quality of the people you work with. And that if you can find people who you jibe with, who you like to... it's a little bit like, "Hey, how was your day? How was your Thanksgiving?" That kind of thing. Like, I like my team personally and I like them professionally. Paula Rollo 45:03 That's good. Jillian Leslie 45:04 And I feel like they've got my back. Paula Rollo 45:06 Yes, we do. Jillian Leslie 45:09 Yeah. So therefore it's a little more ad hoc than you would think it would be in that I don't... you know, some people block out days. "Today, I'm going to work on blog posts. Tomorrow, I'm going to work on social." All that stuff. I wish I could be that organized. But it's typically a little more, "Okay, this week I know I want to do these certain things" Also, all these blog posts are going live. We do three blog posts a week on Catch My Party, I do a podcast episode every week that goes live that has a whole host of stuff that has to happen. So there are a variety of things that keep kind of moving forward and that in the midst of this, I'm trying to, in the cracks, figure out what the next at-bat is or working with a specialist. Right now we're experimenting with SEO and Pinterest ads -- and those are the two things kind of running in the background. Paula Rollo 46:05 You've almost transitioned from this one-man show that we all start out as to a manager. Jillian Leslie 46:12 Yes. Paula Rollo 46:12 And having teams of people that work for you and still doing a lot of the legwork yourself because that never goes away. But there's just management aspect that makes your day, it sounds like a little more chaotic. Jillian Leslie 46:24 It does. And what I found is, the fewer people I have to manage, the better. I've grown my teams bigger and I shrink them down to the bare bones. But what I would say, and we talked about this before we started recording, is like, how do you know when to hire somebody or when not to. That kind of thing. Advice: How to hire VAs And what I would say is start with something like Upwork which I use, which is where I can find, or Fiverr something. I've got a task, I need help with this task, I will hire somebody to help me. And if I find a gem, I will then give them another project. Paula Rollo 47:04 Interesting. Jillian Leslie 47:05 I don't go, "Oh, I need a VA for everything." Uh-uh. I need a VA to do this task." Paula Rollo 47:12 Right. And then you scale your VA. If I like my VA, if we work well together, if my VA is responsive and responsible and kindhearted, then I'll go, "You know what, I've got another project." So I think in terms of projects. And that way, I don't know, I can budget, I don't know, $100 to try them out and and see how how it works before I'm willing to commit, I don't know, thousands of dollars. Right. Yeah. And then you can slowly grow that team. Jillian Leslie 47:44 And then I can pull back. So again, I think of it as emergent more than I think of it as top down. Paula Rollo 47:55 How did you know it was time to hire your first VA test? Jillian Leslie 47:59 I was drowning. I was drowning and I was making enough money that I could justify it. How to know when to hire someone for your business Paula Rollo 48:06 Okay. What does enough money look like then? I think a lot of people are in this position like "Should I? Shouldn't I?" I think that it does help breaking it down to a project because normally the decision is, "I'm going to hand over all social media forever" and it's going to be like $900 a month. And that's too much. How do you know that you have enough money and how do you identify that first project when you are drowning, and you have to have time to hand something off? Jillian Leslie 48:33 Okay, here's what I would say. How much is your time worth? And if in fact, if your time -- and again, I like numbers. So you can figure out how much your time is worth by thinking about how much you make, how many hours you work. Okay, so I make let's say $20 an hour. If I can hire somebody for less than $20 an hour, it's worth it because I can then use myself in that hour to do something of higher value. Paula Rollo 49:06 For the first one, it may not even be taking hours off your plate. It may be more changing what you're doing with your hours. Jillian Leslie 49:14 Yes, yes. If I can move to a higher task, let's say social media. My social media is kind of this rote job, and it's not using all of my brain in terms of my creativity, or my ability to go mining for other opportunities. It's worth it for me to hire that out. And then I can use my own resources, my own brain for something that could bring in more value. The problem with kind of what we do, is we get on these like hampster wheels, and it's hard to get off of them. And I struggle with this as well, like, "Oh, I'll just go do it." And then what I realize is, you know, there's three days have gone by and all I'm doing is social media, and I haven't been able to elevate above it, and really do some strategy or reaching out, or whatever other things are that will push my business forward, not just keep me in the same place. Paula Rollo 50:19 That's so good. Jillian Leslie 50:21 And again, here's what I would say, for the people I work with, I typically create little training videos. Paula Rollo 50:30 That's good. Jillian Leslie 50:32 That I then add to YouTube as non-public or whatever, so that there's a link so that I don't then... let's say I'm going to try somebody out for a project. And this is how I want to do a task like do Facebook posts or something like that. I will make a video and go through step-by-step how I think about it, how I do it, post it so that VA can see that video. Then let's say I hire this person, and you know what, it doesn't work out in, here's what I would say, too. Cut your losses early. If it's not working at the beginning, it's not going to work at that end. So move on, in a kind way, but find somebody else. And I've already got the training video. Paula Rollo 51:13 Right. You don't waste "I talked to her for 45 minutes and I hired her the next day." Jillian Leslie 51:17 Exactly. You already invested. There's this thing called sunk cost which is, you know, let's say you're at a restaurant and they say it's an hour wait, and now you've waited an hour, and they say "oh, it's another hour," or whatever and you go, "I've already waited an hour." Well, that's gone. Evaluate whether you still want to wait another hour. So it's like, well, I've already trained her and it's 45 minutes, but it's not wort... you know, you spent all this time already. I've invested all this energy I can't pull up. No, you can pull up. So therefore systematize things in very down and dirty sort of ways. Paula Rollo 51:57 Yes, because it's not worth the mental load to keep on somebody who's failing. Advice: Work with people you like. Life is short. Jillian Leslie 52:03 It is so not worth it. Like work with people you really like. Life is short. Paula Rollo 52:08 Yes. One of the best benefits of working from home is you don't have that annoying coworker you hate. Jillian Leslie 52:16 Exactly. Paula Rollo 52:17 You get to pick your coworkers and you can learn. Jillian Leslie 52:19 I will share this. We talk about this. I am a huge introvert. And I get enough social interaction just by like chatting with you on Slack. And then I can just go away and just be quiet and not have that co-worker come into my office. So that really works for me. Paula Rollo 52:37 Yes, you can mute me when you need to. Jillian Leslie 52:40 Exactly. Exactly. And that's what I would say. So systematize, do things in projects. And I will say this. I think we did this. I don't know if we did this. I think we did. Like let's start with two weeks. Paula Rollo 52:52 Yeah, we did. Jillian Leslie 52:53 See how it goes. Paula Rollo 52:54 We did. Jillian Leslie 52:55 See if we're both happy. Paula Rollo 52:56 Yes. And take the mental load off too. Because if it hadn't worked out, it wouldn't feel like, "Oh, Jillian fired me. I'm not going to talk to her again." Jillian Leslie 53:05 Right, right. Paula Rollo 53:06 It could have just been like, "Well, it didn't work. My expectations were different than her expectations." And, you know, maybe she's too picky. But I'm not going to feel bad about myself because it was only ever a trial. Jillian Leslie 53:17 And we can still be friends. Paula Rollo 53:19 You can do the old breakup, "it's not me, it's you." Jillian Leslie 53:21 Right. Exactly. So that's what I would say which is, you know, be flexible. I think that as we're talking, the theme that I keep hearing is this idea of being an entrepreneur is all about being flexible. And it's all about not taking things personally, which I struggle with. Paula Rollo 53:40 Yes. Oh, it's so hard. Jillian Leslie 53:44 But if there are a couple things that I would say it's more at bats, like really put yourself out there, just try because who cares? And, you know, don't beat yourself up as much as we all like to do and personalize it. The other stuff. And to notice -- notice the stories we tell ourselves because so many of them aren't true. Paula Rollo 54:09 Yes. I feel like you tell me that every week. This is true Jillian right here, guys. Jillian Leslie 54:17 Yeah. And I don't know. Like just even I say it to my daughter all the time. She comes up with these elaborate tales of how tomorrow at school is going to be a bad day. And I go, "Wow! What a story." Paula Rollo 54:29 Right. And it's so helpful to hear that like rational... You're right. This is one possible outcome of an infinite number of possible outcomes. Jillian Leslie 54:41 Right. And how do you know you're right when that's going to happen. Paula Rollo 54:43 Why would I pick that one? Jillian Leslie 54:44 Right. Absolutely, absolutely. Paula Rollo 54:47 So good. Okay. So as we're ending here, I do want to know this is a year of Blogger Genius, which is amazing. And so I want to know what inspired you to start The Blogger Genius Podcast in the first place and then also what information gap do you feel like it's filling in our industry. Jillian Leslie 55:08 Ooh, okay. I am a huge podcast listener, so I am my own avatar. Paula Rollo 55:14 Perfect. Jillian Leslie 55:17 And I love the intimacy of it. Again, I love to learn. So the idea that by having this platform, I can invite people on and learn from them, and then share it with other people. Like, there could be nothing better for me. Paula Rollo 55:32 Love it. Jillian Leslie 55:33 And I haven't done any podcast where it's just me talking and maybe I will get there. But I feel like having a guest and kind of getting to ask the questions that I want to ask, it gives me this excuse to even ask the more personal questions or the question that, you know, you wouldn't necessarily ask at a cocktail party. Paula Rollo 55:53 Right, yes. Jillian Leslie 55:56 So weirdly, there's a selfish component to it which is I'm learning along with you. Paula Rollo 56:00 Right. Jillian Leslie 56:04 And that has been incredibly satisfying. I went to a conference called Podcast Movement. And I had been toying with the idea for a long time. And I took a workshop, a one-day workshop that said you could start a podcast really easily. And I have to say you can, but it's not as easy as I thought it would be. But I did it. They said that most people quit before their eighth podcast episode. So I made it like a thing that I was going to get past eight, and I loved it from the get-go. Paula Rollo 56:41 That's so cool. Jillian Leslie 56:43 And I guess the gap that the hope of what I'm providing -- and please reach out to me and let me know if this is true -- is I'm hoping to shine the light on the hard lessons or what people are doing, or that there is no one right answer. And to hopefully make it not as lonely. And that you can hear other people's struggles or other people's successes and see what you can then take into your own business. And I hope to be a friendly voice in your ear cheering you on. Paula Rollo 57:25 Yes, I think you can do that. And I think to connect it with what you were saying too, it almost gives listeners ideas for their next at bat. Like SEO wasn't on my radar and then Deepak gave us a thousand ways to grow in SEO. Maybe this or that business plan, depending on where people are, they can listen and they can hear from somebody else's at bat and go, "I want to take a crack at that ball. I'm going to try that." Jillian Leslie 57:52 Absolutely. Then the thing that we always talk about is, just because it's working for somebody doesn't mean it will necessarily work for you. And this has been a hard lesson for me to learn. Paula Rollo 58:05 Yeah. Jillian Leslie 58:07 So therefore, hopefully, the guests give a whole host of ideas, and you can see if -- I'll try that in my business. And again, this is the piece that I'm always working on, which is, if it doesn't work, it's not personal to me. It's like when people personalized like, "Oh, Facebook doesn't like me." Paula Rollo 58:27 I've said that. Jillian Leslie 58:30 Yeah. But it's like, "Okay, this might not align for my audience or my customers. But I can find something that does align, and I'm going to keep searching." Paula Rollo 58:41 Yes. Because even somebody else's fail story, there could be somebody listening right now who their audience would have resonated with an email, with a screenshot of your site is not secure, and they could go, "I'm going to send that email to my audience." And all hundred of their people would say yes, because their audience is different. Or the same happens with somebody sharing this epic success, and then somebody would go, "I'm going to try that" and then it's an epic failure for them because our audiences are different. But it's helpful to hear what other people are trying and experimenting with, and we can kind of create our experience or our experiments with the benefit of their experience. Jillian Leslie 59:21 Totally, totally. And I guess the thing is, to know that we're all struggling. We're all in this struggle, but it's okay to be in the struggle. And we all wake up sometimes and go, "Oh, God, I don't want to work today." And then there are days where it's effortless. And that's the thing that I think is so interesting, is that you show up and it just... who knows what you're going to find? Paula Rollo 59:53 Right. It just clicks. Jillian Leslie 59:55 It's a little bit like having children and every day, they're different. Like, some days I turn to my daughter, I go "Who are you today? I don't recognize you." Paula Rollo 1:00:07 Yes. I had a friend use this analogy for something last night, actually. Se said it was like starting a gas stove, and how you turn the crank and it clicks, and it clicks, and it clicks. And then at one moment, you've just got this flame, and it's on and you've got it. But you had to click it so many times at first. Jillian Leslie 1:00:25 Yes! Paula Rollo 1:00:27 That's how it works. But we just want the flame immediately -- and that's not how a stove works. Jillian Leslie 1:00:33 Yes, yes. So I would say that if, in fact, you are willing to work hard, you are willing to do crappy stuff, you are willing to be in the unknown, you're willing to face yourself and your own demons, there is nothing better than this job. And chances are, you're not going to get rich tomorrow. Paula Rollo 1:00:56 No, but your life could be rich tomorrow. Jillian Leslie 1:01:00 But your life could be rich, yes. It's funny. I will say this one thing, which is, so during the dot com bubble, I was writing television shows. Remember there were hiatuses in television season. So I was on hiatus and I went to my agents and I said, "There's this thing called the internet, guys. And there are these new internet companies that are doing entertainment content and I want to write a show for one of these companies. So I don't care about money, I want stock options. Because guys, we're going to get rich." And my agents looked at me like "You're crazy!" And I looked at them like, "You guys are just so... you don't get it." Well, I went to work at this company. It was called Z.com. I met David and we started working on a project together, and we really hit it off. Ultimately, the company burned through something like $35 million and went out of business. And I always say I didn't get rich in the way, I thought I was going to get rich, but I got rich in a whole different way. Paula Rollo 1:02:16 I love that. And that's the entrepreneur journey right there. Jillian Leslie 1:02:21 And there it is, there it is. You don't know what's going to show up in front of you, but it could totally change your life. Paula Rollo 1:02:31 Well, I don't know how we could end a podcast better than that. Jillian Leslie 1:02:34 Awesome. Well, I have to say, this has been really fun. And thank you to you, Paula, for being my partner -in-crime. and I always call you my best thought partner. And I'm always saying to David "Isn't Paula so smart? Like, look what she came up with." So I want to just thank you and let you know how much I appreciate you and all that you do. Paula Rollo 1:02:58 I appreciate you and being on this team, it's a lot of fun. Jillian Leslie 1:03:02 And also I want to say thank you to my audience for showing up every week and listening to me and please reach out to me, let me know what you like, what you don't like -- I won't take it personally, maybe a little bit. but still, please do it. And let me know what you want to hear for the show. And just thank you for coming along on the journey. Get MiloTree to grow YouTube and Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook and your email list and remember, get your first 30 days free. I welcome you to join the family. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Since it's getting toward the end of the year, today is December 24th, what I thought I'd do for this episode was go back into my archives and I would pull out one of my favorite episodes. In fact, this isn't just one of my favorite episodes. This episode has been downloaded so many times. It's an interview I did with my friend Courtney Whitmore from the blog, Pizzazzerie. Courtney creates beautiful recipes. She's a a cookbook writer. But what is most special about this interview is that Courtney shares how to get brands to pay you what you're worth. In fact, she has some great advice on how she negotiates with brands and how she gets them to pay her what she thinks she deserves. I think it is enlightening, especially if in 2019, you want to be making more money. You want to position yourself with brands, I think you will get a lot out of it. So without further ado, here is my interview with Courtney Whitmore. Here's the full transcript of this original episode including show note links. Courtney has been a long time MiloTree customer. She grows her Instagram with her MiloTree Instagram pop up. If you are thinking of working with brands, I recommend you sign up for MiloTree. Watch your followers on Instagram or Pinterest or Facebook or YouTube or your email list grow faster! Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Today I'm interviewing Meredith Marsh, YouTuber and creator of the blog, VidProMom. In this episode, we explore how to win with YouTube! We talk about ways to monetize your channel, how much you can really make with YouTube ads, down and dirty tricks to creating video on the fly, what metrics matter most on the platform, how often to publish, and so much more! If you are new to YouTube, or an old-time YouTuber, there are a lot of great tips in this episode. Resources: VidProMom MiloTree Video Pursuit Podcast Fiverr Adobe Premier Rush Lumafusion InShot iMovie Filmora Transcript - How to WIN with YouTube with Meredith Marsh Host 0:03 Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Leslie 0:11 Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today, we are talking all things YouTube. And as I confess, I am a little intimidated by YouTube. So I love my guest today. Her name is Meredith Marsh, and she blogs at a site called VidProMom. Of course, she has a YouTube channel with close to, I think, 30,000 subscribers. She also has a podcast called the Video Pursuit Podcast. But she really breaks it down -- you'll hear what is important, what's not important, what works on YouTube, and really how to think about it. So without further ado, here is the episode. So Meredith, welcome to the show. Meredith Marsh 0:59 Thank you so much for having me on. Jillian Leslie 1:01 I'm excited because, to be honest, YouTube is something I'm a little afraid of. Meredith Marsh 1:07 I hear that a lot. Jillian Leslie 1:08 Do you? Meredith Marsh 1:09 Yes, I do all the time. Jillian Leslie 1:11 Okay. So can you share your background, and how you got interested in YouTube, and how you've built your business with YouTube? How to start a career in teaching YouTube Meredith Marsh 1:17 Sure. So I used to be a freelance web designer. Out of college, I just decided that's what I was going to do, so that's kind of what I did. I taught myself like WordPress development and stuff like that. And I did that for about five years. And then in 2013, I had an opportunity to take a full-time job kind of managing web design and social media stuff in like a local company. So I gave up my freelance business, took a full-time job. And I was there for about a year before I was like, you know, I think I kind of like working for myself. So I really enjoyed the job itself. I enjoyed the people I worked with, but I missed the freedom. And so I had been kind of thinking I don't really want to go back to web design, just like straight up working with clients, but obviously, I had web design skills and I really liked creating content. So I thought maybe I should just start a blog and turn that into my business. Jillian Leslie 2:28 Did you know what it would be? Meredith Marsh 2:29 No. I noodled around ideas for like a year and a half trying to find like a niche or an idea or a topic that I felt like I was passionate enough about, that I wasn't going to get bored in a year. Because at that point, I kind of felt like I was really good at having ideas and then getting bored with them after I started them. And I was like, I'm done with that, I don't want to do that anymore. I want to find something I can really be passionate about and stick with it. So at the time, my kids were small. I have two little girls, they were like 7 and 4 or something. So I'm working a full-time job, I've got these two little kids. My husband was working crazy hours. And I felt like if there is a way that I could come up with a topic for a blog that related to us spending more time together or being more intentional about having family adventures and kind of capturing those moments. I just felt like if I could just knit all that stuff together, that would be great. But, I mean, that makes it sound like, "Oh, of course. Yeah, that's a no-brainer." But really, I was not connecting the puzzle pieces in my head at that point. I was just kind of like very abstract thinking about what a blog would look like and what those topics would be. Jillian Leslie 3:56 And what year was this? Meredith Marsh 3:57 This was late 2013. Jillian Leslie 4:03 Okay. Starting a YouTube channel about GoPro Meredith Marsh 4:06 And randomly one day, it was probably like Cyber Monday of that year, I decided to buy a GoPro camera. And I was like, "You know what, we're going to buy this camera and we're going to go on family adventures and just fun everyday stuff." We're not very adventurous people but if we like go for a hike or something, we can capture it on video, and we could make family movies, and that would be a really fun family sort of hobby. And so I bought the camera. I opened it up and it just so happened that we had like a foot of snow on a Saturday morning and I sent my kids out. Jillian Leslie 4:42 Where are you located? Meredith Marsh 4:44 I live in upstate New York. Okay, so it was early December. I sent them out with the GoPro and I created this video of them just playing in the snow and then decorating Christmas cookies with their grandmother. And I put this video together, and I was like, "Wow! This is actually kind of priceless." And I feel like I need to teach other people how to do this, too. Jillian Leslie 5:08 Did you have experience like editing footage? I know you're creative, I bet your artistic... Meredith Marsh 5:17 I want to say no, I didn't really have experience but I had played around with iMovie before. And I put together like a slideshow of still images for my grandmother's memorial service. That was the first time that I created something that was essentially a video even though it was still photos that I created something that people watched. I kind of liked that like, "Wow! That's kind of interesting to see it on a big screen." And seeing people's reactions to it was kind of fun. And then when I created this family video, seeing my kids' reactions to it was was also fun. And I thought, I think I could probably teach other people how to do this. Using keyword research to find a niche on YouTube And that's when all of the puzzle pieces started connecting. And I started doing some keyword research. I'm kind of a nerd. And so I dove right into keyword research to see like are there tutorials on this, are there video editing tutorials. And what I found was pretty much everything online that has to do with video or video cameras or video editing is geared toward professional people. And so I kind of just dove in to how can I teach regular everyday people -- moms and dads, families -- how to create videos, how to use a GoPro, how to edit the videos and things like that. And so I started blogging and it just sort of made sense to me that I should create videos for YouTube. Because if I'm going to create a tutorial on how to edit a video... Jillian Leslie 6:54 Right now. Meredith Marsh 6:55 Like, who's gonna read that? Jillian Leslie 6:56 Right. It gets very meta. Meredith Marsh 6:58 Yeah. It needs to be a video, right? And so I saw YouTube as a place to kind of house those videos. And then as soon as I started publishing a video every week along with a blog post, people just started subscribing and commenting and saying, "Well, can you do a video on on this? And can you do something on this and that?" And it's just where my community and my audience was growing, was on YouTube, at which was a total surprise for me because I wasn't a YouTube user really up until that point. Jillian Leslie 7:36 Okay. And how quickly did you see it connect? Did you go, "Ooh, this is working?" When you know your YouTube channel is getting traction Meredith Marsh 7:47 I would say about six weeks or so. Jillian Leslie 7:49 Okay. Meredith Marsh 7:50 Because I was getting views. I mean, I didn't look at the views at first because I didn't realize that was like... it sounds so silly now. I didn't realize at the time that YouTube was like a platform that people grow businesses on. Jillian Leslie 8:05 Right. Meredith Marsh 8:07 It really was just a place to house the videos I was creating. And one day just logged in, I was like, "Oh," there's like people watching these videos that I published and there's comments. And like, I can't remember. I think it was maybe four or five-ish months I had about 1,000 subscribers, which I thought was funny because just a few months before that, I didn't know that there was this thing called subscribing. Jillian Leslie 8:37 Wow. Meredith Marsh 8:38 So it just kind of grew. And like it was probably about six to nine months before I realized that I wasn't just a blogger with a YouTube channel. I was really a YouTube creator with a blog. And I just kept going kind of full steam with both platforms. And because just my community and my audience just kept growing over on YouTube. And it's turned into, like, I call it my powerhouse platform. I think all bloggers probably have at least one platform that's like their big platform for them. Jillian Leslie 9:16 Yup. Meredith Marsh 9:17 And for me, it's YouTube. Jillian Leslie 9:19 That's amazing. That's amazing. Okay. And then how have you seen it evolve? So you started off by creating content for moms and dads, right, to say "Hey, this is an easy way to take your video that we all take and do something with it," right? Meredith Marsh 9:38 Yeah, exactly. Jillian Leslie 9:40 Because I don't know about... like I just have video on my phone and then it gets onto my computer. And then I probably never look at it. Meredith Marsh 9:47 Right. That's exactly... Jillian Leslie 9:49 How did you then start to evolve that? Or is that still who your main audience is? Meredith Marsh 9:57 That is my core audience of my blog and my YouTube channel. And I would say about a year and a half ago, I had other bloggers that were contacting me or messaging me and saying, "Hey, how do you do this whole YouTube thing? Is this something I should do? How do I get started?" How to teach about YouTube in a podcast And so just this year, I launched the Video Pursuit Podcast. So that's a separate audience from my, you know, from my core blog and YouTube audience. And so I started that as a way to connect with other bloggers and content creators and help them get started or get serious about YouTube, so that they can use it to expand the reach. Jillian Leslie 10:40 So you interview other YouTubers or other bloggers who have a big YouTube presence. Meredith Marsh 10:48 I mostly use it more as a teaching platform. So it's usually just me or I'll bring on a co-host and we'll talk about specific topics. Jillian Leslie 10:59 About YouTube for bloggers, or for people who want to use this as a business platform. Meredith Marsh 11:07 Well, for example, I just had someone on, we talked about Pinterest. And so we didn't really talk. We really didn't talk about video stuff at all. We talked about Pinterest, and Tailwind and some of the new features of Tailwind. And so, it's really a resource for bloggers and content creators. And I might talk about anything that has to do with blogging and creating content, but there's a definite spin on it with video and YouTube. Jillian Leslie 11:40 Got it. Okay. And so here is my question, which is, well, let's start with you. How do you then monetize and how do you use YouTube to monetize for your own business? How to monetize a business on YouTube Meredith Marsh 11:56 Yeah. So I monetize my YouTube in pretty much the same way that I monetize my blog, which is through ad revenue and affiliate revenue, sponsorship deals, brand deals, things like that, and lead generation. Jillian Leslie 12:16 What do you mean by lead generation? Meredith Marsh 12:18 I have a couple of digital courses on editing videos. So, you know, I'm using it to grow my email list and things like that. Jillian Leslie 12:28 Sell to those email subscribers. Meredith Marsh 12:31 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Jillian Leslie 12:33 Yeah. Okay. So could we walk through then all of those different ways? Meredith Marsh 12:38 Sure. Jillian Leslie 12:38 Okay, so let's start with ads. Monetizing YouTube with ads Meredith Marsh 12:41 Yeah. So YouTube is owned by Google, so Google has their AdSense ad platform, and that's how you would earn ad revenue on YouTube. And recently this year, YouTube changed the minimum requirements to be a part of their ad program. So you have to have, I think, 1000 subscribers. And I think it's 4000 hours or minutes of watch time in the past 12 months or something. You basically have to be an active channel in order to earn ad revenue. And it's not meant to keep new creators out. It's really meant to keep people from stealing viral videos, and then setting up a YouTube channel, and immediately being able to monetize those videos. Jillian Leslie 13:40 Interesting. Okay. Meredith Marsh 13:43 And so the ad revenue on YouTube is, I mean, it's a lot like a blog where it kind of depends on your niche a little bit and what as far as how much you would make. So, you know, it's a supply and demand thing with ads. And so some niches might make more, some might make less. But yeah, ad revenue is something that if you hear some YouTubers will say, "Oh, don't focus on ad revenue, it's not reliable," or it's not this, or it's not that it has been reliable for me. It continues to grow as my channel grows and my views grow, and it's definitely one of my stronger revenue streams. Jillian Leslie 14:28 Okay. Because, again, I too have heard like, "No, you're not going to make a lot of money on YouTube in ads," that that is not going to be the way that you are going to, you know, buy that new car. Meredith Marsh 14:40 Right. I think it's, yeah, it's about perspective, I think, because I think as bloggers, we sort of know that we have all these revenue streams available to us where. I mean, I hope that as bloggers, we know that we have multiple streams that we can dip into and focus on. And for people who just focus on YouTube like an actual YouTuber or YouTube creator, they don't know about like how do you work with a brand, how do you get a sponsorship deal, what is affiliate revenue. Like, they don't know about those things. So they tend to focus on "Well, if I create videos and I'll get ad revenue," and they realize if you're brand new to the platform, unless you're somehow getting copious amounts of watch time on your videos, you're not going to have that ad revenue because you have to have the views and the watch time to get the ad revenue. Jillian Leslie 15:42 But I've even read that those huge YouTubers who have millions of subscribers, those people are not making their money on ad revenue. Meredith Marsh 15:51 Right. It's possible that they're not. Can you make a lot of money with YouTube ads? Jillian Leslie 15:54 Okay. So you wouldn't say to somebody "Go start a YouTube channel because you're going to make butt-loads of money with that." Meredith Marsh 16:03 Right. Yeah. I wouldn't lead with that, no. Jillian Leslie 16:05 Okay. And like, for example, do you make more money with ad revenue on your blog or ad revenue from YouTube? Meredith Marsh 16:13 Right now, YouTube is ahead by a little bit. But it's been pretty much neck and neck for me. Jillian Leslie 16:20 Now, what is nice about that is you have two passive income streams. Meredith Marsh 16:23 Yes. Yeah, exactly. The value of multiple passive income streams as a creator Jillian Leslie 16:25 And, you know, you take like, not a ton, but you keep finding these passive income streams, you add them together, it can become substantial. Meredith Marsh 16:34 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Jillian Leslie 16:35 Okay, so ad revenue is the first thing. Then the second piece, what would you layer in next? Making affiliate revenue on YouTube Meredith Marsh 16:43 Affiliate revenue. A lot of people don't realize you can do this on YouTube. You can put your affiliate links in your YouTube description. Just like you would in your blog, you have to disclose that it's an affiliate link and you might earn money if, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, the disclosure that you have to have. But you can put those in your YouTube description. So what I like to tell people is look at the products that you use every day that you recommend to your readers every day, and you could come up with four or five different video ideas around that one product. Because you could do a review, you could do a, you know, alternatives to this product. You could do top five uses of this product, right? There's all these different things you could talk about around this one product and use those videos to drive affiliate revenue. Jillian Leslie 17:46 Now, I have a couple questions. One, I've heard that if you put a link in like an affiliate link and somebody clicks on it and drag those off the platform, that YouTube doesn't like that. Does driving people to a link off YouTube hurt your channel? Meredith Marsh 17:59 That is true. YouTube doesn't like people leaving their platform just like every other, you know, social platform. So there's always a trade off, right? So if someone clicks off and goes to Amazon and they make a purchase, and you make, you know, five bucks or something, then that might be worth it to you in your channel to have had somebody click off. And so there's a balancing act there. If you were going to build your entire YouTube strategy around people clicking off the platform to make affiliate purchases, that probably wouldn't be the best/strongest strategy, but if you weave in those affiliate style videos every once in a while, especially this time of year and during the holidays, then it can work out really well for you. Jillian Leslie 18:56 So would you say that you would not make all your videos affiliate videos? Meredith Marsh 19:02 Yeah, I probably wouldn't. It depends on your niche and what you want to do with your channel. It really does depend. If you can get people, if you can get your viewers to watch your entire video before they click off, then you'll be in a much better position with YouTube, if that makes sense. So if you can get people to come back, then you're, you're golden. So I like to get people onto my email list and use my email list to send people to make affiliate purchases. That way, they're on my email list. Now, when I publish a new video, I can email them and say, "Hey, here's this new video I think you would enjoy." Now I'm bringing in more views. So I got them to click off that one time. Using YouTube to grow your list Jillian Leslie 19:54 To join your list. Meredith Marsh 19:55 Yeah, but I'm sending them back so many more times now. I wish I had a statistic on like for every person I send off of YouTube, you know, I get them back 5 more times or 10 more times or something. But yet the YouTube algorithm will see people clicking off, but they see also people coming to YouTube through your content, and they'll reward you for that. Jillian Leslie 20:24 So how do you send them off to join your list? Meredith Marsh 20:28 There's a couple different ways. So you can put a link to, if you have an email opt-in landing page or something, you can link to that in your description. You can also tell people in your video that "Hey, I have a great cheat sheet for you." And I usually like to say, "When you're done watching this video, you can head down and grab the link in the description," just to make them kind of like "hold your horses, watch the video" and at the end, you can remind them again, "Don't forget, I have a link to this special cheat sheet for you." Also, YouTube has something called "cards" which are like you you can create a link that would pop up on your video at a certain point, you get to decide when. And it could be a link off YouTube to your opt-in page or it could be a link to another video. Or it could be a link to, I think, like another channel or something or another playlist. And so you could use that to send people off to your opt-in. You can also use the end screen element. So like you have 20 seconds at the end of your video that you can send people different places, and one of those places could be to your email opt-in. Jillian Leslie 21:53 And how successful has that strategy been for you? Meredith Marsh 21:59 Over time... I don't have any data on that. I should look that up, actually. What I did was in April 2017, I did 30 days of GoPros. So I set out to publish one video every day for 30 days. It ended up taking me six months to do the 30 videos. But what I did was I created a GoPro cheat sheet, a GoPro settings cheat sheet, put that on just a one-page PDF. So I have this 30-day series and so the first video in that series is me talking about this series and telling people where they can get the cheat sheet. And so in video number two, I'm doing the content and then saying, "By the way, I have this great cheat sheet for you. You can head back to video #1 to grab it." And so if somebody finds video #15 randomly through search or recommended video, and they've never heard of me before and they don't know about the series, then they watch the video and they hear me say, "I have a great cheat sheet for you. You can go back to video number one to find it." And they click on the card or the end screen element, or they click the link in the description. And now they're going back to video #1. So now they have the link to the cheat sheet to the opt-in page. Now they also know this is a series, so now they can start there at video #1, watch the whole series. And that month in April, I had 500 new people on my list just for that one GoPro settings cheat sheet opt-in. Jillian Leslie 23:49 Wow. And every video you would say, "Hey, if you're liking this, go back to episode one." Meredith Marsh 23:54 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Jillian Leslie 23:56 That was brilliant! Meredith Marsh 23:57 Yeah. Thank you. Jillian Leslie 23:59 That was really smart. But I like how so many things were communicated in that without a lot of explanation. Meredith Marsh 24:05 Right. Exactly. How to grow your YouTube subscribers with your MiloTree YouTube pop-up Jillian Leslie 24:08 "Did you know that you could grow your YouTube subscribers with your MiloTree pop-up? In fact, if you go to Meredith's blog at VidProMom.com, you will see it in action because she is using the MiloTree YouTube pop-up to increase her subscribers. Head to... I invite you to go to MiloTree.com to set up your own pop-ups to grow YouTube, or Facebook, or Instagram, or Pinterest or your email list. You can set it up and get it up on your site in under three minutes. And if you sign up now, you get your first 30 days free and you get access to my weekly newsletters." And now back to the show. Before we go on to other different ways to monetize, I just wanted to stop and ask you what are the metrics that YouTube cares about the most. Like, you keep mentioning watch time. Meredith Marsh 25:14 Yeah. YouTube wants people to keep watching videos and never leave YouTube. Jillian Leslie 25:22 Like my daughter, by the way. Meredith Marsh 25:24 Yeah, my kids too. So for example, in your videos, if you're going to create videos, you want people to stay on your video for as long as possible, you know, until the very end would be the goal. But very few people watch to the very end.And so if you can get more than 50% viewer retention on your videos...To the end. Well, yeah, if you can have at least 50% of the people that start a video finish the video, then YouTube will start to see that as, okay, people are interested in this -- it's helpful or it's useful, or it's entertaining, or whatever it is, and they'll recommend it to more people. Because if YouTube feels like this is working, people are watching this, then they're going to want to recommend your video over someone else's video that doesn't have as good or as high of a viewer retention. Jillian Leslie 26:31 Okay. So what is watch time? What is watch time on YouTube and why is it important? Meredith Marsh 26:34 Watch time is the amount of time view a viewer would spend watching your videos. So, yeah, basically the amount of time, like the actual number of minutes. Jillian Leslie 26:50 Okay. And what is the ideal? I've heard this, you know, change over time that you want your videos to be at least 10 minutes. Is that true? Meredith Marsh 27:02 I think different people say different things. So like, for me, personally, I don't set a target. I mean, I try to make my videos more than three minutes. But if they're more than 15 minutes, it's just for me, personally, I'm like, "Okay, this is taking forever to edit. I need to do something different here." So I don't give myself like a hard... like it's got to be 10 minutes no more, no less. Because it's more important to me that I keep people interested in watching that video and not getting bored or distracted and clicking off. I would focus on the retention, keeping people on your video. I'd focus on that before I would start looking at, you know, have they watched for 10 minutes or 5 minutes. Jillian Leslie 27:54 And you can see all of this in your analytics. Meredith Marsh 27:57 Yeah, the analytics for YouTube is very, very detailed. It can be very overwhelming because it is so detailed. Jillian Leslie 28:03 Like Google Analytics, yeah. Meredith Marsh 28:04 Yeah. Jillian Leslie 28:04 Same company. Meredith Marsh 28:05 Yeah, it is very detailed. One of the nice things about it is, I feel like with Google Analytics, they're just like dumping data on you. And whereas with YouTube Analytics, it's sort of displaying the data in a way that is giving you clues about what it cares about, what YouTube cares about. So it will tell you like here's your watch time over the last 28 days, here are your subscribers, here's this, here's that. And it's essentially telling you what it cares about the most. And over the years, it's changed a little bit. Jillian Leslie 28:48 So what are you looking at when you go to your analytics? Meredith Marsh 28:52 When I go to my analytics, the first thing I usually look at is what's my subscriber number. Jillian Leslie 29:01 Okay. Meredith Marsh 29:02 Has it gone up or down? And it's actually kind of funny because it's very steady for me. I usually gain subscribers -- everyone gains and loses, but I don't ever have like a spike in subscribers or like a big loss. So I don't know why that's always the first thing I look at. Because it's pretty much always just like, yup, more subscribers... Jillian Leslie 29:26 And how many subscribers do you have? Meredith Marsh 29:28 I just rolled over 28,000. Jillian Leslie 29:30 Nice. Meredith Marsh 29:32 So I don't know if there's a big celebration at 30. Jillian Leslie 29:36 That's nice. I feel happy every time I roll over another thousand. I'm like, "Yes! Still going." Okay, so you look at subscriber numbers. Then what do you look at? What YouTube analytics should you care about? Meredith Marsh 29:46 Watch time is the next thing. For me, like, I look at subscribers, but YouTube doesn't really care about your subscribers. They care about watch time and views. And then I also look at my revenue, which the revenue is a little bit like it goes up, it goes down, you don't really know why it might have.. it usually doesn't have anything to do with your content. It has to do with the supply and demand of the ads. Jillian Leslie 30:15 Of the ads. So can you share like around for, say, close to 30,000 subscriber what that would entail in terms of revenue? Meredith Marsh 30:26 My revenue right now in the last 28 days is $430. And that's usually about where it is. Sometimes it's up closer to 500, but it really depends. Jillian Leslie 30:41 Got it. Okay. So you can see how if you have 3 million followers, how that number would grow. Meredith Marsh 30:51 Right. You would think so, yes. Although I have friends that have a lot more subscribers than me who make the same as me or less. Jillian Leslie 31:02 Interesting. Meredith Marsh 31:03 Yeah, but they're in a different niche. They're talking about different things. So the people that are watching their videos have different interests, so therefore, they're going to be served different ads. Jillian Leslie 31:13 Right. Meredith Marsh 31:14 I have a very consumer-focused audience. This is just me taking a guess, but I think that my ad revenue is probably fairly good for the amount of watch time that I get because my viewers are consumers, and Google knows that. Google knows everything. And so, that's just kind of my data. Jillian Leslie 31:44 And typically buying high-end products -- cameras, things like that. Meredith Marsh 31:48 Right. Yeah. Jillian Leslie 31:50 Okay. So let's go back to other ways to monetize. So we talked about ads, we talked about affiliates, we talked about driving people off to sign up for your list. So now, let's say working with brands, which is one that lots of YouTubers, that's how they monetize. Now, do you work with brands? Working with brands as a YouTuber Meredith Marsh 32:15 I do work with brands occasionally. And I have never had a brand ask me for just a blog post. It's always a video. And so when I go and I price out how much should I charge for a blog post versus a video, it's like double for the video. So I'm always basically pitching back to them you're going to get a video and blog post and social shares. And without having the video as a deliverable, I don't think I don't even think doing sponsorship would even be worth it. Jillian Leslie 32:59 Interesting. Yeah. Meredith Marsh 33:00 Yeah. Because they want to be in front of my exact audience. Jillian Leslie 33:08 So what kind of company would you work with? Like GoPro? Meredith Marsh 33:12 I have not worked with GoPro on a sponsored deal but I'm part of the GoPro family kind of like their influencer family. So they just put out a new camera in September. Yeah, September. And so they sent me the new camera so I can do an unboxing and a review and all that kind of stuff. So I don't ask them for money because I just want them to keep sending me new products. Jillian Leslie 33:41 New cameras. I totally get it. Meredith Marsh 33:43 I'm happy with my relationship with GoPro in that regard. This year, I worked with Adobe on some tutorials for using Adobe Premiere Elements, which is their consumer-level editing platform. I've worked with other brands like GoPro accessories or just different video editing software and stuff like that. Jillian Leslie 34:12 Got it. Okay. And do you ever reach out to brands? Meredith Marsh 34:17 I do. Jillian Leslie 34:18 "Hey, I've got this cool YouTube channel. Here's my audience." That kind of thing. Meredith Marsh 34:22 Yeah, I do reach out to brands and it's kind of a hit-or-miss with them. And sometimes they're like, "Okay, cool." And other times they're like, "Nah, not interested." Jillian Leslie 34:34 Right. And now, you also sell courses? Meredith Marsh 34:38 I do, yes. Jillian Leslie 34:40 And so how are you using YouTube to drive those sales? Meredith Marsh 34:45 Yeah, so I have a couple of video editing courses. One of them is very focused on Adobe Premiere Elements. So if I'm creating a video like a tutorial on Premiere Elements, and I'm getting people on to my email list because I gave them a cheat sheet, now I know that they're interested in learning Premier Elements. So they're an ideal candidate to be a customer. And so that's kind of how I'm using YouTube in that regard for for my courses. Jillian Leslie 35:21 Got it. And so if you sell that, then people get access to those videos, whereas they're not just up on your channel. Selling a course as a YouTuber Meredith Marsh 35:31 Right. Yeah, the courses are additional videos, they're not just YouTube videos. So they're more in depth more... you know, like I mentioned with YouTube videos, I'm trying to keep people on my video. So I'm keeping it kind of moving fairly quickly. I like to say I like my videos to be snappy and not boring because I don't want them to click off. But that's not necessarily the best way to learn. You want to sit down and actually learn the program, you need a little bit of a slower pace. And so that's what I have inside the courses. What is a playlist on YouTube? Jillian Leslie 36:08 That makes a lot of sense. Can we talk just briefly about playlists, what a playlist is, and do you recommend them? And how do you think about playlists? Meredith Marsh 36:17 Yeah, playlists are great. I like to think of a playlist in terms of it's almost like setting categories like you would on your blog. So similar, you know, related topics could be under one playlist. You can have your video in more than one playlist. And then what I like to do is on the homepage of my YouTube channel, you can customize your homepage, and I put my playlist there so that it's almost like I have one row is, you know, GoPro tutorials. one row is Premier Elements tutorials, and they're categorized and they're in playlists. And so the playlist themselves can actually come up and help you with your SEO because it's just another opportunity for you to put in your keywords and your topics. Jillian Leslie 37:13 Oh, interesting. Okay. Because I feel like all I have right now on our MiloTree YouTube channel are a bunch of my podcast interviews, but I haven't even organized them and I barely have put cover images on them, so I feel like I have a lot of work to do to optimize that with keywords, with everything. Meredith Marsh 37:34 Yeah, yeah. Jillian Leslie 37:36 In fact, I was just on Fiverr yesterday looking for somebody who could man it, like set it up for SEO and things like that. Okay. Here is the, I think, million dollar question. Meredith Marsh 37:51 Oh, boy. How to find the time to make videos as a blogger? Jillian Leslie 37:53 Ready? It's not that hard for you, but it's hard for us as bloggers. In fact, I was just talking to our MiloTree community manager, Paula Rollo, just before I got on this call. And I said, "What would you want to ask? I'm talking to a YouTube expert. What would you want to ask?" And she said, "How to deal with the fact that making videos takes a lot of time." And she's like, you know, "I feel like I've started and I've stopped doing YouTube. And I never know if I should keep going, like, I'm almost going to break through, but it just takes so much time to create content." Meredith Marsh 38:38 That is a fantastic question, which I would answer with another question. How much time do you bloggers put into creating their written content? Because when you think about the amount of time you're researching your topics, and then you're writing and you're creating your Pinterest images, sometimes you're creating loads and loads of Pinterest images for each blog post. You're scheduling your Instagram and your Pinterest, you're already spending lots and lots of time on a piece of content. And so you're really more than halfway there of creating a video because you've already done the research. If you've written the post, you've essentially written what could be a script or an outline for you. And so you're already more than halfway there. And the video part takes some time to get used to and learn but there is no one right way to create a video. And if you use your cell phone, that's perfect. And if you use your fancy camera, that's perfect, too. If you can create a video that doesn't need to be edited, that's outstanding. And if you create a video that does need to be edited, that's great, too. And so, just start wherever you're at. But I think bloggers in particular are really primed to be excellent YouTube creators because you already have so much content, you've already done more than half the work compared to any random person off the street that wakes up today and wants to be a YouTuber. They don't really know about creating content. They're just thinking "I want to be a YouTuber." Jillian Leslie 40:28 Right. Exactly. They don't know what SEO is, they don't know what keywords are. They don't know how to build an audience. Meredith Marsh 40:36 Right, yeah. So I can't argue with the fact that it takes time to create video content, but it takes time to create all of the content that I create. We're spending that time somewhere. And YouTube has just such great organic search components and things that that's where I like to spend my time. How to make YouTube videos in the easiest way possible? Jillian Leslie 41:00 Okay. So let's say I decide I'm going to start making video and I want to do it in the most down and dirty way, but where my content looks good relatively, you know, and so I'm going to use my phone. And let's say I have like a little tripod and I'm going to do a craft or something. Would you recommend that I try and just do it in one shot so I don't have to edit? What are some tricks to help me speed up this process? Meredith Marsh 41:34 If you are going to do a craft with your phone, I would use your phone to shoot your hands creating the craft and then when you're done creating it and you've shot that part, you can do a voiceover and explain what you've done, essentially. And then you can just shoot a little intro with your face on camera saying like, "Hey, this is so and so. And I'm creating a craft called such and such for, you know, for a Christmas craft for kids," or whatever it is and then have a little outro. You would then just have to put those pieces together and you can edit those on your phone. Jillian Leslie 42:18 Okay. And do you recommend I edit stuff on my... what is the easiest way to edit video? Meredith Marsh 42:24 Easiest way? Well, I would say the easiest way would be on your phone. That'd be the easiest and quickest. Jillian Leslie 42:30 Really? And what what am I using? Meredith Marsh 42:32 Oh boy, there's lots of options. Adobe just came out with their Premier Rush, which is an app for your phone or your iPad, but they also have it for your desktop so that everything you create on mobile is also going to be there when you open up on your desktop. So that's an interesting one, they just came out with that recently. There's also Lumafusion -- is a really, really good editing app for your phone. It's very robust, but it's still pretty simple. Jillian Leslie 43:08 I've never even heard of that. Meredith Marsh 43:10 That's a good one. I like that one a lot. Let's see. There's one called the InShot that I know a lot of people use for Instagram. There's Adobe Clip. I'm looking at my phone right now. Filmora has a mobile app. There's also iMovie for iPad and phones. So it's really just a matter of taking, you know, if you have five separate clips, an intro, an outro and a middle, you know, it's just a matter of putting them together. Advice: Don't over-edit your YouTube videos Jillian Leslie 43:49 Wow! Well, now speak to this, which is I think that as bloggers we're perfectionists. Like I find with my podcast, for example, I could spend days editing out "um's" and the phone ringing and all of that stuff. And so how do you deal with that with video so that you're not just overly editing everything? Meredith Marsh 44:17 Wow. That is such a good question. You know, done is better than perfect. Jillian Leslie 44:27 I love that, yeah. Meredith Marsh 44:28 I don't think in reality, nobody expects perfection from most people. I mean, I have trained my audience that you don't expect perfection from me at all. You expect me to show up and be useful and helpful and deliver the content that you came looking for, but certainly not perfection. And you just just have to publish and keep going. You can always improve. But if you don't publish, right, then you have nothing to improve. Right? Jillian Leslie 45:05 Right. I like that. I do, I agree. You know, it's that scary thing of putting yourself out there. And, you know, especially with video because I think that we feel more exposed. Meredith Marsh 45:20 Yeah, for sure. Jillian Leslie 45:25 And there's a vulnerability to it. Advice: Have bright light for shooting video Meredith Marsh 45:27 Yeah. One of my favorite tips for people who feel like "I can't do videos because I don't like the way I look on camera" is just make sure you have lots of great lighting, which means you could just stand in front of a window or be in your car. Because when you have not very much lighting, that's when all of your least favorite features will like be predominant. Especially I feel like for women who might have skin imperfections or wrinkle or something, light can just magically make those things disappear. Jillian Leslie 46:06 That is a great tip. Meredith Marsh 46:07 Yeah. Really, really just light it up. Jillian Leslie 46:11 Okay, one more question, which is, do I need to publish a video every week at a specific time? Do I need to? People talk about this, you train your audience to know that on Tuesdays at 9:00 there'll be a new video. Is that true? Consistency on YouTube -- Do you need to be? Meredith Marsh 46:29 I am going to say yes, it's good to be consistent. But, I mean, at the same time, if somebody said, "Well, I can't publish every week," I would say then publish every two weeks. Don't let consistency keep you from publishing once even a month, if that's all you can do. It's not like if you can't be consistent, you might as well not do it. That's not a piece at all. But it is good to be consistent and try to do once a week and try to do the same day, same time, if you can. And a really good way to do that is to just prepare four or five videos over the course of like a weekend and you have those videos ready to go. And maybe all they need is just to be edited and published versus actually creating a whole video every week. That gets really tiring really greatly. Jillian Leslie 47:27 Right. So like batch them. Meredith Marsh 47:29 Yeah, batching is really good, especially when you're first starting. It's really good. Jillian Leslie 47:33 And is it that Google wants you to be consistent or is it really that your audience knows, "Oh, it's Tuesday, there's going to be a new video." Meredith Marsh 47:42 Yeah, I think it's your audience. And I don't necessarily know that people are like looking at their watch, you know, like, "Oh, okay, it's 1:00 on a Wednesday. I know that Meredith is going to be here right now." Jillian Leslie 47:53 Right, right. Meredith Marsh 47:54 But it's that you're there when they when they do open up YouTube and they're expecting you and it's familiar to them. And, you know, they've just become used to seeing your face in a new video every week or every two weeks or whatever. Jillian Leslie 48:12 Oh, wow. Meredith, I have learned so much from you. Meredith Marsh 48:15 I'm so glad. Jillian Leslie 48:16 And you know what you've done? You have made video seem a little less scary. Meredith Marsh 48:22 Good. That's excellent. Jillian Leslie 48:24 The whole idea of editing video on my phone. Do you have a bunch of tutorials on that? Meredith Marsh 48:31 I don't have a bunch. I do have one on my, funnily enough, it's not even on my YouTube channel. It's on my IGTV channel. I have been on editing vertical videos in Lumafusion which teaches you how to use that. Back when IGTV first came out, people didn't know like, how do I even create a vertical video for IGTV? So I created that and I put it on IGTV. But mostly for me personally, I'm using my desktop to edit. Because I'm not in the editing apps a whole bunch. I haven't created tutorials on them yet. What are your thoughts on IGTV? Jillian Leslie 49:10 Got it. Okay. And tell me what are your thoughts about IGTV? Meredith Marsh 49:15 I don't have any thoughts on it really. I very rarely watch anybody's IGTV. I don't even really know that they're even there. I don't pay attention to it. I don't know, it's too early to tell, I think. Jillian Leslie 49:29 Right. it's too early to tell. Meredith Marsh 49:31 Yeah. Jillian Leslie 49:31 Well, Meredith, honestly, please tell people how they can reach out to you see your videos. Meredith Marsh 49:37 Yeah, so my podcast is the Video Pursuit Podcast, so you can find that at VidProMom.com/podcast or you can just search for it in your favorite podcast player. I do have a Facebook group called Video for Bloggers and Content Creators, and that's where I run my five-day challenges -- five days to a polished and profitable YouTube presence. And have a good community going there as well. So that's the Video for Bloggers and Content Creators Facebook group. Jillian Leslie 50:07 Oh, Meredith. Well, honestly, thank you so much for being on the show. Meredith Marsh 50:11 Thank you for having me. Jillian Leslie 50:13 Get MiloTree to grow YouTube and Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook and your email list and remember, get your first 30 days free. I welcome you to join the family. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!