Welcome to episode 54 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Jeni Elliot from The Blog Maven.
Jeni Elliott knows that just doing the work isn’t going to turn your business dreams into a reality. Instead, she’s a proponent of doing the right kind of work, using both tactics and strategies to achieve your overarching goals, and maintaining a work-life balance.
She got her start not in the blogging world, but in the business world, where she helped small business owners meet their goals. As an avid blog reader, though, she found that she could apply her strategies to blog businesses and see profound impact. So, she made The Blog Maven her career’s work, and along the way has learned what it takes to turn a blogger into an entrepreneur.
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Welcome to episode 53 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with someone most of us are probably familiar with, Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income.
Do I even need to introduce Pat? I mean, he’s kind of an online business celebrity. In the world of passive income, Pat has come to embody what it means to run a passive income business.
If you haven’t heard of passive income before, definitey check out Pat’s website where he talks a lot about it.
This episode doesn’t go too deep into the intricacies of what passive income is. Instead, Pat talks about what he’s done to determine whether a passive income business idea will really take off - whether or not it will fly. He talks about his two passive income business and how they continue to bring in money today after creating them years ago. He talks about how he can manage with so many things on his plate while still adhering to The One Thing that Jay Papasan talked about in this episode. In all, it’s a really incredible episode, so let’s just jump right in!
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Welcome to episode 52 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Megan Gilmore from Detoxinista.
We all know that writing a cookbook is a LOT of work. From the recipe development to the photography, a cookbook author is a busy bee. One thing you might not know, though, is that the author is also expected to presell copies of their book to their audience before it even publishes. As you might imagine, this can be quite the task!
When Megan Gilmore, the author behind Detoxinista, set out to presell copies of her first cookbook, they expected the average number of sales - somewhere around 500 cookbooks. Instead, she blew everyone at 10 Speed Press out of the water with a whopping 4,000 cookbook presales - the largest presale in the history of 10 Speed Press. Today, she’s here to tell us how she did it.
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Welcome to episode 51 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork dives into the intricacies of branding with Aaron Scott from Your Brand Week.
For some new businesses, branding can be an afterthought, or even something that isn’t thought about much at all. In reality, though, your branding can be the first and last impression that a visitor can have about your business. A logo can convey meaning, type can encourage continued reading, and colors can invoke emotion. When it all comes together, your branding can be a powerful tool for your business.
Aaron Scott and his wife, Amanda, recently launched Your Brand Week, a boutique branding agency geared toward helping small businesses create meaningful brands in an affordable and efficient manner. Today, Aaron chats with Bjork about what a cohesive brand is and how it can impact your business.
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Welcome to episode 51 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks all things video with Tim Schmoyer from VideoCreators.com.
We’ve all heard it recently: video is the new thing. Get into video. Video is key. Okay, okay. We get it. We need to get into video.
But once we make that commitment and dive right in, how do we get people to watch it? And beyond that, how do we get them to keep watching it?
Keeping viewers engaged with your video is extrememly important. The longer they watch your video, the more interested they are in your content, and the more positive signals they send to YouTube (or whereever you upload).
Tim Schmoyer, founder of VideoCreators.com and long-time successful YouTube Vlogger, is here today to share his secrets to creating engaging videos that your viewers just can’t peel their eyes away from.
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Welcome to episode 49 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork chats with Allison Schaaf from the meal planning service PrepDish.
Allison Schaaf started her entrepreneurial adventure with two key components: a focused goal and great branding. But what has kept her going in creating a business that brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars every year was something else entirely. In a word:
Accountability.
Allison found a while back that working with business coaches has helped her business skyrocket. And while the coaches helped her get to where she is today, she also discovered that accountability of any sort, from a coach to a friend to a dedicated group, is what helps her set and achieve her goals.
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Welcome to episode 48 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews Dustin & Lacey Baier from A Sweet Pea Chef.
A few years ago, A Sweet Pea Chef was floundering. Dustin & Lacey had grown it to the point where it was getting expensive to maintain, but they hadn’t unlocked the secrets to turning it into a successful business. They bounced from great idea to great idea, but just weren’t able to get anything to stick.
Until, one day, an internet passer-by pounced and described how inferior they were to the competition. Little did they know, this angry email would lead them down a path that would help them properly monetize their website and start turning things around.
Since then, Dustin & Lacey learned how to say no to good opportunities to focus on what’s most important, cracked the code for viral vide, and took A Sweet Pea Chef to new heights.
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Welcome to episode 47 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork interviews Jay Papasan, coauthor of the New York Times Bestseller The ONE Thing.
If you’re anything like me, there are always more things to do than we have time for, and prioritizing what to work on every day can be really tough. As a result, we’re pulled in so many different directions working on different projects that we find it really difficult to make any measurable progress on any one thing.
If this describes you, you are not alone. Jay Papasan and Gary Keller discovered that this was a problem that faced so many of their employees and coworkers at the Keller Williams Realty group. After Gary worked for years with his employees to help them discover the things they should be focusing on, he and Jay, a NYT bestselling book editor, came together to write a book about it, called The ONE Thing.
Today, Jay joins Bjork in an interview that is sure to change the way you are thinking about your projects and priorities.
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Welcome to episode 46 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Kate Kordsmeier from the blog Root & Revel about her successful freelance writing career.
While many of us dream about the days when we could find enough success with our blogs that we could write for magazines like Cooking Light and Conde Nast Traveler, Kate’s already been-there-done-that. With a little experience in copywriting and a lot of drive, Kate was able to quit her full-time job and double her income with freelance writing - before she ever had a food blog.
In this interview, Kate shares a lot of tips and tricks she’s learned along the way so that you, too, can try your hand at freelance writing.
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Welcome to episode 45 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! Thisweek,Bjork interviews Tony Rulli from Intentional Spark aboutadvertisingon Facebook.
In today’s day and age, the internet can bereallynoisy. There are ads all over the place for productsyoumay or may not be interested in, all sorts of conpanies askingyouto buy their products, and more and more things to look ateveryday.
So what makes you pay attention to the few things that catchyoureye? A lot of the time, what makes you pay attention isrelevancy -the thing that caught your eye has something to do withyou andsolves a problem you already have.
So, if you’re selling a product, promoting your company, orjustwanting to get the word out, the best way to get people topayattention is to target the right people in the first place.
While this sounds complicated, Facebook actually makes itprettyeasy! Listen in to today’s podcast with Tony Rulli to learnhow toleverage Facebook’s powerful remarketing tools to help youcreatean income from your blog.
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Welcome to episode 44 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork talks with Justine Grey about how low-traffic bloggers can make an income through affiliate marketing.
Last week, Bjork interviewed Tieghan Gerard from the popular blog Half Baked Harvest about her inspiring photography, inventive recipes, and the drive that keeps her moving forward. To go listen to that episode, click here.
Many bloggers wonder how they can make an income from their blog when they don’t have a lot of traffic. As we all know, ads pay per impression (or click), and sometimes it takes a lot of impressions to get the dollars to add up.
However, bloggers with lower traffic numbers still can make money with their blogs. How? With affiliate marketing! By sharing the products they love with their readers, smaller bloggers are able to earn commissions on those products and start earning an income sooner.
Justine Grey is an affiliate marketing guru, and she is here today to tell us all about the world of affiliate marketing.
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Welcome to episode 43 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork is bringing on an oft-requested guest, Tieghan Gerard from Half Baked Harvest!
We occasionally ask in the podcast for guest requests - bloggers or other inspiring individuals that our listeners would like to hear from. One person who came up quite a few times was fellow FBP member, Tieghan Gerard.
When I think of bloggers who inspire me for photography, Tieghan is definitely near the top of the list. I’ve often thought about what makes her photography so special, and in this podcast episode I finally learned what it is: mood.
When Tieghan heads into a photo shoot, the first thing she thinks about is the mood that she wants to set in the photo. How will this dish make the viewer feel? And how can I protray that with a photograph? Tieghan talks about her photography process and how she sets a mood as well as a lot of other awesome info in this great podcast episode.
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Welcome to episode 42 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! Today, Bjork interviews Clotilde Dusouiler from the popular food blog Chocolate & Zucchini about running a bilingual blog.
Many of our Food Blogger Pro members reign from places all over the world where English might not be the primary language. This presents a bit of a difficult decision for these bloggers - what language should they use to blog?
Clotilde from Chocolate & Zucchini decided to not even make that decision a while back. Instead, she chose to blog in both languages, and today you’ll find both an English and a French version on her long-standing website. In this episode, she talks about why she blogs in both languages and what that looks like from a process standpoint, as well as how she manages to stay relevant after being in the blogging game for over a decade.
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Welcome to episode 41 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, talks with Barry Moore, an expert in email marketing.
Have you ever received an email and thought, “Wow! That was just what I needed to hear right now. How did they know?”
To put it simply, whoever sent that email to you at the exact time you needed to hear it is practicing something called Ninja Email Marketing, and it’s definitely something you want to get familiar with real quick.
In this episode, Barry Moore from TheActiveMarketer.com talks about some ninja techniques for email marketing and how they can change the way you see your website visitors and customers - and how they see you.
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Welcome to episode 40 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork interviews a couple podcasters about… podcasting!
Most of the time when we talk about food media, we immediately think of food blogging. We are Food Blogger Pro, after all! However, there definitely are other mediums out there that are just as effective at reaching your potential audience, and one of these is podcasting.
Allison & Suzy started their Food Heals podcast less than a year ago and are already helping people, reaching their ideal audience, and finding huge success in the podcasting arena. They’re also making money at it. In fact, Allison & Suzy started to monetize their podcast from day one. Listen in on this episode to learn how they’ve created such great success and made podcasting a part of their business.
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Welcome to episode 39 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Lindsay (yes, that Lindsay) about online jealousy.
There’s a big green monster in the room and no one really wants to talk about it. That monster is Jealousy, and it’s something every one of us experiences from time to time.
Jealousy can be difficult to overcome, and it can even ruin you day if not controlled. Lindsay recently experienced this when she saw someone had made a video similar to one she was in the process of making. Once she realized what was going on, she took a step back and decided to think about some techniques she could use to overcome this jealousy. She took those thoughts and put them into words in a blog post on Pinch of Yum.
Because this is such an important topic, Bjork asked if Lindsay could come on the podcast to talk a little more in-depth about the 12 different techniques you can use to overcome online (or offline) jealousy.
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Welcome to episode 38 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks about 7 strategies to build traffic for your for blog.
When it comes to making a business out of your blog, there is one thing that can have a really big impact: traffic.
We get asked all the time about things that you can do to help grow your traffic. There are the easy, well-known tips, like putting each post on social media and submitting your recipes to FoodGawker. But there are also some things you can do that aren’t as simple or intuitive that can make a really big difference, and that’s what Bjork is talking about today.
See the show notes at foodbloggerpro.com/38.
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Welcome to episode 37 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork is talking with renowned food stylist Delores Custer about how food styling has changed through the years,
Delores Custer has been in the food styling game for a long time - she even worked with Julia Child in her day! So, she’s seen a lot come and go in the world of food styling, and she’s here to tell us all about it.
See the show notes and enter to win the book at foodbloggerpro.com/37.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
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Welcome to episode 36 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! Today, Bjork is talking with Becky Brown, a lawyer by day and food blogger by night, about copyrights, trademarks, and other legal stuff that surrounds blogging.
Becky Brown is an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security, and she has been for a rather long time. She started her food blog as a way to document what she did in her free time - namely, cooking!
However, as she got more and more involved with her blog she realized that there were legal implications for some of the things she did online. She also realized that there wasn't a good resource for bloggers that explained these legalities and and helped people navigate through them.
So, she and Liz Vaysman got together and put together an ebook specifically for bloggers that describes everything you need to know about the legalese of blogging in plain, easy-to-understand English. The ebook is called Think Like a Lawyer, Blog Like a Pro and helps bloggers avoid legal pitfalls that can otherwise catch you totally off guard.
As a special bonus, Becky is offering her book, Think Like a Lawyer Blog Like a Pro at a special discount for Food Blogger Pro members! To get the discount, head on over to our Deals page. If you're not an FBP member, you can still get the ebook on Becky's website here!
Get the show notes at foodbloggerpro.com/36
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Welcome to episode 35 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! Today, Bjork is talking about Facebook with Stephanie Keeping from Spaceships and Laser Beams (i.e. the coolest blog name ever).
I know that title seems really outrageous and like a big, fat lie. But Stephanie actually did that in 2015. At the beginning of the year, she had a Facebook following of ~50,000 people, and by December she was up to 500k - a 10x increase.
This exponential gain in followers didn't just happen. Instead, Stephanie made the conscious decision to focus on Facebook and use it to leverage her blog. Her dedication to this one goal has massively grown her blog traffic, her income, and her ability to do what she loves full time.
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Welcome to episode 34 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! Today, Bjork is talking with Richard Westley Wong and Sara Bartus - a food photography and styling team based out of Minneapolis, MN.
If you've ever dreamed of leaving it all behind and starting a brand new career in food photography or food styling, then this episode is for you! Both Sara and Richard started their professional careers in totally different fields - but they both landed in the creative space of food photography.
Now, they work together as a team, shooting both editorial content and banner shots for large companies. So, how did they get to where they are today? Listen in to find out!
In this inspiring episode, Richard and Sara reveal:
- How they left their corporate jobs and started new careers in food photography and styling
- The equipment Sara just couldn't do without
- Why they're getting into video
- How they feel abut used camera equipment
- What their respective jobs actually do to get the perfect shot
- Whether the food in their shots are "fake" or actually edible
- Their advice for newer photographers
Welcome to episode 33 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork goes solo as he talks about the Pinch of Yum redesign.
If you frequent the Pinch of Yum website at all, you may have noticed some big (and small!) changes lately. While the general feel of the website is the same, things are certainly different.
The change is the result of a complete theme switch on Pinch of Yum, and today Bjork takes this podcast hour to talk about it. He starts off with some background info and metaphors of The Matrix (whaaaaat?), and then gets into some new things you'll be seeing around POY. Sit down, grab a coffee and a pen, and get ready to hear some great stuff!
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Welcome to episode 32 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork talks with Mark Doust about buying and selling established websites.
Most of you probably aren't thinking of selling your website right now. But even if you aren't, knowing what makes a website "sellable" can really help you in the future if that day ever does come.
Mark Daoust has made his living by helping people buy and sell websites since 2007, and he's become a go-to expert in the field. Lucky for us, he decided to come on the podcast today and tell us everything he knows - well, as much as he can in an hour!
Listen to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast below or check it out on iTunes:
[[podcast episode embedded here]]
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Welcome to episode 31 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork talks with Erin Clarke from Well Plated about rebranding her food blog.
Back when Erin started her blog, it wasn't called Well Plated. Instead, it was called The Law Student's Wife - and that's because 1) she was a law student's wife, and 2) it wasn't necessarily about food.
But after blogging under that name for a while, she decided that she loved posting recipes. And unfortunately, the name of her blog just didn't fit any more.
So, she made the really tough decision to rebrand her blog, and she did it! But it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns, though. There wasn't much info about the process of rebranding out there, so she had to go at it all on her own.
In this episode, Erin shares what she learned along the way, and her #1 resource for learning what it takes to rebrand your blog.
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Welcome to episode 30 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews a member of the Food Blogger Pro community, Nick Evans from Macheesmo!
Many of you listening to this podcast right now know Nick Evans from the Food Blogger Pro community forums. Nick is always a voice of inspiration, motivation, and encouragement to other members on the forum.
What you might not know is that Nick has been doing this blogging thing for quite a long time - 8 years to be exact! And in this interview, he shares some really great realistic tips for maintaining a blog over the long term.
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