How SaaS businesses solve problems, tips for diversifying your portfolio, and the importance of delegating with Kevin McArdle.
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Welcome to episode 244 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Kevin McArdle about running businesses, solving challenges, and building your portfolio.
This week’s episode is a good one because it’s all about diversifying your portfolio, and not in the ways we typically talk about in terms of food blogging.
Bjork interviews Kevin McArdle from SureSwift Capital about investing in businesses, building solutions to your audience’s needs, and the lessons Kevin when starting his business.
I had so many takeaways from this episode, and we hope you learn of some ways that you can grow (both personally and financially) through diversification in this episode.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Rebranding a food blog, leaning into a niche, and Keep-Delegate-Delete lists with Isabel Orozco-Moore.
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Welcome to episode 228 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Isabel Orozco-Moore about leaning into a niche, delegating tasks, and more.
It seems a little counterintuitive that finding a niche, or a specialized focus, can actually give you more freedom as a blogger, but that’s exactly what Isabel found when she decided to rebrand and really fine-tune her niche. By hunkering down and really focusing on Mexican cuisine, Isabel has been able to strengthen her brand and exercise her expertise.
But that’s not all that Isabel and Bjork cover in this episode. In just four years, Isabel has gone all-in on turning her blog into a business, and this episode focuses on that journey. From monetization to hiring to delegating to getting nominated for a Saveur Award, we know you’ll find useful and actionable tips in this episode. Enjoy!
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
How she started Catch My Party, what problem MiloTree solved for their business, and using popups on mobile.
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Welcome to episode 95 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork interviews Jillian Tohber Leslie from Catch My Party and MiloTree about making successful career changes by embracing the mess.
As with life, business isn’t always pretty. No matter how put-together someone’s business looks from the outside, you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ve had their own fair share of messy affairs to deal with in their business.
Jillian Tohber Leslie learned early in her career that the key to moving forward was embracing this messiness and using it to help propel her career and her businesses forward. She and her husband started Catch My Party, the largest party ideas site on the web, and went on to found MiloTree, a social and email growth popup that’s perfect for bloggers.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
How finding the right path for you can help you keep going with your blog.
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Welcome to episode 94 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks about how to keep going when you're not sure you can continue.
Whether you’ve been blogging for a few months or a few years, you’ve no doubt had the thought at some point or another: How do I keep going?
Blogging can be tough. You might be fitting it in after your regular full-time job hours. You might be running your blog as a business with not enough hours in the day. You might be juggling it on the side while trying to raise a family. Whatever your situation, you’ve likely found out that blogging isn’t easy, and on some days it’s tough to imagine how you’ll keep it up.
Today, Bjork talks about some techniques that he and Lindsay have used in their businesses to help them get up in the morning and do The Work.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
How finding a niche can be freeing and how proper branding skyrocketed her traffic with Meggan Hill from Culinary Hill.
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Welcome to episode 93 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork chats with Meggan Hill from Culinary Hill about how finding a niche transformed her business.
As an internet entrepreneur, it can be tempting to try to appeal to everyone. You don’t want to send potential traffic away from your website, right?
However, successful bloggers have said time and again that a big contributor to success is finding a specific audience and sharing only content that fits that audience perfectly. In other words, finding a niche.
Meggan Hill started her blog, Culinary Hill, with an aim of pleasing everyone. And… it didn’t work out so well. Her blog did okay, but she ended up feeling discouraged and gave it up for a while. A couple years ago, though, she decided it was time to make some changes and make this blogging thing work for her. With the help of a branding agency, she was able to find a niche, free up her creativity by sticking to that niche, and nearly triple her traffic in just one year. Today, she’s here to tell us all about it.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Should you delete old content, SEO in other languages, structured data for recipes, and repurposing old content with Joost de Valk from Yoast SEO.
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Welcome to episode 91 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews Joost de Valk, the founder of Yoast SEO, about optimizing SEO for your food blog.
SEO is something we bloggers hear a LOT about. It’s so important! But it can also be really confusing, even with the abundance of information out there.
Fortunately, there are tools such as the Yoast SEO plugin to help us navigate this often confusing landscape. Yoast SEO was founded by Joost de Valk and is one of the most popular WordPress plugins in use today. That’s… kind of a big deal. Joost met with Bjork for this interview to discuss a wide range of SEO topics, including why SEO matters for your recipes and how you can optimize it.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
What it means to take permission, the ugly truth about online marketing, and how to genuinely connect with influencers with Andy Traub.
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Welcome to episode 87 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Andy Traub, a business coach who specializes in helping you take permission in your career.
The phrase “take permission” might settle a bit weird in your brain. Don’t you ask for permission?
That’s exactly what Andy’s all about. He feels that for your business to really thrive, you have to be comfortable with simply taking permission. Take permission to start. Take permission to invest. Take permission to learn. This mindset is crucial to not only finding success as an entrepreneur, but also finding out what your best, most useful skills and roles are in your business. With this mindset, you can really see your business grow.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Reinvent your Mondays, transition to a new career, and start Do Overs in all areas of life with Jon Acuff.
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Welcome to episode 86 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Jon Acuff, a New York Times bestselling author who helps you work a job you love.
While many entrepreneur-motivators will promote the strategy of quitting your job first, then figuring your new career out later, Jon Acuff takes a different stance. In his most recent book, Do Over, Jon talks about preparing yourself for a new career well before you ever need to actually start one.
Jon’s books have helped thousands of people reinvent their Mondays, transition to a new career, and start Do Overs in all areas of life.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Working with contributors, monetizing from day 1, and finding your support person with Leslie Means from Her View From Home
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Welcome to episode 85 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Leslie Means, cofounder of Her View From Home, about scaling her website to over 450 contributors and 9 million visitors per month.
Leslie Means started her website just like many of us did - with a passion and a dream. However, instead of the typical create-publish-promote-repeat agenda, she took a bit of a different path: she wanted to publish articles from contributors and pay those authors based on article performance.
Today, Her View From Home has over 9 million monthly visitors and pulls from a pool of 450 contributors. The business is thriving, and Leslie is here to tell us all about it.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
How Lindsay organizes her day, how to apply 1% infinity to your daily life, and where Bjork got his name.
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Welcome to episode 83 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, we’re playing an episode from the Chopped Podcast with Marly McMillen.
In this episode, Marly covers a lot of ground with Bjork and Lindsay. They talk about how Lindsay organizes her days, what it means to practice 1% infinity every day, and, my personal favorite, she asks them some random questions that were really fun to hear their answers to, like where Bjork’s name came from.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Why they pushed forward after initial non-success, how she rose above negative comments, and why being vulnerable draws people in.
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Welcome to episode 82 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, we’re playing an episode from the Mixergy podcast with Andrew Warner.
In this episode, Andrew chats with Lindsay about Pinch of Yum’s history and where they are today. Andrew takes the time to dig deep and ask some really interesting questions that wouldn’t normally get asked, and Lindsay’s answers might just help you understand what’s going on with your blog a bit better.
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Welcome to episode 80 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. This week, Kirsten Oliphant interview Bjork about practicing 1%∞ through the different phases of business.
As you may have heard, Bjork and Lindsay recently suffered a loss, which you can read a bit more about on Pinch of Yum.
While Bjork takes some time off to grieve their loss and to celebrate Afton’s short life, we’re bringing in a couple interviews that Bjork did with other podcasters.
This week’s podcaster is Kirsten Oliphant, author and podcaster at Create If Writing. She interviewed Bjork about a year and a half ago and they talked a lot about what it takes to run a business for the long haul. Bjork chalked a lot of this up to practicing 1%∞, a concept that he put a name to a long time ago and tries to practice every day.
Resources:
Get the resources for this podcast at createifwriting.com/061
Achieving career dreams, moving to YouTube, finding a niche, and working with multichannel networks with Lauren Toyota from Hot for Food.
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Welcome to episode 79 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews Lauren Toyota from Hot for Food about how she grew her YouTube following.
When starting (or running) a business, it can be tempting to look at what other successful people have done and try to do the same thing. If they were successful doing this, then you should be, too, right?
While that scenario sometimes plays out, oftentimes you just become another fish in a sea of fish that are all doing the same thing. Lauren Toyota from Hot for Food found her success by diving into a newer niche and producing content in a way that no one else had done before. And it worked - she amassed just about 200k followers in just one year on YouTube. Today she’s here to talk about how it all went down.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
What marketing automation is, why funnels will help you sell, and what email and automation platforms you should be using for your business.
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Welcome to episode 78 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews Chris Davis from Automation Bridge and ActiveCampaign about using marketing funnels to drive sales for your business.
When most people have a new product for their business, the first thing they want to do is go tell the world how amazing it is and try to get people to buy. That’s the point of creating a product, right?
Not so fast, says Chris Davis from Automation Bridge. The sale starts way before you every publish your product or need people to start buying. The sale starts with your first interaction with your potential customer - and that interaction should be friendly, helpful, and interesting to the customer. This is the start of your sales funnel, and in this episode Chris talks about what to do next.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Which social platforms serve what purpose, why live video is so important, the next big thing, and sticking with your business.
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Welcome to episode 77 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews Joel Comm about how embracing trending technologies has kept his business fresh.
Last week Bjork interviewed Jeff Sauer from Jeffalytics about how correctly utilizing Google Analytics can superpower your blog. To go back and listen to that episode, click here.
In the internet world, things move at a very fast pace and new technology - think social platforms, media, and gadgets - come out all the time. So do you jump on the bandwagon and try these new technologies, or wait until they’re vetted by others?
Joel Comm has found that trying new technologies not only increases your chance of success (just think about his iPhone app that went to the top!), but that it can also help you stay inspired with your business.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Using analytics to help you generate ideas for content, show you what's really working, and help you guide your business overall with Jeff Sauer from Jeffalytics.
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Welcome to episode 76 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Jeff Saur from Jeffalytics.com about how you can use Analytics to increase your chances for blog success.
Oftentimes, when new bloggers start blogging, the only stat they really care about is whether or not their content is being seen by someone.It’s satisfying to see the first day we get 50 pageviews, or 100, or even 1,000. We check our analytics to make sure our content is getting seen.
However, Analytics can be much more powerful than this. Used correctly, they can help you generate ideas for content, show you what’s really working, and help you guide your business overall. In short, proper use of Analytics can really help you accelerate your blog and business.
Jeff Sauer has made his career out of helping people use Google Analytics. Today, he’s here to give us some of his best tips.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
How many times to share each piece of content, planning ahead, and their long road to overnight success.
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Welcome to episode 75 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Garrett Moon, cofounder of the popular social media and editorial planning tool CoSchedule.
When it comes to blogging, there is a lot more to do than it would initially appear. Not only do you have to create content, you have to plan it out (preferably well in advance) and promote it after it’s done (preferably for a long time after).
Keeping tabs on everything you need to do - including promoting it now, in a couple weeks, and around those holidays when it would make good shareable content - can be really tough. So, Garrett and his cofounder Justin created CoSchedule to make this process easier. Along the way, they discovered some unique insights into the world of social sharing.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
What kinds of file backups you should have, why DSLRs make good video cameras, and what camera settings to use.
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Welcome to episode 74 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Caleb Pike from DSLR Video Shooter about how you can use your DSLR camera to make great food videos.
By now, it’s pretty apparent how powerful food videos can be for a brand. They’re awesome! However, there are a lot of technical things to know when it comes to using your DSLR camera as a video camera.
Caleb Pike has made his name by helping people learn how to use their DSLR cameras for shooting video. In this episode, he not only talks about important settings you need to pay attention to, but he also talks about how to make sure none of your video ever gets accidentally deleted.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Welcome to episode 73 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Jessica Merchant from the blog How Sweet It Is about consistently creating great content.
In blogging, content is huge. It’s not the only important thing, but it’s the foundation of your business. Creating great content is really important.
Just as important is creating content often. A blog needs fresh, exciting ideas to thrive. New content is what your existing readers want to see.
However, doing both those things - creating really great content on a consistent basis - can be really tough. It definitely involves dedication and skill to do right. Jessica Merchant from How Sweet It Is definitely has that dedication and skill, and today she’s here to tell us just how she manages to make consistent and quality content every single week.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Welcome to episode 71 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews Amanda Rettke from I Am Baker about her success with Facebook Live and how it has helped connect her with her audience.
They say you only need 1,000 raving fans to create a successful business. Just 1,000! However, raving fans can be hard to come by. Where do you get them? How do you know they love you and the work you are doing?
Amanda struggled with this a bit for the first few years she was in business. She knew she had great fans, but she didn’t feel like she really connected with them. And then she decided to try Facebook Live. Her raving fans loved being able to see and interact with her live, and she loved being able to connect with them. Facebook Live has been the experience Amanda needed to feel connected with her readers, and today she is here to tell us how she did it.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Welcome to episode 70 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Steve Chou from MyWifeQuitHerJob.com about building two eCommerce businesses - one that sells physical products, and the other that sells digital products.
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Steve’s wife Jennifer decided to quit her job in 2007, and within one year replaced her six-figure income with an eCommerce business selling physical products. Steve started blogging about how she did it and later quit his job - fully replacing his salary - with an eCommerce business selling digital products.
These two businesses had one thing in common: they were eCommerce businesses. Everything else, from the customer acquisition to the time it took to generate a decent income, varied widely. However, Steve and his wife have learned a lot over the last few years running their two eCommerce businesses, and today Steve is here to share some of his knowledge with us.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Welcome to episode 69 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Jocelyn Delk Adams from Grandbaby Cakes about growing her audience and building her brand by way of National TV.
If you’ve ever dreamed of being a TV star, starting a food blog probably wasn’t your first idea for how to get there. However, for Jocelyn Delk Adams of the popular blog Grandbaby Cakes, her food blog was just the ticket she needed.
Jocelyn started her TV career with her local TV channels, then slowly moved up to the big networks. She’s now been seen on National shows such as Rachel Ray and the Today Show. She loves where her experiences have taken her and attributes much of her blog’s success to her effort to get her blog in front of new faces via TV appearances.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Welcome to episode 67 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Amy Roskelley from Super Healthy Kids about scaling her small business into a thriving brand by building a team.
So many bloggers dream of building a team to help them run their blog. However, it often gets put off in the name of waiting to find success. Unfortunately, putting off on growing a team can hamper your ability to find “success,” while choosing to grow your team can really propel your forward.
Amy from Super Healthy Kids plodded along quite well with her blog for many years before starting to build a team. However, after she joined a partnership with her now-co-owner Natalie, she found herself free to pursue more of the things that she was really good at. Each subsequent hire has allowed Amy to fine-tune her skillset in certain areas while letting others do the work she wasn’t as passionate about, but they were.
Since building a team, Super Healthy Kids has grown in amazing ways, and today Amy is here to tell us all about it.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Welcome to episode 66 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Alana Woolley and Lindsay Ostrom about creating awesome recipe videos for Pinch of Yum.
We’ve all heard it: video is the new thing. If you want to grow an audience quickly, if you want to be extremely helpful to your readers, if you want to take advantage of sponsored content opportunities galore… get into video.
But.. how?? It can seem so daunting to get started with. There’s all the equipment you (think you) need, the amount of time it takes, the pressure to make perfect videos… So many things!
Fortunately, our guests today have a lot of experience creating recipe videos, and they’re here to make it a bit easier for you. Please welcome: Alana Woolley & Lindsay Ostrom from Pinch of Yum!
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!
Welcome to episode 65 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Michelle Tam from Nom Nom Paleo about building a brand across many channels.
If you’ve been blogging for a while, or even a short time, you might have found that it’s really difficult to establish your blog on a variety of different channels and mediums. There’s only so much you can do!
Some bloggers excel at it, though, despite the constraints of work, family, and life. Michelle Tam from Nom Nom Paleo is one such blogger. She’s managed to secure a brand presence not only on all the big social networks, but also in the form of her own iPhone app and her own cookbook. She’s a branding queen, and today she’s here to tell us all about it.
Resources:
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.
Be sure to review us on iTunes!