Podcasts about pizzazzerie

The "Happy Hostess Cookbook Party" is an online community focused on cookbooks and hosting, led by Kristie LaLonde. It's part of the larger "Happy Hostess" brand, which includes the “Happy Hostess Podcast” and other resources for aspiring and experienced hosts. The club focuses on exploring recipes from various cookbooks, often accompanied by themed events and discussions.Kristie has so graciously planned to feature the “True North Cabin Cookbook” for her October club. The club meets via Zoom for all members. It's a monthly subscription for an orchestrated “cook along”thats fun and approachable for all levels of cooks interested in joining a community.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Episode Transcript Follows:Stephanie:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space. Many times cookbook authors, other times makers. And this particular episode, we are talking to Kristie LaLonde. She is the Happy Hostess Collective. And Kristie and I found each other through a listener of my radio show. My friend Jilly in Minnesota is. She's. We call them Dishers weekly.Stephanie:Dishers, that's the name of the radio show. And Jilly's been a Disher for over 18 years. We've had the show and I think she's listened as long as we've had it. And she reached out to me because in my sub stack, I have a Sunday newsletter and I did a whole thing about entertaining and how I love when people just entertain and people make entertaining so complicated and it doesn't need to be. And I offered to give around a cookbooks to people that have cookbook clubs because I think they're so fun. And Jilly replied and said, I have this great cookbook club. We would love it if we could win your books. And she is part of the Happy Hostess Cookbook Club.Stephanie:So they won. Jilly got the books. I sent books to all the people in the cookbook group that Jilly's in. And Kristie is the leader of the Happy Hostess Collective, Kristie, welcome to the program. I'm delighted to have you.Kristie LaLonde:Thank you. I am so excited to be here.Stephanie:So explain to the audience what the Happy Hostess Collective is and all the different avenues that you have for fostering your love of cookbooks and clubbing.Kristie LaLonde:Well, I am on Instagram as Happy Hostess Collective, but for our cookbook club, it's actually called Happy Cookbook Party because I couldn't really think of a good name. It's not a great name because it doesn't really let you know it's a cookbook club. But we. There's a lot of emphasis on party in it. So basically it's a cookbook club, but instead of meeting in person, most of the time, we are meeting twice a month on Zoom and we are cooking together from one cookbook, which we usually choose a cookbook and stick with that cookbook for like three to four months, depending upon how robust the cookbook is.Stephanie:And people come from all over the country and tell me, like, how do you logistically do it? Do you have like, you know, 30 people on a Zoom or how does it work?Kristie LaLonde:Actually, we do have. We are on Zoom and basically what happens when we pick a book? I will go through and kind of we have a Facebook Group. And so I ask everyone either which recipes really look good to you that you're wanting to try.And then I look through all of those and make sure that they can fit within the hour to hour and a half timeframe of our Zoom Cook along. And then I make a schedule for the next three months and it's printable. I send it to them so they can print it out. And then every. We meet twice a month, so every two weeks, basically we meet on Zoom and I send them grocery list ahead of time for those two recipes that we choose. Sometimes it's three when we throw in a cocktail in there. Yes, especially we usually meet at noon or 4, so the 4 o' clock ones a lot of times have the cocktail. But so we all just meet in one Zoom meeting and we all cook and I'm kind of leading it, but everyone else is talking just as much as I do because we've gotten to know each other so well and it's so fun because we really learn from each other because we have some like expert bakers and we have some people like me that not expert at all in baking.Kristie LaLonde:And so. And like we have some really strong florists and there's. We just learn a lot from each other. And every once in a while we also do like a tutorial on a different thing that would have to do with being a hostess. For example, we've done flower arrangements that mimic the ones we saw in one of our cookbooks. We've done hostess gifts, like kind of homemade, cute little hostess gifts at Christmas time. So it's a wide variety of things. It's been strange.Like a lot of things have come our way. We had, we were offered to have a Vector cocktails. It's like a cocktail mixer. They offered to do a, a cook. I mean, like a cocktail class for us. It was super fun. They sent us all their mixers and it was great. So we've got a chance to do a lot of stuff.Stephanie:So what is your background and how did you land here?Kristie LaLonde:Well, I have always loved cooking and entertaining, even when I was little. Like, I remember I had one of my cookbooks was like the MAD Magazine cookbooks. I don't know if you remember MAD magazine, but they had like a holiday thing and I just loved it. I remember pouring through that and it's crazy because I do that now, obviously with grownup cookbooks, but. And so that just kind of. Well, and then when I was very young, I was the maid of honor in Three Weddings in one year. So I had a crash course and had a host parties for grownups, and that was very fun. But.Kristie LaLonde:And I'd always really enjoyed the ideas of parties as well. Growing up, my parents were my mom. My father was in an industry where there were lots of fancy, fancy famous parties.Stephanie:Yeah.Kristie LaLonde:Because we live in Kentucky, so the derby parties. And.Stephanie:Yes.Kristie LaLonde:So I would, like, hear them, like, sometimes they would be on the farm that we lived on, like in the party barn. And so, like, I would hear the parties, and I just was kind of fascinated with all of that, and it just kind of snowballed from there.Stephanie:But you on the Happy Hostess Collective on your Instagram, you chronicle a lot of these parties and you have, like, beautiful flower arrangements. And I mean, honestly, the south is just like, I don't know why, but you guys are known for just these over the top, beautiful flower arrangements, beautiful parties, beautiful outfits. In the north, everything feels a little more, like, rustic and just a little more outdoorsy. But, like, the south just feels like China and silver and so beautiful.Kristie LaLonde:Yeah, you know, there's a little bit of everything for sure in the south, but we do tend to go over the top. That is. That is definitely the case. Which makes it fun, though. But. And I love a big theme. It can. It's a lot of fun.And whether it's rustic theme, but it's just like kind of go all in on it. It makes it a lot of fun.Stephanie:How did you figure out, like, I think it's pretty cool that you have this whole cookbook club happening via Zoom. So there's technology there. Right. And then you also have, like a Facebook group. You really use social media to drive a lot of this engagement. It is a paid subscription, which I also think is cool because sometimes if you have to pay for something, you value it a little bit more or you make time for it in your schedule. How did I learn all the technological pieces and have you just learned by trial and error?Kristie LaLonde:Well, fortunately, Zoom is fairly easy to use. And especially after Covid, everybody knows how to use Zoom, thankfully. But actually, I started an E commerce store, like, before people heard of the word E commerce.And I am not techno, very technologically advanced, but I am willing to figure out whatever it is if it makes it possible for me to do what I want. And I really wanted a. A China and dish store, which. Big surprise. So that I had it. No, I don't. I had it for almost 14 years. I think that's, like, my dream.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, it was so fun. And it stopped me from buying all the dishes. Because I had all these gorgeous dishes. Like in a warehouse. Yes. But it's a really heavy, breakable object and not so fun to ship after a while. So I transitioned out of that and wanted to do something that didn't require shipping.Stephanie:And this is brilliant because you've got new friends from all over the country. It could be all over the world.Kristie LaLonde:I suppose it definitely could be. There happens to be just the country right now. We are a small group, but it is a really fun group and it's been a great community. And I really wanted something to tie in my podcast to make it and make it smaller. Well, obviously with the podcast, it's only me or myself and a guest, so I really wanted to be able to, like, get to know my listeners better, and this was the perfect thing.Stephanie:How did you get into podcasting? Because you've have had over a hundred episodes all about this topic of hostessing.Kristie LaLonde:Basically it was the sick of being shipping things. So I thought, okay, well, we could start the podcast. I wasn't really sure what direction it was going to take, but I thought that it would be a good avenue for me to get started. And it kind of led to this.Stephanie:One of the topics that was on your recent podcast that I was kind of interested in, because I think the. It has changed so much since COVID is the whole idea of having a party and the RSVP list. People in my experience tend to be very late at responding to things. And even like, we're finding that restaurant reservations people will make four reservations and cancel three with really no thought about it. Like, it's just we're in a very quick societal change. And you talked a lot about how to get people to RSVP, how important RSVPs are. What were some of your tips there?Kristie LaLonde:Well, it's. It sounds a little old school, but one of them was to actually have a physical invitation delivered to them.Stephanie:Amen. This whole, like, you're gonna send me a digital something, it's fine. It's great as, like, a reminder, but I just. I don't think it's the same as, like, getting an actual invitation to something.Kristie LaLonde:I agree. And for one thing, it's. It's less likely to be forgotten because a lot of times they put it on the refrigerator or somewhere they can see it. And then also, like, it's shocking when you get something in the mail that you. That isn't a bill today, you know, so it's. It seems more special.Stephanie:This is kind of a weird aside, but I used to run a direct mail company. So I love direct mail. And the number one growing category for direct mail is 18 to 34, because they love getting offers in the mail. Because getting mail feels so special now and so unique.Kristie LaLonde:You're kidding.Stephanie:No, it's like it's coming back.Kristie LaLonde:That is so interesting.Stephanie:And the catalog companies have always had a robust business using the mail. They've maybe pared down their catalogs a little bit, or they might have specialty offerings, but people are still sending a lot of catalogs.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, goodness. Well, I'm so glad because I just thought I was like, old school because I really like to have books in my hands. I like. I like getting catalogs if it's from a business that I like. I thought I was the only one that.Stephanie:No, you are not. What other kinds of trends are you noticing in just entertaining in general, good or bad?Kristie LaLonde:Well, catching on. One that I did recently, I did a small series on baby showers. And. Wow. Things have changed since I was having babies, for sure. Like, drastically. Some. Some things I think are good.Kristie LaLonde:Like, for example, a lot of times they're co ed now, which was just a trend that had just barely started when I was having children. And I think that's fun and interesting, for sure. Um, but I do also think that they have gotten, like, kind of out of hand a little bit. And I love going over the top, like I said earlier with a party, so I'm. I'm never gonna, like, shame anybody for that. But it seems like with social media coming in, that everyone is seeing these highlight reels from very sophisticated baby showers.Stephanie:Yeah.Kristie LaLonde:And so I kind of camped out in baby shower groups for, like, a good month, like, trying to prepare for this series. And. And it was kind of sad, really, because people were so. A lot of people, not everyone, of course, but were so sad because they didn't have enough people to invite to have an almost wedding, like, baby shower. Like, it was. It was. And they felt defeated. It was just.Kristie LaLonde:It was kind of disheartening. And I mean, you could tell that they really thought that it was normal that people had to rent out a venue hall in order to have a baby shower.Stephanie:Yeah.Kristie LaLonde:Which is not the case at all.Stephanie:And like, just making diaper cake is still pretty fun, isn't it?Kristie LaLonde:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so, I mean, yeah, it's. It's really different. It's. It's almost. And it's a whole different vibe from a lot of people. And the thing is, I've not seen this in person, so I don't want to say that everyone's like this. Maybe it's just the vocal people on Facebook, you know, but it seemed a lot more like, this is my party.Kristie LaLonde:This is my. My thing, as opposed to, you know, someone hosting it for you.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. Well, you haven't. Have you watched the Mormon Housewives?Kristie LaLonde:I haven't.Stephanie:Okay, good. I don't. It's like, so bad. It's good. So wrong. Right. So I don't really want to, like, encourage anyone to do it because that sort of guilty pleasure. But they have these big over the top and they have a lot of kids and they're all women under 30.Stephanie:So they do have these big, like, over the top baby showers and the baby hills and the baby moons. And honestly, it's just. So if we get to the idea of just like, entertaining, I think people get so hung up on that they have to have like this special meal or that they have to spend all day in the kitchen. What would be like, some of your tips for getting you to entertain? More like, barriers to overcome, I guess.Kristie LaLonde:Well, I think first and foremost is to really focus on your mindset and think about why that you want to entertain. And usually it's because you want to make memories and have connections with your friends and family. Do you want to make memories and those are awesome reasons, or you want to celebrate someone, you know? And a lot of times when we start thinking about entertaining, sometimes we can get a little nervous that maybe I'm not good enough cook or I'm. My house isn't big enough or I don't have enough people to invite, for example, the baby shower. And I really just recommend very first thing to do is to flip your mind and be focused on your guests. Like, what do you want to do for them, how do you want them to feel? You know, obviously you want them to be. Feel welcomed in your home and that sort of thing. So if you could just focus on the.Kristie LaLonde:The guest, you usually can stop all the negative chatter in your mind because you're not focusing on yourself. And then also, most importantly, don't do everything yourself. You don't have to cook everything. You don't have to cook at all if you don't want to. You know, that's why caterers exist. Even if you only cooked one thing that was like a signature dish, then you might. It's. It's like you did cook.And so I really think that trying not to do everything and focusing on your making your guests feel welcome are very important.Stephanie:I figured out late in Life how easy it is to cook fish for a crowd. And that seems like a weird thing, but, like, if you get, like, a whole side of salmon or poach a whole fish or you even have slabs that you're just putting under the broiler, you can have, like, any salads prepared in advance. You know, you can have vegetables prepared in advance, you can have a cheese platter prepared in advance. And then really, like, the only thing you're cooking is this side of salmon or you've got a sauce that you've already made. I was always so afraid to cook fish, and once I kind of got over that hump, I was like, wow, this is actually pretty easy. I can cook a whole side of fish. I can feed 12 people off of it, typically, if I get a big enough one. And with all the sides and everything, everything's already made before they even get here.Kristie LaLonde:That is perfect. And that's like the perfect example of what we're trying to do in the cookbook party is to get people to increase their repertoire of things that are very easy to entertain. Because there are some delicious recipes that we make that would be a nightmare if, you know, for entertaining, you know, they take too long, they need to be done at the last minute, that sort of thing. But if you like, for example, the fish, you know that all. It kind of meets all the requirements. You don't have to do it at the last minute. It's easy preparation, and we want to gain. It's like our entertaining arsenal.Kristie LaLonde:Kind of find those recipes, find ways of doing things that make it simple, where, you know, if, like, for example, things that can be cooked the day before and just reheated, like carnitas, like the meat and that type of thing. Yep. There's just lots of them. And. And we can all have our own little personal style when it comes to that. You know, that's what makes it fun is, is everyone seems like they have their own signature dishes.Stephanie:What's a go to Kristie LaLonde signature entertaining dish?Kristie LaLonde:Well, I just mentioned one of them, carnitas. I love them. They are not. They are kind of time consuming, but it is completely make. You can make it whenever you want, and it tastes great the next day reheated. It's one of those things that, you know, can taste better, even better the same day, and people love them. Everyone seems to like them. So that's one of my go tos.Kristie LaLonde:And then also like, oh, gosh, I can't even remember what I call them now, but they're like the white cream chicken, Chicken enchiladas.Stephanie:Oh, yeah.Kristie LaLonde:Because they can totally be made ahead of time, and all you have to do is put them in the oven, and then, you know, you can make sides easily. A lot of times, actually, with both of those things, I used to. I don't need to now, but I didn't have a good refried beans recipe that I liked, and rice is one of the few things that I really, really struggle with. I need to buy a rice cooker is what I've been told, but so I would just order from the restaurant that's around the corner, baked beans and rice, and then serve that with them. So it was, like, liked. It was homemade. It's in my dish. It looks homemade.Yeah.Stephanie:Time saving. An instant pot is also really helpful in the rice department. If you. Oh, I mean, I make rice in my instant pot. It is a rice cooker. It's a pressure cooker. Rice cooker. It cooks everything.And then also I make risotto in there too.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, wow. I did not know that. Actually, the carnitas is one of the few things I use my instant pot for. So now I got something else.Stephanie:Oh, yes. I'm a big instant potter. In fact, one of the Facebook groups that we run for our radio show is called the Weekly Dish Instant Potters. Oh, some really great recipes there that people have shared or linked to. It's an open group, but I. It's. If you're an instant potter, and I still am. I still love my instant pot.Stephanie:I do my slow cooker, too. You can slow cook in an instant pot, but I also have two other slow cookers because I'm somewhat obsessed with that, but really helpful and easy. Is there a cookbook that you've used on the cookbook Club journey that you really were like, wow, this is a great, entertaining cookbook?Kristie LaLonde:Yes, for sure. And most of the ones that we choose have an entertaining bent to them, typically just because of our interest in what we're trying to accomplish in the group. But Love Welcome Serve by Amy Hannon. Like, really blew my socks off. Every single recipe that we tried just seemed to be over the top, delicious. It was really phenomenal. Like, we've enjoyed all of our books, for sure, but this one, it just really. I was blown away, and I had been told and that it really was such a good cookbook, and I finally caved and put it in there, and I'm so glad that I did.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm looking at it. It looks delightful. It's got kind of an Ina Garten feeling to it.Kristie LaLonde:And she is just a very genuine, kind, hospitable person. She really. She definitely has the mindset. Like, even when she's talking about making little notes, you can just see just. She has such a hospitable nature.Stephanie:And then the recent cookbook that you guys are doing is the. Is it Brunch with Babs?Kristie LaLonde:Brunch with Babs is her account, but the book is called Celebrate with Babs.Stephanie:Okay. And Babs is like everybody's favorite grandma. Her daughter, I think, worked in lifestyle television and has helped her create this really unbelievable social media presence and following. What is it about her books that attracted you?Kristie LaLonde:I. Well, she organizes her cookbooks in the way that I always enjoy, and that is by party or event. I love cookbooks that are organized that in that fashion. And I'd heard good things about it, and so we thought we would try it.Stephanie:Yeah, she's really. I think her recipes are really great. She's not too fussy. She has some that are more complicated than others, but she does a lot of, like, semi homemade kind of things too. Don't you wish that Sandra Lee from Semi Homemade would come back?Kristie LaLonde:Oh, I know. I. Oh, I loved, loved, loved her show because of the party aspect. I absolutely loved it. And we have enjoyed Celebrate with Babs for sure. And you're right, there are a lot of, like, one recipe will be, you know, kind of complicated like you said, and one will be semi homemade. Today at 4. Today we have our.Kristie LaLonde:What's our second to last cook along in Celebrate with Babs. And the theme today is looking forward to fall. So we're doing her new pond chili and then we're doing Mrs. Williams peanut butter bars. So.Stephanie:Yeah, delicious.Kristie LaLonde:Yes, that will be good for dinner.Stephanie:Yes, it will be. It makes me think of my pumpkin spice espresso martini that I'd like to have with that.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, that sounds good. Oh, that sounds so good.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm obsessed with pumpkin spice. And my. My second book is kind of geared from October through April, so more fall time. And I really, I. When you go to get like a pumpkin spice something, it's usually full of such gross ingredients. And I was like, okay, we could make pumpkin spice flavor with pumpkin, right? And spice, like, it wouldn't be that hard. So I made a pumpkin spice cream and then used it in different recipes. And the espresso martini with pumpkin spice was delightful.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, that sounds amazing. Espresso martinis are one of my absolute favorites.Stephanie:Me too. Me too. Well, it's been super great to chat with you about entertaining, Christy. How can people follow you and what's the best way to join if they want to join the cookbook club?Kristie LaLonde:Well, our website is happy cookbookparty.com and I'm on Instagram at Happy Hostess Collective, if you have a question about anything. And I am excited to announce that we are doing one of your cookbooks starting in October.Stephanie:Excellent. That's right on time.Kristie LaLonde:Yes. I'm so excited about it. I can't wait, because this is totally different. I love that we, you know, we've done a lot of Southern cookbooks. Like we did Pizzazzerie and the Southern Living Party Cookbook and a couple others. And then we kind of moved over to the Midwest of it was celebrate with Babs. And so yours will be a perfect fit.Stephanie:Thank you. I'm excited to have you guys do it. And I hope I can find pop in and say hi while everyone's cooking, because that sounds kind of fun.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, I would love it. I would love it. And I would like to offer your listeners, if they want to join us, they can use the code SD50, and they'll get 50% off their first month's membership.Stephanie:That's fun. And how much is a membership generally? Is it 22?Kristie LaLonde:It's $22 a month. Yes.Stephanie:Okay. I love it. That's great. That's fun. It's a good little, like, date night for yourself to do something fun and unusual that you maybe haven't done before, right?Kristie LaLonde:Yes, it is. And it's, you know, I know you not for you, probably because you're immersed in the food industry, and I know you're so big on local, which I love about your cookbooks. I love reading the little stories about the local people. But, you know, a lot of us don't have, like, I love to entertain, and I do have friends that entertain, but I don't have people necessarily close to me that just love it as much as I do and really want to learn. And so it's awesome that I get to hang out with these people all over the country that really do love it as much as I do.Stephanie:Yes. Well, we'll put all this information in the show notes, and you and I will connect on when we want to have the podcast distributed so that people can join. And it was really great to spend time with you. Thanks to Jilly in mn, my favorite Instagram friend and weekly disher who hooked us up. Kristie. I'll connect with you after this podcast by email, and we'll get all the details set up, but thanks for watching, for helping launch my book. It's awesome.Kristie LaLonde:Well, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.Stephanie:Yes. And we'll talk soon. Thanks for being a guest today. Oh, and I want to shout out your podcast real quick because we'll put a link to that, too.Kristie LaLonde:Thank you. It's called Happy Hostess.Stephanie:Okay. It's really great. You have a lot of episodes on hostessing and fun, entertaining ideas, so. All right, Kristie we'll connect in email.Kristie LaLonde:Awesome. Thanks, Stephanie.Stephanie:Okay, bye. Bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

The "Happy Hostess Cookbook Party" is an online community focused on cookbooks and hosting, led by Kristie LaLonde. It's part of the larger "Happy Hostess" brand, which includes the “Happy Hostess Podcast” and other resources for aspiring and experienced hosts. The club focuses on exploring recipes from various cookbooks, often accompanied by themed events and discussions.Kristie has so graciously planned to feature the “True North Cabin Cookbook” for her October club. The club meets via Zoom for all members. It's a monthly subscription for an orchestrated “cook along”thats fun and approachable for all levels of cooks interested in joining a community.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Episode Transcript Follows:Stephanie:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space. Many times cookbook authors, other times makers. And this particular episode, we are talking to Kristie LaLonde. She is the Happy Hostess Collective. And Kristie and I found each other through a listener of my radio show. My friend Jilly in Minnesota is. She's. We call them Dishers weekly.Stephanie:Dishers, that's the name of the radio show. And Jilly's been a Disher for over 18 years. We've had the show and I think she's listened as long as we've had it. And she reached out to me because in my sub stack, I have a Sunday newsletter and I did a whole thing about entertaining and how I love when people just entertain and people make entertaining so complicated and it doesn't need to be. And I offered to give around a cookbooks to people that have cookbook clubs because I think they're so fun. And Jilly replied and said, I have this great cookbook club. We would love it if we could win your books. And she is part of the Happy Hostess Cookbook Club.Stephanie:So they won. Jilly got the books. I sent books to all the people in the cookbook group that Jilly's in. And Kristie is the leader of the Happy Hostess Collective, Kristie, welcome to the program. I'm delighted to have you.Kristie LaLonde:Thank you. I am so excited to be here.Stephanie:So explain to the audience what the Happy Hostess Collective is and all the different avenues that you have for fostering your love of cookbooks and clubbing.Kristie LaLonde:Well, I am on Instagram as Happy Hostess Collective, but for our cookbook club, it's actually called Happy Cookbook Party because I couldn't really think of a good name. It's not a great name because it doesn't really let you know it's a cookbook club. But we. There's a lot of emphasis on party in it. So basically it's a cookbook club, but instead of meeting in person, most of the time, we are meeting twice a month on Zoom and we are cooking together from one cookbook, which we usually choose a cookbook and stick with that cookbook for like three to four months, depending upon how robust the cookbook is.Stephanie:And people come from all over the country and tell me, like, how do you logistically do it? Do you have like, you know, 30 people on a Zoom or how does it work?Kristie LaLonde:Actually, we do have. We are on Zoom and basically what happens when we pick a book? I will go through and kind of we have a Facebook Group. And so I ask everyone either which recipes really look good to you that you're wanting to try.And then I look through all of those and make sure that they can fit within the hour to hour and a half timeframe of our Zoom Cook along. And then I make a schedule for the next three months and it's printable. I send it to them so they can print it out. And then every. We meet twice a month, so every two weeks, basically we meet on Zoom and I send them grocery list ahead of time for those two recipes that we choose. Sometimes it's three when we throw in a cocktail in there. Yes, especially we usually meet at noon or 4, so the 4 o' clock ones a lot of times have the cocktail. But so we all just meet in one Zoom meeting and we all cook and I'm kind of leading it, but everyone else is talking just as much as I do because we've gotten to know each other so well and it's so fun because we really learn from each other because we have some like expert bakers and we have some people like me that not expert at all in baking.Kristie LaLonde:And so. And like we have some really strong florists and there's. We just learn a lot from each other. And every once in a while we also do like a tutorial on a different thing that would have to do with being a hostess. For example, we've done flower arrangements that mimic the ones we saw in one of our cookbooks. We've done hostess gifts, like kind of homemade, cute little hostess gifts at Christmas time. So it's a wide variety of things. It's been strange.Like a lot of things have come our way. We had, we were offered to have a Vector cocktails. It's like a cocktail mixer. They offered to do a, a cook. I mean, like a cocktail class for us. It was super fun. They sent us all their mixers and it was great. So we've got a chance to do a lot of stuff.Stephanie:So what is your background and how did you land here?Kristie LaLonde:Well, I have always loved cooking and entertaining, even when I was little. Like, I remember I had one of my cookbooks was like the MAD Magazine cookbooks. I don't know if you remember MAD magazine, but they had like a holiday thing and I just loved it. I remember pouring through that and it's crazy because I do that now, obviously with grownup cookbooks, but. And so that just kind of. Well, and then when I was very young, I was the maid of honor in Three Weddings in one year. So I had a crash course and had a host parties for grownups, and that was very fun. But.Kristie LaLonde:And I'd always really enjoyed the ideas of parties as well. Growing up, my parents were my mom. My father was in an industry where there were lots of fancy, fancy famous parties.Stephanie:Yeah.Kristie LaLonde:Because we live in Kentucky, so the derby parties. And.Stephanie:Yes.Kristie LaLonde:So I would, like, hear them, like, sometimes they would be on the farm that we lived on, like in the party barn. And so, like, I would hear the parties, and I just was kind of fascinated with all of that, and it just kind of snowballed from there.Stephanie:But you on the Happy Hostess Collective on your Instagram, you chronicle a lot of these parties and you have, like, beautiful flower arrangements. And I mean, honestly, the south is just like, I don't know why, but you guys are known for just these over the top, beautiful flower arrangements, beautiful parties, beautiful outfits. In the north, everything feels a little more, like, rustic and just a little more outdoorsy. But, like, the south just feels like China and silver and so beautiful.Kristie LaLonde:Yeah, you know, there's a little bit of everything for sure in the south, but we do tend to go over the top. That is. That is definitely the case. Which makes it fun, though. But. And I love a big theme. It can. It's a lot of fun.And whether it's rustic theme, but it's just like kind of go all in on it. It makes it a lot of fun.Stephanie:How did you figure out, like, I think it's pretty cool that you have this whole cookbook club happening via Zoom. So there's technology there. Right. And then you also have, like a Facebook group. You really use social media to drive a lot of this engagement. It is a paid subscription, which I also think is cool because sometimes if you have to pay for something, you value it a little bit more or you make time for it in your schedule. How did I learn all the technological pieces and have you just learned by trial and error?Kristie LaLonde:Well, fortunately, Zoom is fairly easy to use. And especially after Covid, everybody knows how to use Zoom, thankfully. But actually, I started an E commerce store, like, before people heard of the word E commerce.And I am not techno, very technologically advanced, but I am willing to figure out whatever it is if it makes it possible for me to do what I want. And I really wanted a. A China and dish store, which. Big surprise. So that I had it. No, I don't. I had it for almost 14 years. I think that's, like, my dream.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, it was so fun. And it stopped me from buying all the dishes. Because I had all these gorgeous dishes. Like in a warehouse. Yes. But it's a really heavy, breakable object and not so fun to ship after a while. So I transitioned out of that and wanted to do something that didn't require shipping.Stephanie:And this is brilliant because you've got new friends from all over the country. It could be all over the world.Kristie LaLonde:I suppose it definitely could be. There happens to be just the country right now. We are a small group, but it is a really fun group and it's been a great community. And I really wanted something to tie in my podcast to make it and make it smaller. Well, obviously with the podcast, it's only me or myself and a guest, so I really wanted to be able to, like, get to know my listeners better, and this was the perfect thing.Stephanie:How did you get into podcasting? Because you've have had over a hundred episodes all about this topic of hostessing.Kristie LaLonde:Basically it was the sick of being shipping things. So I thought, okay, well, we could start the podcast. I wasn't really sure what direction it was going to take, but I thought that it would be a good avenue for me to get started. And it kind of led to this.Stephanie:One of the topics that was on your recent podcast that I was kind of interested in, because I think the. It has changed so much since COVID is the whole idea of having a party and the RSVP list. People in my experience tend to be very late at responding to things. And even like, we're finding that restaurant reservations people will make four reservations and cancel three with really no thought about it. Like, it's just we're in a very quick societal change. And you talked a lot about how to get people to RSVP, how important RSVPs are. What were some of your tips there?Kristie LaLonde:Well, it's. It sounds a little old school, but one of them was to actually have a physical invitation delivered to them.Stephanie:Amen. This whole, like, you're gonna send me a digital something, it's fine. It's great as, like, a reminder, but I just. I don't think it's the same as, like, getting an actual invitation to something.Kristie LaLonde:I agree. And for one thing, it's. It's less likely to be forgotten because a lot of times they put it on the refrigerator or somewhere they can see it. And then also, like, it's shocking when you get something in the mail that you. That isn't a bill today, you know, so it's. It seems more special.Stephanie:This is kind of a weird aside, but I used to run a direct mail company. So I love direct mail. And the number one growing category for direct mail is 18 to 34, because they love getting offers in the mail. Because getting mail feels so special now and so unique.Kristie LaLonde:You're kidding.Stephanie:No, it's like it's coming back.Kristie LaLonde:That is so interesting.Stephanie:And the catalog companies have always had a robust business using the mail. They've maybe pared down their catalogs a little bit, or they might have specialty offerings, but people are still sending a lot of catalogs.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, goodness. Well, I'm so glad because I just thought I was like, old school because I really like to have books in my hands. I like. I like getting catalogs if it's from a business that I like. I thought I was the only one that.Stephanie:No, you are not. What other kinds of trends are you noticing in just entertaining in general, good or bad?Kristie LaLonde:Well, catching on. One that I did recently, I did a small series on baby showers. And. Wow. Things have changed since I was having babies, for sure. Like, drastically. Some. Some things I think are good.Kristie LaLonde:Like, for example, a lot of times they're co ed now, which was just a trend that had just barely started when I was having children. And I think that's fun and interesting, for sure. Um, but I do also think that they have gotten, like, kind of out of hand a little bit. And I love going over the top, like I said earlier with a party, so I'm. I'm never gonna, like, shame anybody for that. But it seems like with social media coming in, that everyone is seeing these highlight reels from very sophisticated baby showers.Stephanie:Yeah.Kristie LaLonde:And so I kind of camped out in baby shower groups for, like, a good month, like, trying to prepare for this series. And. And it was kind of sad, really, because people were so. A lot of people, not everyone, of course, but were so sad because they didn't have enough people to invite to have an almost wedding, like, baby shower. Like, it was. It was. And they felt defeated. It was just.Kristie LaLonde:It was kind of disheartening. And I mean, you could tell that they really thought that it was normal that people had to rent out a venue hall in order to have a baby shower.Stephanie:Yeah.Kristie LaLonde:Which is not the case at all.Stephanie:And like, just making diaper cake is still pretty fun, isn't it?Kristie LaLonde:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so, I mean, yeah, it's. It's really different. It's. It's almost. And it's a whole different vibe from a lot of people. And the thing is, I've not seen this in person, so I don't want to say that everyone's like this. Maybe it's just the vocal people on Facebook, you know, but it seemed a lot more like, this is my party.Kristie LaLonde:This is my. My thing, as opposed to, you know, someone hosting it for you.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. Well, you haven't. Have you watched the Mormon Housewives?Kristie LaLonde:I haven't.Stephanie:Okay, good. I don't. It's like, so bad. It's good. So wrong. Right. So I don't really want to, like, encourage anyone to do it because that sort of guilty pleasure. But they have these big over the top and they have a lot of kids and they're all women under 30.Stephanie:So they do have these big, like, over the top baby showers and the baby hills and the baby moons. And honestly, it's just. So if we get to the idea of just like, entertaining, I think people get so hung up on that they have to have like this special meal or that they have to spend all day in the kitchen. What would be like, some of your tips for getting you to entertain? More like, barriers to overcome, I guess.Kristie LaLonde:Well, I think first and foremost is to really focus on your mindset and think about why that you want to entertain. And usually it's because you want to make memories and have connections with your friends and family. Do you want to make memories and those are awesome reasons, or you want to celebrate someone, you know? And a lot of times when we start thinking about entertaining, sometimes we can get a little nervous that maybe I'm not good enough cook or I'm. My house isn't big enough or I don't have enough people to invite, for example, the baby shower. And I really just recommend very first thing to do is to flip your mind and be focused on your guests. Like, what do you want to do for them, how do you want them to feel? You know, obviously you want them to be. Feel welcomed in your home and that sort of thing. So if you could just focus on the.Kristie LaLonde:The guest, you usually can stop all the negative chatter in your mind because you're not focusing on yourself. And then also, most importantly, don't do everything yourself. You don't have to cook everything. You don't have to cook at all if you don't want to. You know, that's why caterers exist. Even if you only cooked one thing that was like a signature dish, then you might. It's. It's like you did cook.And so I really think that trying not to do everything and focusing on your making your guests feel welcome are very important.Stephanie:I figured out late in Life how easy it is to cook fish for a crowd. And that seems like a weird thing, but, like, if you get, like, a whole side of salmon or poach a whole fish or you even have slabs that you're just putting under the broiler, you can have, like, any salads prepared in advance. You know, you can have vegetables prepared in advance, you can have a cheese platter prepared in advance. And then really, like, the only thing you're cooking is this side of salmon or you've got a sauce that you've already made. I was always so afraid to cook fish, and once I kind of got over that hump, I was like, wow, this is actually pretty easy. I can cook a whole side of fish. I can feed 12 people off of it, typically, if I get a big enough one. And with all the sides and everything, everything's already made before they even get here.Kristie LaLonde:That is perfect. And that's like the perfect example of what we're trying to do in the cookbook party is to get people to increase their repertoire of things that are very easy to entertain. Because there are some delicious recipes that we make that would be a nightmare if, you know, for entertaining, you know, they take too long, they need to be done at the last minute, that sort of thing. But if you like, for example, the fish, you know that all. It kind of meets all the requirements. You don't have to do it at the last minute. It's easy preparation, and we want to gain. It's like our entertaining arsenal.Kristie LaLonde:Kind of find those recipes, find ways of doing things that make it simple, where, you know, if, like, for example, things that can be cooked the day before and just reheated, like carnitas, like the meat and that type of thing. Yep. There's just lots of them. And. And we can all have our own little personal style when it comes to that. You know, that's what makes it fun is, is everyone seems like they have their own signature dishes.Stephanie:What's a go to Kristie LaLonde signature entertaining dish?Kristie LaLonde:Well, I just mentioned one of them, carnitas. I love them. They are not. They are kind of time consuming, but it is completely make. You can make it whenever you want, and it tastes great the next day reheated. It's one of those things that, you know, can taste better, even better the same day, and people love them. Everyone seems to like them. So that's one of my go tos.Kristie LaLonde:And then also like, oh, gosh, I can't even remember what I call them now, but they're like the white cream chicken, Chicken enchiladas.Stephanie:Oh, yeah.Kristie LaLonde:Because they can totally be made ahead of time, and all you have to do is put them in the oven, and then, you know, you can make sides easily. A lot of times, actually, with both of those things, I used to. I don't need to now, but I didn't have a good refried beans recipe that I liked, and rice is one of the few things that I really, really struggle with. I need to buy a rice cooker is what I've been told, but so I would just order from the restaurant that's around the corner, baked beans and rice, and then serve that with them. So it was, like, liked. It was homemade. It's in my dish. It looks homemade.Yeah.Stephanie:Time saving. An instant pot is also really helpful in the rice department. If you. Oh, I mean, I make rice in my instant pot. It is a rice cooker. It's a pressure cooker. Rice cooker. It cooks everything.And then also I make risotto in there too.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, wow. I did not know that. Actually, the carnitas is one of the few things I use my instant pot for. So now I got something else.Stephanie:Oh, yes. I'm a big instant potter. In fact, one of the Facebook groups that we run for our radio show is called the Weekly Dish Instant Potters. Oh, some really great recipes there that people have shared or linked to. It's an open group, but I. It's. If you're an instant potter, and I still am. I still love my instant pot.Stephanie:I do my slow cooker, too. You can slow cook in an instant pot, but I also have two other slow cookers because I'm somewhat obsessed with that, but really helpful and easy. Is there a cookbook that you've used on the cookbook Club journey that you really were like, wow, this is a great, entertaining cookbook?Kristie LaLonde:Yes, for sure. And most of the ones that we choose have an entertaining bent to them, typically just because of our interest in what we're trying to accomplish in the group. But Love Welcome Serve by Amy Hannon. Like, really blew my socks off. Every single recipe that we tried just seemed to be over the top, delicious. It was really phenomenal. Like, we've enjoyed all of our books, for sure, but this one, it just really. I was blown away, and I had been told and that it really was such a good cookbook, and I finally caved and put it in there, and I'm so glad that I did.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm looking at it. It looks delightful. It's got kind of an Ina Garten feeling to it.Kristie LaLonde:And she is just a very genuine, kind, hospitable person. She really. She definitely has the mindset. Like, even when she's talking about making little notes, you can just see just. She has such a hospitable nature.Stephanie:And then the recent cookbook that you guys are doing is the. Is it Brunch with Babs?Kristie LaLonde:Brunch with Babs is her account, but the book is called Celebrate with Babs.Stephanie:Okay. And Babs is like everybody's favorite grandma. Her daughter, I think, worked in lifestyle television and has helped her create this really unbelievable social media presence and following. What is it about her books that attracted you?Kristie LaLonde:I. Well, she organizes her cookbooks in the way that I always enjoy, and that is by party or event. I love cookbooks that are organized that in that fashion. And I'd heard good things about it, and so we thought we would try it.Stephanie:Yeah, she's really. I think her recipes are really great. She's not too fussy. She has some that are more complicated than others, but she does a lot of, like, semi homemade kind of things too. Don't you wish that Sandra Lee from Semi Homemade would come back?Kristie LaLonde:Oh, I know. I. Oh, I loved, loved, loved her show because of the party aspect. I absolutely loved it. And we have enjoyed Celebrate with Babs for sure. And you're right, there are a lot of, like, one recipe will be, you know, kind of complicated like you said, and one will be semi homemade. Today at 4. Today we have our.Kristie LaLonde:What's our second to last cook along in Celebrate with Babs. And the theme today is looking forward to fall. So we're doing her new pond chili and then we're doing Mrs. Williams peanut butter bars. So.Stephanie:Yeah, delicious.Kristie LaLonde:Yes, that will be good for dinner.Stephanie:Yes, it will be. It makes me think of my pumpkin spice espresso martini that I'd like to have with that.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, that sounds good. Oh, that sounds so good.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm obsessed with pumpkin spice. And my. My second book is kind of geared from October through April, so more fall time. And I really, I. When you go to get like a pumpkin spice something, it's usually full of such gross ingredients. And I was like, okay, we could make pumpkin spice flavor with pumpkin, right? And spice, like, it wouldn't be that hard. So I made a pumpkin spice cream and then used it in different recipes. And the espresso martini with pumpkin spice was delightful.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, that sounds amazing. Espresso martinis are one of my absolute favorites.Stephanie:Me too. Me too. Well, it's been super great to chat with you about entertaining, Christy. How can people follow you and what's the best way to join if they want to join the cookbook club?Kristie LaLonde:Well, our website is happy cookbookparty.com and I'm on Instagram at Happy Hostess Collective, if you have a question about anything. And I am excited to announce that we are doing one of your cookbooks starting in October.Stephanie:Excellent. That's right on time.Kristie LaLonde:Yes. I'm so excited about it. I can't wait, because this is totally different. I love that we, you know, we've done a lot of Southern cookbooks. Like we did Pizzazzerie and the Southern Living Party Cookbook and a couple others. And then we kind of moved over to the Midwest of it was celebrate with Babs. And so yours will be a perfect fit.Stephanie:Thank you. I'm excited to have you guys do it. And I hope I can find pop in and say hi while everyone's cooking, because that sounds kind of fun.Kristie LaLonde:Oh, I would love it. I would love it. And I would like to offer your listeners, if they want to join us, they can use the code SD50, and they'll get 50% off their first month's membership.Stephanie:That's fun. And how much is a membership generally? Is it 22?Kristie LaLonde:It's $22 a month. Yes.Stephanie:Okay. I love it. That's great. That's fun. It's a good little, like, date night for yourself to do something fun and unusual that you maybe haven't done before, right?Kristie LaLonde:Yes, it is. And it's, you know, I know you not for you, probably because you're immersed in the food industry, and I know you're so big on local, which I love about your cookbooks. I love reading the little stories about the local people. But, you know, a lot of us don't have, like, I love to entertain, and I do have friends that entertain, but I don't have people necessarily close to me that just love it as much as I do and really want to learn. And so it's awesome that I get to hang out with these people all over the country that really do love it as much as I do.Stephanie:Yes. Well, we'll put all this information in the show notes, and you and I will connect on when we want to have the podcast distributed so that people can join. And it was really great to spend time with you. Thanks to Jilly in mn, my favorite Instagram friend and weekly disher who hooked us up. Kristie. I'll connect with you after this podcast by email, and we'll get all the details set up, but thanks for watching, for helping launch my book. It's awesome.Kristie LaLonde:Well, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.Stephanie:Yes. And we'll talk soon. Thanks for being a guest today. Oh, and I want to shout out your podcast real quick because we'll put a link to that, too.Kristie LaLonde:Thank you. It's called Happy Hostess.Stephanie:Okay. It's really great. You have a lot of episodes on hostessing and fun, entertaining ideas, so. All right, Kristie we'll connect in email.Kristie LaLonde:Awesome. Thanks, Stephanie.Stephanie:Okay, bye. Bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I'm joined by Courtney Whitmore, the entertaining expert and founder of Pizzazzerie, a go-to destination for party inspiration. Courtney shares her journey from a career in university counseling to building her brand as a best-selling author of five entertaining cookbooks.With her Southern roots and passion for blending classic charm with modern pizzazz, Courtney reveals her secrets for hosting with ease, creating unforgettable tables, and celebrating life's everyday moments. Plus, we dive into her exciting upcoming projects, family life in Charleston, and how she's inspiring the next generation of party lovers. If you're ready to elevate your entertaining game, this is the episode for you!RESOURCES:Visit the Pizzazzerie website.Follow Courtney on Instagram, Facebook, and/or Pinterest!SHOP COURTNEY'S BOOKS HERE:The Southern Entertainer's Cookbook: Heirloom Recipes for Modern GatheringsPizzazzerie: Entertain in Style: Tablescapes & Recipes for the Modern HostessFrostingsPush-up PopsCandy Making for Kids

In this episode of The 5 to 9 Podcast, I'm thrilled to chat with the original content creator herself, Courtney Whitmore of Pizzazzerie. I had the honor of interning for Courtney during my college years, and her passion and creativity were a huge inspiration to me. In this episode, she shares her journey from starting a blog to becoming a best-selling author and lifestyle expert, offering a behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to make it as a creator today. Courtney opens up about how she found the courage to bet on herself, the key moments that shaped her career, and her favorite tips for adding pizzazz to any celebration. Whether you're sitting in an office dreaming of quitting your 9 to 5, or you're already years into your entrepreneurial journey, this episode is packed with wisdom and gold from start to finish. Tune in and get inspired by one of the best in the business! Check out Pizzazzerie here! Purchase Courtney's books here! SPONSORS This episode is sponsored by Shopify. I've been using Shopify for the past 10 years to run my online business! Sign up through this link to get your first month for just $1 and discover how Shopify can help you manage and grow your online storefront no matter what stage of the game your business is at! JOIN OUR TRIBE! We would LOVE to hear from you! Be sure to connect with us on social. Send us a DM with your thoughts from the show or share a screenshot when you listen in your story! We would so appreciate if you leave a review and share with a friend! Follow us on instagram at: @_the5to9podcast Connect with us on Facebook: facebook.com/the5to9pod

Episode 86: Entertain in Style: Lesson Learned from Pizzazzerie In this episode of the Happy Hostess Podcast, the host Kristie LaLonde shares the valuable lessons she's learned from studying the beautiful book "Pizzazzerie: Entertain in Style" by Courtney Whitmore. From the importance of presentation and embracing shortcuts to discovering the creative potential of a good recipe, She'll  guide you through her favorite insights. The Cookbook Party is  nearing the end of their 12-week journey with this cookbook, and she'll also preview their upcoming party plans inspired by its delightful ideas. Stay tuned for practical tips and charming details that will elevate your entertaining game.   Happy Hostess~ Be Notified of the Next Cookbook Featured in the Happy Cookbook Party http://happyhostesscollective.com/ Join the Happy Cookbook Party! http://happycookbookparty.com Happy Hostess Social Media Links: Instagram: @happyhostesscollective facebook.com/happyhostesscollective  

Episode 10: How to Personalize Your Wedding and Party Decor On today's episode of the Happy Hostess Podcast, Kristie Lalonde and Patricia Mae Olson of the Preppy Podcast discuss  wedding trends and how to create a wedding unique and special to the couple. Patricia's experience working with small brands helped her create a one of a kind wedding that was just perfect for her and her groom. She shares all the secrets of   how you can incorporate personal touches and details to create a memorable event. Tune in to get the complete conversation……. Patricia Mae Olson is the owner of Piqued PR, host of the Preppy Podcast and a blogger who shares her favorite finds to entertain in style and decorate with color and pattern.   -Connect with Patricia Mae Olson- https://patriciamaeolson.com/ Patricia's Podcast:  https://thepreppypodcast.com/ Piqued PR:  https://www.piquedpr.com/   -Social Media Links- Instagram:  @patricia_mae_olson @piquedpr @thepreppypodcast https://www.instagram.com/patricia_mae_olson/ https://www.instagram.com/piquedpr/ https://www.instagram.com/thepreppypodcast   -Social Media Links- Happy Hostess https://www.instagram.com/happyhostesscollective/ https://m.facebook.com/happyhostesscollective   -Quick Notes- (01:58) Who is Patricia Mae Olson? (04:27) When did Patricia first get interested in parties and entertaining (05:53) Weddings, Weddings and more Weddings! (07:47) Current wedding trends  (09:28) What trends are on the way out? (11:59) Patricia's wedding (17:52) Tips on incorporating one's personality into wedding decors (28:22) Tips on minimizing stress when planning for a wedding (34:11) How does one plan for unforeseen circumstances in a wedding (37:57) Speed round (40:03) Advice to new hosts starting out (45:33) Patricia's contact details     -Resource Links- Brands Mentioned: Jackson Morgan Cream:  https://sipjacksonmorgan.com/ Elizabeth Wilson Designs:  https://www.elizabethwilsondesigns.com/ CANVAS Style:  https://canvasstyle.com/ Honey + Hank:  https://www.honeyandhank.com/ Lauren Haskell Designs:  https://shoplohome.com/ Creative Candles:  https://creativecandles.com/ The Preppy Stitch:  https://thepreppystitch.com/ Nico and Lala:  https://nicoandlala.com Nicole Speake:  https://nicolespeake.com/ Pizzazzerie: https://pizzazzerie.com/

The world of online business and content-creation has evolved so much over the last decade, and today we are joined by someone who has ridden this wave to success, building a uniquely personal and strong brand along the way. Courtney Whitmore is the brain and heart behind Pizzazzerie, a lifestyle and food blog, that has branched out into so much more over the years. Courtney has published five books, managed lucrative brand partnerships, and kept growing and evolving while staying true to her original vision. In this inspiring conversation with Courtney, we get to hear all about her beginnings in the online world, and the steps she took all the way back in 2009 to build her first site. She talks about the initial ways she monetized her platform and the evolving attitude she had towards creating multiple revenue streams from her work. Courtney underlines the importance of self-education and flexibility in order to keep shifting and pivoting as necessary, and we finish off this amazing conversation with a powerful call to action from our guest, so make sure to listen in today!See www.tjfcareercoach.com/episodes for more details, speaker bios and resources mentioned in the episode.

The south and the people who live there are known very well for two things, their food and their entertainment skills, and Courtney Whitmore of PIZZAZZERIE is a pro at both. After graduating from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor's degree in both Communications + masters in Organizational Leadership, Courtney became a career counselor. She knew this wasn’t her true passion, and decided to follow her heart and start her business Pizzazzerie.com where she would be able to share entertaining inspiration and ideas with her readers. Now a published author, she utilizes her talent in entertaining and food styling to share daily party inspiration with her readers. Listen more to learn about Courtney’s journey. Learn more at https://pizzazzerie.com/

On this episode, we sit down with Courtney Whitmore, founder of Pizzazzerie, our go-to guide all things entertaining and style! On her “good ole blog,” as she calls it, Courtney brings us everything from easy, staple party décor and stunning tablescape themes to daily recipe and cocktail tips. She is a three time published cookbook and entertainment book author and is in the throes of writing her fourth as we speak. In addition to the Pizzazzerie blog platform and books, Courtney is a creator and content contributor for major leaguers like Better Homes & Gardens, HGTV, Target, Pier1, and MarthaStewart.com.   But this stylish, southern hostess-with-the-mostess didn’t always have her sights set on the culinary and the creative. Undergraduate study at Vanderbilt brought and kept Courtney in Nashville, after which she worked as a career counselor for the university. After some time of feeling tethered to her office and burdened in a job that didn’t feed her vibrant spirit, she resorted to throwing small dinner parties for friends to brighten an otherwise arduous and unfulfilling season. A true entrepreneur, her project turned to passion and, in time, billowed into all out pursuit. “The fear of going back to a job I hated far outweighed the fear of risking something new I could potentially love,” she tell us. “[By that point] quitting wasn’t even scary to me. I just refused to fail.” Hear me all SHE’S! The people who find themselves in the following boats must, I repeat, MUST listen to Courtney’s encouraging and wise words in this episode: SHE’S FEELING STAGNANT AND UNFULFILLED IN THEIR JOBS SHE’S CONSIDERING MAKING A JUMP FROM A PLACE OF STABILITY TO A PLACE OF PASSION SHE’S PURSUING BLOGGING OR CREATIVE ONLINE PLATFORMS SHE’S WHO WORK FOR THEMSELVES OR WORK FROM HOME SHE’S WHO SIMPLY LOVE TO ENTERTAIN Our time with Courtney has something to offer all of us. The gratitude we can rest in and grow out of, even when we find ourselves in unhappy seasons. The perseverance and faith it takes to veer off the beaten path. The discipline demanded to find success in unconventional landscapes. The necessity of a supportive community in the midst of a digital world. The secrets behind and cathartic release in creating something beautiful with your hands.  Courtney also divulges some of her staple items and accessories to keep at home for cooking, decorating, and entertaining. “It’s not as hard or expensive as it seems,” she assures, “and at the very least, just start small.” Hear more about Courtney’s decade long journey to success in entertainment blogging, and take heed of her charge to let go of perfection and just enjoy the process.

On today’s episode we have the entertaining extraordinaire, Courtney Whitmore of Pizzazzerie, on the show sharing all kinds of amazing tips for hosting the perfect bridal shower or wedding event! She also shares wonderful advice for brides-to-be on how to show your gratitude to your loved ones that are celebrating you in this sweet season of life. Enjoy!!

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!

  Welcome to the Millennial Homemakers! On this episode, we chat with southern lifestyle & party blogger Courtney Whitmore!  If you like the Millennial Homemakers Podcast, please rate and review us on iTunes - it helps us grow!   Topics Discussed: Holiday Hostessing   Connect with Us: The Millennial Homemakers Podcast on Instagram - @themillennialhomemakers Join the Millennial Homemakers community on Facebook! #millennialhomemakers Jackie on Instagram - @jvalexander16 Jaclyn on Instagram - @jaclynhumble Courtney on Instagram - @pizzazzerie  Shop Jaclyn's jewelry line - Frazier Lynn    

The gals continue their fun convo with Cheryl Massingill, co-host of the Old Maids Podcast! Pam, Brooke and Cheryl dive into some listeners' confessionals, with topics about copycat brides, crazy family drama and a bachelorette party that included a two week old baby! If you like infants in pink feather boas, this episode is for you!   -- SHOW NOTES: If you want to listen to Part 1 of our conversation with Cheryl, check out Episode 58: Wine Soaked Pasta (with Cheryl Massingill). For those of you who've never seen the movie, here's a trailer for Single White Female! The episode of The Office (US Edition) about Pam getting annoyed at someone stealing all of her wedding ideas is Season 3/Episode 16: Phyllis' Wedding. It's available on Netflix. Cheryl's story was originally told on Episode 297 of My Brother, My Brother and Me.   --  GUEST INFO: Check out Cheryl's podcast about living the single life, Old Maids.  Follow Old Maids on Instagram: @oldmaidscast Old Maids is also on Twitter: @oldmaidscast Follow Cheryl on Twitter: @cherylee13 Cheryl's also on Instagram: @cherylee13   -- BRIDAL BREAK: Sweet Georgia Peach Smash: Whiskey cocktail from Pizzazzerie. (Suggested by Pam) Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness: Fun and educational podcast hosted by one of the guys from Netflix's Queer Eye reboot! (Suggested by Brooke) Rosemary Gimlet: Gin cocktail with an herbal twist! (Suggested by Cheryl)   -- WEDDING CONFESSIONALS LINKS: www.weddingconfessionals.com Instagram Facebook Twitter   -- Have a story to tell us? Need some advice about your own wedding drama?  Email us: weddingconfessionals@gmail.com Call us: 434-933-2663 Click here to send us a message with no personal information needed! We promise to never reveal the names in order to protect the innocent...and the annoyed. Your secret's safe with us!

After finishing college, Courtney Whitmore (IG:@pizzazzerie) took a safe, secure job as a career counselor, but she soon realized she wanted something entirely different — a creative pursuit where she could be her own boss. Looking back on that time in her life, she says, “I knew I wanted to work for myself but I didn’t know what that looked like.” Since hosting dinner parties was a favorite activity, she decided to launch a website in 2010 to focus on entertaining and party planning. Today that website, Pizzazzerie.com, is the centerpiece of Courtney’s expanding role as an entertaining expert, one whose food styling and tablescapes are in demand by companies from Target and HGTV to Lindt Chocolates.  In this episode, Courtney tells us about starting a job in an industry that doesn’t exist yet, managing her brand’s social media presence, the ways in which her definition of success has changed over time and the importance of what she calls the Monday Morning Test — “If what you are doing doesn’t get you up and out of the bed on Monday morning, then you shouldn’t be doing it.

Welcome to episode 011 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Courtney Whitmore from the blog, Pizzazzerie. Courtney is not just a blogger, she's a entertaining and food stylist, and cookbook author. In this episode Courtney and I discuss how to get paid what you deserve as a blogger. Courtney has been working with brands since she started her blog nine years ago. She has some very helpful advice about how she values her time and charges brands for the work she does. You will be blown away by how fearless she is in her negotiation tactics! Resources: Pizzazzerie Pizzazzerie: Entertain in Style: Tablescapes & Recipes for the Modern Hostess Push-up Pops Frostings Candy Making For Kids MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. How to Get Paid What You Deserve as a Blogger Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by Milo Tree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey, welcome to the show. Today my guest is Courtney Whitmore from the blog, Pizzazzerie. Courtney is not just a blogger. She's also a cookbook author. So welcome to the show, Courtney. Courtney: [00:00:24] Hi! I'm thrilled to be here. I'm so excited. Jillian: [00:00:27] So okay, Courtney, you and I started around at the same time. In fact, when we started Catch My Party, which is a site for people to add their party photos, you were one of the first people to add your parties. So I have to say, thank you! Courtney: [00:00:46] Yes, I remember, and I feel like it's been such a long journey. It'll be eight years of Pizzazzerie next month and so, it's just so exciting to see kind of how we've grown and especially how the entertaining blogger industry has grown. It's been really fun. Jillian: [00:01:00] Yes. And then we met in person about maybe three years ago at a conference. Courtney: [00:01:08] Yes. What it's like meeting your blogger friends in real life Jillian: [00:01:10] I love when you've known somebody online for so many years, and I knew what you looked like because I've seen your pictures everywhere, and then all of a sudden, I got to actually talk to you. And it was so fun and exciting. Courtney: [00:01:25] I know. Just feeling, just kind of in this blogging community. It's so crazy because you're like "Hey, girl. Hey, I know you. I'll just talked to you on GMail a minute ago." Jillian: [00:01:33] Exactly. Courtney: [00:01:33] So there's really no difference especially when this is kind of what we do full time. These are kind of like your co-workers. In some sense, I say that other bloggers are my co-workers because they get it, and they do what we do, but we work mostly by ourselves and you'll are our co-workers essentially. Jillian: [00:01:49] Exactly. And there is this feeling of like, we get it, we understand it and it's not, I would say not competitive as much as it is... I don't know. There have been times where I've reached out to you, you've reached out to me to ask questions or we shared. We did an Instagram share together. You use MiloTree on your site. So there's just this, I don't know, this feeling I always find in my life when I explain what I do. People don't quite understand it, but then when I talk to somebody like you, we get it. Courtney: [00:02:25] Yes. It's like a whole underworld of blogging confusion and sometimes, I'll have to email you and say, "Hey, what does this do or what do I do here because there aren't exactly textbooks of it?" So it's kind of learn as you go, so I'm so thankful that there are other people that do this so that I can ask questions, and we can share information. So it's exciting. The start of Pizzazzerie Jillian: [00:02:43] Yes, so now, tell me, how did you start? Because again, we started a while ago. So what inspired you? What is the story behind Pizzazzerie? Courtney: [00:02:53] Yes. So back in 2009, I was working at the Vanderbilt career center, and I was just not creatively fulfilled. I did not love it. I did not know what I really wanted to do but I knew that was not it. Courtney: [00:03:08] I did not want to sit in a desk and work for someone else for nine hours a day and then leave and go home and watch Lifetime movies and think "Is this it? Is this what my life was going to be like in the next 50 years of working? Courtney: [00:03:22] I didn't know a lot of people in Nashville at the time. A lot of my roommates from college have moved away. I was single at the time so I started taking a painting class, and the girls at my painting class, I fell in love with them. They were just so sweet and so fun. Courtney: [00:03:34] And so I decided to throw my first dinner party. So I was now in a townhouse. It had like a real dining room, so I invited those girls over, and we just had a dinner party, and I had more fun setting up the dinner party. Granted I loved sitting at the dinner party, but for me, creatively, I had more fun setting it up and styling it. And I thought, "Maybe I could do this." But I didn't know if I wanted to be a party planner and so I was thinking "Well then, what else is there?" Courtney: [00:04:01] So when I was researching ideas to set the table is when I popped up on a few blogs. Hostess with the Mostess was one of them. Thoughtfully Simple is another. There are a few blogs out there, not very many, and I thought "This is so fun." Courtney: [00:04:13] And they take their pictures of their parties and put them on there. And I thought "Let me see. Let me just see if I could do this." And again, it's just such a little hobby. This is not meant to ever be full time. Courtney: [00:04:22] But I created the website. Again, it was not great looking eight years ago. It was basic looking, got the job done and I started uploading those photos. They weren't even great. I think I probably took them with my BlackBerry but I just loved that community. Courtney: [00:04:42] I just hopped in. And Twitter was a big deal then. There was no Instagram. There was no Pinterest. It was Twitter and Facebook. And eventually, I had some people who want to advertise and that was when you would sell banner ads by the month. And then I thought -. Jillian: [00:04:55] So somebody would come to you and say, "We want to put an ad up on your site." Courtney: [00:05:02] And I would say, "Pull my little panties up and set on a dollar amount." I'd be like, "That'll be $50 a month." I knew what I was doing. And then so I thought "Well, gosh, if I sell 10 of those, that's the rent or whatever." and I started adding it all up, and I thought maybe I can leave this job. Courtney: [00:05:19] Of course, my parents, who just had helped me get through college and graduate school, really had no idea what a blog was and just did not want to hear it when I was describing it. There are like Courtney, that's cute but what are you doing? Courtney: [00:05:31] And so, I started doing some local TV and I had to kind of call in sick at the real job to get to go do that. And then family, it was just too much. And I would eat, sleep and breathe this when I would leave my full time job because I wanted it to work. How to get your first book deal as a blogger Courtney: [00:05:45] And so finally about four, five months later that first July, I quit, and it was a leap of faith. But I just kept working on it and through social media, a publisher contacted me and then, it led to book deals. And I just never stopped. I refused. Courtney: [00:06:02] I guess the fear of going back to a job that I did not love was paired with something that was obviously a creatively fulfilling job. That combo, the fear of going backwards and then, the fact that I did love what I was doing. Courtney: [00:06:13] That combo just was dynamite, and it kept me from ever just sitting around. And so I never looked back and thankfully, I always wonder, "Gosh, what if no brands want to work with me next year? How am I going to make it?" Thankfully, just cross your fingers, and there's never been a time like that. And the industry has grown so much. I've been very lucky that I have been able to ride this fun wave, and I hope it does not stop. It sounds great. Jillian: [00:06:37] I have a couple questions. The first one is have you always been creative? Courtney: [00:06:45] Yes but not necessarily around tablescapes. So I've always been --. Jillian: [00:06:50] So wait, will you explain what a tablescape is? Courtney: [00:06:52] Yes, so the gorgeous setting down the table - the place settings, the forks, the knives, the centerpieces, the flowers, that whole bit and party food. So when you would set a gorgeous Christmas tablescape down your dining room table. Courtney: [00:07:06] So I've always been creative but not around that. So when I was in college or high school, I was not setting up tables. I didn't even have a table. I was, maybe it was painting or it was making necklaces or it was ceramics at summer camp. Courtney: [00:07:21] So I've always been crafty but it was not until I had dinner table and the ability to do tablescapes. But I grew up watching my mom, essentially like Pinterest in a notebook, so she would cut out stuff out of magazines and create like a big, old three ring binder and she actually had a lot of her tablescapes photographed, and she wanted to have a book called "Franzi's tables." Courtney: [00:07:40] So I watched her set up tables but I really was not into it. I didn't even walk over and look at it that closely. But for some reason, I suppose it must have been seeping into me. Jillian: [00:07:50] Yeah, or in your genetics. Courtney: [00:07:52] Yes. Yes. The benefits of working with your mom Jillian: [00:07:56] So this is my next question. You work with your mom? Courtney: [00:07:59] Yes. Jillian: [00:08:00] And so what is that about? Courtney: [00:08:02] Yeah. When she lived in Raleigh, North Carolina where I grew up, but when I was pregnant, she decided to move here and be closer to family and obviously as a natural fit. She was flying in to help me with shoots and book shoots but it just made sense for her to be closer. Courtney: [00:08:17] She comes over not every day, but days we shoot, so I swear she's a better stylist than I am. I'm better at the business side and the blogging side but she's just very good at pulling together a table. And then, I kind of step in and tweak it and make changes and kind of know what's on trend and all that but she's just really good at it. Courtney: [00:08:35] If I want to do a DIY napkin rings, she'll go "I'll make one. It's like a prototype," and she'll go make another seven because she just loves that. So it's a good team. Jillian: [00:08:44] And how is it working with your mom? Has it brought you guys closer? Courtney: [00:08:49] It's good. Sometimes, she'll design something that I think is horrific and so I have to kind of like let her down gently but the good thing is that I can be myself like if I say, "I don't feel good, you go on get your thing today," as opposed to someone else where you always have to kind of tiptoe and say "Well, I like that shade but let's try another one." Courtney: [00:09:09] I don't have to do that with her. I could just be a little bit more frank, which is nice and time-saving. Jillian: [00:09:14] But your books, okay, so you're a cookbook author, and your books are these beautiful desserts and treats. And can you tell us about how that started and how you got into that? Courtney: [00:09:29] Yes. About two months after I went full time with Pizzazzerie, so this is probably six months after I started the website. I was on Twitter, and I did a give away for a wedding book that just talks about how to throw really pretty southern weddings. Courtney: [00:09:41] And when I was facilitating the giveaway, so I was trying to figure out how to get the winner her book, the publisher, the editorial assistant who is emailing me asked me if I would ever consider writing a book, to which I'm like, "Yeah." But there is no way. I mean there's no way. Courtney: [00:09:58] And she said "Well, I'm going to put you in touch with one of my editors," and then in the back of my head, I'm thinking I'm like, "This is nuts." But the editor called me and said, "We talked about a few things." I wanted a party book and they said "No. No. No. We have this these things called Push Up Pops." And I knew what they were. They were kind of a dessert trend at the time. Jillian: [00:10:14] Can you explain what she said? Courtney: [00:10:16] Yeah, they're a little bit like this Flintstones ice cream pops with a little container and you push up the bottom. Jillian: [00:10:22] Yes. Courtney: [00:10:22] But people were putting other things besides popsicles in them, and so, they were putting like cake in them or drinks. Anything you could put a little container like the parfait type of deal. And so she said, "Would you write like a niche book on these?" Courtney: [00:10:37] And I'm thinking, "Not exactly what I wanted, but look what this might do for me. So yes, of course I will do that." And so then I started on that book and they had another one called, "Candy Making For Kids" and they did not have an author. It had been signed with a photographer. Courtney: [00:10:54] And so it was kind of a crazy like I stepped in half way but I said yes to it and did those, did that. And then, I pitched frostings and said I'd love to do a book on frostings. There was not one at the time. I did frostings. Courtney: [00:11:06] Then I kind of took a break. Had a baby and then, I had still been asking for this party book for years. No, no, no. They tell me no and then, they had a new editor from Simon and Schuster to the publisher that I work with. Courtney: [00:11:20] And she called me and said that she had pitched one at the editorial team meeting, and they said they'd love to do a party book now. They mentioned my name. She called me and I probably passed out and so that's my signature book. It's the name of my site. Courtney: [00:11:34] It's what I always wanted, and it came out last fall. But that's kind of how the book's happened. They're kind of love projects. It's totally different than blogging. Blogging, you create and you can have it up within 30 minutes. The book, you create and you see it again a year and a half later. But they're both fun. They're both great. Jillian: [00:11:50] Wow. And are there similarities because the books are just - I mean, everything you do is beautiful. The books are so beautiful. And I've seen them at the bookstore and I'm like "I know her. I know who she is." Courtney: [00:12:03] Yes. It's crazy. I don't photograph the books, but I'm thankful for really great photographers. So it's wonderful. It's been great. And I did a book tour with a couple of them, and it's so fun. Courtney: [00:12:15] And I think brands really like to see that I have products out there. I think that it helps differentiate me. Courtney: [00:12:20] The blogging community is quite saturated, so you just going to have to find ways to stand out. It's not impossible to start a blog now. But I think the books helped me stand out. And they just show that this is something I'm in for the long haul, that this is creating content whether it's for a book, whether it's for a blog, whether it's for a magazine. I don't care where it really goes. I just love to create it. Are books money-makers for bloggers? Jillian: [00:12:43] It's amazing. Now, here's a question. Are books money-makers or is it really to create this reputation, something that you can then say to brands, "Look what I've done." How do you see it? Courtney: [00:12:56] It would be the latter. They are not a money-maker. And I could sit here and try to tell you it's great, but to be honest with you and I would rather be honest with all bloggers, they're not money-makers unless you are at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for months. And so they're just not. And you do it for the love of the project, and you do it for what it might potentially help you do down the road. I think I'm able to charge more for brands because of the books Jillian: [00:13:22] Right. Courtney: [00:13:22] I think that it helps. It differentiates me. It sets me apart. But they're not money makers. You do make money. You don't go under or negative but you just don't make a ton. There's this all those things that go into it. Courtney: [00:13:36] But the time that the physical book is made, and mine are all hardback so that there's just the prices. You just don't end up with all that much for the time. The publishers are paid and everybody else gets paid and what something is discounted some time. Courtney: [00:13:50] By the time the dust all settles, you're not walking away with that much. But to me, I find it such a passion project that it's all worth it. Courtney: [00:13:50] BY the time the dust all settles, you're not walking away with that much. But to me, I find it such a passion project that it's all worth it. Jillian: [00:13:59] That's so nice. Okay, so let's talk about monetization then. How do you monetize as a blogger? Courtney: [00:14:11] You don't want all your eggs in one basket. So the number one and when I look at my finances at the end of the year, and I can see where it all came in, I am making most of my money off brand partnerships. So that is where I'm making the bulk of what pays the bills. Courtney: [00:14:25] The second way I make money is ad revenue. So when people visit my site, that ad revenue, my page, these are not what they used to be. I don't know many bloggers that are having higher paid ads. It all kind of just settle out, and I have a theory on that. But anyway -- Jillian: [00:14:40] What's your theory? Courtney: [00:14:42] So ad revenue. Jillian: [00:14:42] Wait, what's your theory? Why Instagram and Pinterest might be killing your page views Courtney: [00:14:45] Well, especially from what I do, so Instagram and Pinterest are so huge now. I'll just explain it using Instagram because it's easier. If I want to see a gorgeous table, and I'm scrolling Instagram, and I see Courtney post a pretty table, and I see a picture of it, that gets my wheels turning to design something. Courtney: [00:15:03] I don't need to go to her blog and see six other angles of it. So I'm basically handing it over on social media. Now, food bloggers still have great page views and my recipes still do well. Why? Courtney: [00:15:15] Because they see the cookie, and they need to go to the blog to get the recipe or they need to go to the blog to get the DIY but of pure, just tablescapes, you can get enough of what you want without clicking through. Courtney: [00:15:25] So there's no real incentive but that's okay because my brand partnerships pay me more for a tablescape, so it all settles out in the end. But ad revenue is definitely more of a consistent thing and [00:15:37] brand partnerships [0.2] may not be. You don't know who's going to come down the pipeline but brand partnerships mostly. Jillian: [00:15:44] I'm sorry. Are you reaching out to clients or are they reaching out to you? What it's like working with brands as a blogger Courtney: [00:15:48] They're reaching out to me. I don't have a problem reaching out to brands, but my feelings, monetarily, would be that I might make more if they come to me. Courtney: [00:15:59] If I go to them, I'm going to have a hard time swallowing the rate at which I'm going to throw at them. I've been lucky that I've had brands come to me, and I've been able to pick and choose brands that I think are a good fit for my audience. Courtney: [00:16:11] But they come to me and then ad revenue and then, the third would be affiliate and royalties. So those are kind of at the end of the list of the three ways I make money. Jillian: [00:16:23] Got it. Can you walk through what it's like when a brand reaches out to you and how that process works? Courtney: [00:16:30] Sure. So it's usually an email and they kind of tell me that they want a partner. It's usually from an ad agency or a PR firm. Not an ad agency, mostly a PR firm. Sometimes, it's directly with the brand. But I would say 80 percent of the time, it's with from one that I've likely worked with before but it's a different contact. How to know what to charge a brand who wants you to create sponsored content as a blogger Courtney: [00:16:49] And they email and say, we'd love to set up something for Easter using our product, our potato chips or whatever the brand is. And then I usually go back and say, "Are y'all think i ng recipe development or are you thinking more party setup, because that's kind of the two fields at play?" And so then they say "What are the rates for both?" Courtney: [00:17:08] And they kind of want to know the options, and I go back, and I quote them. I don't have a media kit because every project is different. I don't like media kits anyway. I just think it's a waste of time because I'll have one brand that wants a table that ends up being so simple. Courtney: [00:17:23] And I'll have another that wants a table that they want 3 DIYs . And that took me two weeks longer. If I put a rate on a tablescape, I'm hurting myself. So then we go back and forth, and they agree. Courtney: [00:17:36] Usually, they're wanting a blog post and then, they want me to send that blog post to all social media channels so it would be a post on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. Google Plus maybe. Although I swear, I think the Google Plus might be headed downhill. But I still sometimes hop on there. Courtney: [00:17:51] But anyway so then, I'll create the content. They want to review it. Sometimes, it aches but you just kind of factor it in. Then once they reviewed it, you just hope there's no re-shoot. If there is, I have a re-shoot feet. Courtney: [00:18:07] It's about following all the guidelines given to me and then, I write up the draft. They can review the verbiage, make sure that I followed the FTC guidelines of disclosing that it's a sponsored post, and all those details, that I've represented their product in the way they want. That also feels right for me. The post goes up. Courtney: [00:18:27] Sometimes, they want analytics later. Sometimes, they don't. It depends on the partnership but usually, I'm just creating a recipe and then, I'm photographing it or I'm creating a table set up and then, I'm photographing it. That's kind of a start to finish, and I care for those sponsors. Jillian: [00:18:44] How long would you say a project takes? Courtney: [00:18:48] If it's a single post and not a year long ambassador program, if it's like a single post, which a lot are, I'd say about a month. Usually, they'll come to me a few weeks before an event like the Oscars. If they want me to do something for that, and then, I'll have to kind of create it in about two to three weeks. They might want to review it that final week, make any changes and then, it'll go up so about a month. They can come to me sooner or with less time but it just depends on if I can pull it off or not. Jillian: [00:19:16] Got it. Now, in terms of social media, where are you? What works with Pizzazzerie? How social media follower numbers help you attract brands as a blogger Courtney: [00:19:25] Yes, social media is so huge, and it always has been. I say that social media follower numbers really help me with brands because I'm even getting some brands reaching out, wanting only posts on social so that's just how important social is, and especially because, like I said, people might only see the content on Instagram, so it doesn't quite behoove the company that only wants a blog post. Courtney: [00:19:47] Some may say, "We don't even want it on the blog. We want three Instagram." So Instagram is my number one spot that I'm sitting on daily as a user and also interacting. Facebook's there. Their algorithm stresses me out. Instagram is where I'm getting DMs, people asking where those napkins are from or wherever. Courtney: [00:20:10] Back to ad revenue, I do create some content for some companies, Instagram pages that never sees mine or my blog but like Bath and Body Works, I'll create some, almost like a hired stylist photographer. Sometimes, bloggers can get a little bit of an ad revenue stream that way, like creating content for brands, but it's never coming through the sponsored channel of your own blog.You're just helping them create something. How to work with brands as a content creator Courtney: [00:20:10] Back to ad revenue, I do create some content for some companies, Instagram pages that never sees mine or my blog, but like Bath and Body Works, I'll create some, almost like a hired stylist photographer. Sometimes, bloggers can get a little bit of an ad revenue stream that way, like creating content for brands but it's never coming through the sponsored channel of your own blog. You're just helping them create something. Jillian: [00:20:33] Do you get tagged in those or are you really just behind the scenes? Courtney: [00:20:37] It depends. Sometimes, we've negotiated that. So I'll take a lower rate if I can get tagged. But typically, the follow throughs are not what I would want. Typically, I just charge enough that I don't care. They don't tag me. At the end of the day, I'm hired as a photographer for that. And I don't care where it goes once I have a rate that I like. Jillian: [00:21:01] Right. So can you talk about, we don't have to get into specifics, but how you think about your rate because bloggers tend to not know, and my advice is always think about how many hours you think something will take you, figure out what you would want to make per hour, come up with that number and then double it. Courtney: [00:21:34] Oh, for sure. How to come up with a rate to charge brands as a blogger Jillian: [00:21:35] So tell me, what do you think about when you're coming up with the rate? Courtney: [00:21:40] Yeah. First of all, recall very quickly that you have to take the taxes off that. I talk to my accountant, and there's not an exact number from year to year but I tend to take 30 percent off of that and into my head, that's what I might be able to take home. Courtney: [00:21:55] And that's a huge difference, so you might say a company came to me for something for $5000, and I go "Oh my gosh. $5,000." And I want to say yes to that. But step back and realize it's not going to be $5,000 that you take away. Courtney: [00:22:10] So set your standards there and then, recall all the things that you're going to have to go buy especially for a tablescape. I own a lot of things but food and flowers are expensive, and so, I will have to go and get all those things, driving to all those places, come back, create it, style it. Hope it's not raining on a day. Courtney: [00:22:27] These are things that have happened to me. So all of those things happen and then, I'm photographing, I'm editing and also, just the time and energy. And you don't want to take too many sponsored posts so be careful. Courtney: [00:22:40] I would rather work less and make more. And now, I'm at a place where if I take like a tablescape from a company. Basically, I think I'm making now what I did a few years ago. It would take me five tablescapes for clients to make what I now charge for one. Courtney: [00:22:58] Well, that sounds more fun to me. And brands are understanding the value of it, and a lot of this content lives on forever. So it might feel scary when you hit that send button with that rate. and you want to come back and say "yes" and then, you're like they said yes! How to know how much you're worth as a blogger Courtney: [00:23:16] And so unless it's a scary number, don't send it. I mean double it, like you're worth it. You kind of can figure out that you're worth it if you go throw an affiliate link onto something and then you see all the people that buy it, you're like "Oh my gosh. They listened to what I had to say." Courtney: [00:23:32] And then you realize that brand should be paying for that because you're able to get things sold, and that's ultimately the real point. So they want beautiful content. But the point is that they hope that when they see something out on a table, that your followers are going to go buy it and do it. I love to be able to see that on the affiliate side that I actually can get that action by a reader to happen. Jillian: [00:23:58] I would say, for me, I say this, becoming a mother has made me a better negotiator. And the reason is I just don't have a lot of time. So when somebody will come to me, to Catch My Party, and say "Hey, we want to work with you." I will take my own advice which is I think "What should I be paid for this?" Jillian: [00:24:22] But I know that I am not counting in all the hours of driving to the store and buying the flowers that die and all of that. And so I know to double it. But then I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach where I think "Oh my God. I can't send this. Oh my God." But then I think, "I'm too busy. I'm too crazy busy." Jillian: [00:24:42] So what I do is I press "send" and then I think, I'm going to be so busy in five more minutes that I won't ever be able to think about it again. And if they get back to me and say yes, great. And if they don't, I'll probably forget about it. So instead, I don't have the time to be freaking out in my head about the fact that "Oh my God. I can't believe I asked for that." And I will tell you more often than not, the brand comes back and says "yes." Courtney: [00:25:08] That's true. So before I had my daughter who is 3 now, before I had her, what I would do to myself is think, I worked from home, no kids. So I had time to kill. So if a brand came to me, I felt like I tried to give a rate that they would say yes to because I had time, right? Courtney: [00:25:24] I don't have anything going on the next week. I could do it. I might as well make at least a thousand dollars. I'll just quote him a thousand. Because I have time to give. Now, I would like to make more but I want to make sure they take it. I want to make sure they say yes to the rate, and I have the time. So that's the game I played. Then, when I had Blakely, I didn't have the time to give. Why being a parent helps you charge more as a blogger Courtney: [00:25:42] So if they wanted me to do it, I was going to have to get someone to watch her while I went and did it. So I charge so much so that if they said yes, I wasn't resentful. Well, what's happened is I make a whole lot more now that I have a daughter, that I play - I don't play dirty, but I play like "Here's my rate. Here's what I can pull off." Courtney: [00:26:04] And I should have be charging that rate back when I had all the free time but instead, I was like, "Wow, I don't have anything else to do. I'll do it for that rate." But now, there's other stuff to do, so I play "I'm going to give you this rate, and we're not going to go back and forth a lot. Here's what I can do." And they do. They take it. Courtney: [00:26:19] I'm like "What?" And so then, you're like, "Oh, goodness. Now, I have to try to figure out how to get this done with a child." But you know what? Because I charged what I did, I'm no longer resentful. Courtney: [00:26:30] I'm not at the craft store at 8 o'clock on a Thursday night, being resentful. I'm like "Oh, man. They said 'yes' but look what I'm going to get?" Because now, I'm not resentful. It's the worst thing that can happen when you're like "Gosh, darn it. I said this and then now, my daughter's sick. But I agreed to this for lower than I should have." And nobody's happy then. Jillian: [00:26:50] Exactly and now, you can send her to college. Courtney: [00:26:53] Right. And I do think that - You might say I feel if I were a blogger and I was hearing this right now, I would think, "Yeah but what happens if they don't?" And then, you don't make any money that month. Why you want to focus on ad revenue as a blogger Courtney: [00:27:03] So that's why I do really - even though social media is really important, and even though some brands are wanting only posts on social, social's not going to give you that monthly ad revenue. And though I don't make a lot on ad revenue, it is consistent now, yet higher in the holiday months because the traffic is higher in the holiday months. Courtney: [00:27:21] But that is why I think it's important to work on your blog and your page views at least in some capacity because then, you can play the game where you can take a brand project if you want it or say no if it's not a fit, or if they say no to your rate, you can say 'no problem'. Courtney: [00:27:36] But you can't do that a lot if you have no money coming in in any other way, right? So you want to get those page views up to get that ad revenues so you can get some of your basic mortgage, the electrical bill. That's covered and those things are safe. Courtney: [00:27:50] It's not totally that way for me but kind of, then I can play the game with brands where I'm going to take the ones I love, and you're going to pay the rate I want or I don't need to do it. That's when you're in a good sweet spot, and it takes a little bit to get there. But know the value of your time. It's so huge. Jillian: [00:28:09] Absolutely. Courtney: [00:28:09] Don't do it just because you have the free time. Why you need to own a blog as an influencer Jillian: [00:28:10] And I definitely recommend you do blog, that you do own your blog, that you do focus on your blog, because at the end of the day, as we've seen with social media, you're just a sharecropper on social media. So you want to own something. Courtney: [00:28:26] You don't own your account on Instagram. You don't. They can shut it down. They can end Instagram and move to something else and then, all those followers you spent so long building up, what do you have now? Courtney: [00:28:38] So grow your email list. That's huge. Grow your blog. Those are important things that you can control. And they can actually give you a passive income which is so huge. So if you have free time, don't quote lower because you have nothing going on. Courtney: [00:28:55] That free time would be better spent taking a few online courses, listening to podcasts. I would do some online photography food courses, creating your own content that you could then drive traffic to your site rather than creating sponsored stuff for cheaper than you should be paid. Jillian: [00:29:10] Absolutely. Now, Courtney, how many hours a week do you work given that you have a 4-year old? How many hours a week do you work as a blogger? Courtney: [00:29:17] How many hours are in a week? Because that would probably be it. No, I'm embarrassed to say more than I want. I don't start and end because I have a toddler. It starts and ends all the time so I don't work like an eight-hour day. Courtney: [00:29:30] I work all over the place but it's constant. I don't even know if I can put a number on it. If I'm not physically at the computer or on my phone, my brain's still thinking about it unless I'm literally in front of my daughter. And so some might say "That's just not real healthy," and what I say to that is "At least, I found something that I love, that I can't get out of my head." So all the time, probably nine-hour days if you actually had to put a number to it. Jillian: [00:29:54] And the one thing that I would say about working with your daughter, because I've seen posts of yours where your daughter will mimic what you do, and she wants to put together tables, and I think that - I have a daughter too - I think that that is such a great thing for our daughters to see. Courtney: [00:30:13] Yes. Yes. She's not exactly sure what I do, but she knows I set tables. We had a little table made for her, little chairs. Sometimes, I'll have extra fabric scraps or old plates I know we won't use, and I have a big old bin in my prop room and stuff like that, like plastic cutlery. I let her set the table and she doesn't want to "play house". She wants to "play party". Courtney: [00:30:39] We went to a birthday party recently, and she asked where the hats were, and I'm like "Blakely, hush it." But I think I've loved having her be able to incorporate what I do into her daily routine because she just kind of come along with me because this is what I do. Courtney: [00:30:55] And I think it's fun. When she was little, she got her little toy, a leapfrog laptop, that she would sit there and pretend to work with me, and that's just the reality. I do stop and focus on Blakely a lot. Courtney: [00:31:08] She's at a little preschool so that's when I kind of go hardcore work. When she gets home, I'm sort of playing in the prop room and have fun with her. But I think it's important to let them see that we work, and it's not just stuck behind closed doors just to the computer thing. Jillian: [00:31:21] Exactly. Courtney: [00:31:21] So it's fun. Jillian: [00:31:22] So what about your business are you most excited about? Courtney: [00:31:28] Oh gosh. How it's morphing. And I think so many bloggers are "I won't do video" or "I won't ever write a book" or "I don't do that." To me, a lot of those things do scare me. Writing a book scared me. Doing video scared me. But if you want to stay in this industry, it's like a big wave pool. Get your floaties on, and ride the wave. Jillian: [00:31:48] I love that. Courtney: [00:31:48] And so video, I don't totally love being in front of a camera but I just shot two full days of video because that's what the brand wanted. "Okay, I'm on it." I wasn't totally comfortable shooting still photography eight years ago either. But I figured it out. Courtney: [00:32:02] You figure it out, and you get comfortable with it because that's where you have to go. I'm most excited about maybe another book. I don't know. It's on the table. It would be a love passion project. Maybe a product line. I'm in some talks. We'll see. Those kind of things, so different stuff. I will always love creating content for the blog. Courtney: [00:32:32] That's the bread and butter. But I think these offshoot things that don't necessarily make you a ton, that's what keeps it interesting. So eight years later, you've got on something that's going to keep it interesting. And I think that definitely helps. So those are the things I'm most excited about. Jillian: [00:32:46] That's wonderful. Courtney: [00:32:47] A new social media platform might pop up. Am I ready for another one? I get kind of bored with those. I mean I'll keep on pinning and keep on doing Instagram, but I kind of hope somebody else pops up with a new one. How MiloTree helps your blog followers grow Jillian: [00:32:59] That's funny. What are you growing with MiloTree right now on your blog? Courtney: [00:33:04] I actually think I have it set to two different things. I rotate. I like to rotate and see which one does better. But I think maybe right now is on Pinterest. I'd have to check. I like to switch it and sometimes, I have it on my email newsletter. I also like that. Jillian: [00:33:19] Got it. Courtney: [00:33:19] I like the ability to rotate around. Jillian: [00:33:22] Great. Now, if you've git one piece of advice for a blogger starting out, let's say, who's in our space and wants to do something creative, maybe with parties, crafting, recipe, something like that, what would it be? What is the Monday morning test? Courtney: [00:33:37] What I tell people - I called it a Monday morning test. This would apply to any genre, but you could certainly apply it to an entertaining blogger or food blogger. Courtney: [00:33:46] So if you're listening to this and you kind of want to start a blog, maybe your Instagram is taken off, and you're thinking "Do I launch this to a blog?, then - I call it the Monday morning test, because if what you're doing does not get you up and out of that bed at like 6:00 a.m. on a Monday, then you shouldn't be doing it. Courtney: [00:34:04] So when I left my job at the career center, and I thought, "Oh my gosh. I love to sleep, and I'm so not a morning person. How on that first Monday am I going to get up and do this?" Well I was up, I was up at like 5:00, ready to go. That's how I knew I was in the right field. Courtney: [00:34:17] So this especially works if you're a night owl or if you're a morning person, what keeps you up at midnight thinking about it. That's how you know that you're in the right space. So though you might love setting pretty party tables, if you can't get up on that computer and read e-books about blogging and listen to podcasts about blogging and learn about photography, then you shouldn't be doing it. Courtney: [00:34:36] So all those things have to happen, and you got to be up and go in. Do that Monday morning test. That'll tell you whether or not you can kind of do this crazy job we're in. It's so rewarding. But you've got to be able to kind of get up that Monday morning at 6 am. I mean not every Monday morning. Courtney: [00:34:52] That's just a metaphor but you know what I mean. You've got to be able to really want it because you'll work harder than you did at that day job. But the work is better. I can stop for a moment if someone calls me. I can go and have lunch with a friend. Courtney: [00:35:04] But I'll make up the hours later. You have to have enough self-drive. So if you're not driven, don't hop in. Create the parties for your friends and make recipes, but don't make it a business. Only make it a business if you like the business side of things, so learning about plugins, learning about finances and taxes. It's all worth it if you really love what you're doing, but just don't forget about that side of the business. Jillian: [00:35:27] I love that. Okay. What is the one tool that you could not live without? Courtney: [00:35:33] Any tool? Jillian: [00:35:34] Any kind of tool that you use. Courtney: [00:35:39] Besides the camera, I love the MiloTree plugin. I love anything that helps me grow my social media following! Jillian: [00:35:47] Thanks for that. Courtney: [00:35:49] Oh my gosh. Probably my camera. I edit in camera raw. I know I should use Lightroom. I don't understand it. There's me as a blogger needing to go do an e-course. Just because I've been doing this for 8 years does not mean I know everything, so there's an example of something I need to learn on my own. Courtney: [00:36:06] But I would say that camera lets me take that content, edit it, make it beautiful and without that, I'm stuck. So I would say that Photoshop and Camera Raw are where I edit. Besides that, some great plugins on your site like we talked about. Definitely be on WordPress. That's the platform you should be on. Those are the tools of the trade. Jillian: [00:36:27] What kind of camera do you have? Courtney: [00:36:30] I have a Canon Mark D53. I think that's what it's called. I've had it a long time but my favorite lenses, if you're listening and you shoot food photography or table photography, I really love the 51.4, the 100 Macro. The 100 Macro for food, and the one to pick up most often for tables or life, although it's heavy, it's the [00:36:58] 2470. [0.5] You can get in. It is the only [00:37:01] zoom lens [0.3] I use. So that's really my favorite lens that I use. Jillian: [00:37:08] Awesome. Well, Courtney, how can people reach out to you? How can they find you? Courtney: [00:37:13] Yes. pizzazzerie.com. It's kind of spelled funny. Jillian: [00:37:18] Will you spell it? Courtney: [00:37:21] Yeah, P-I-Z-Z-A-Z-Z-E-R-I-E. It's kind of a combination of the word pizzazz and patisserie, pizzazzerie, if you're curious. So the best way to reach out to me, courtney@pizzazzerie.com or DM on Instagram. Courtney: [00:37:32] That's probably where I would see it first so email or Instagram. I'm on all the social channels. Just @pizzazzerie on all of them so Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, all the things, so find me there. I'd love to chat with you if you had a question I didn't get to here, then just come ask away. Courtney: [00:37:49] Hopefully, I've inspired you if you're interested in blogging or want to know more. It's a fun job and it's so rewarding, and I think it's just so great especially for women entrepreneurs or men, either way. Courtney: [00:38:00] I convinced my brother. He's a food blogger in upstate New York so I convinced him to be a food blogger after he finished his PhD. I can pretty much convince anybody to be a blogger if you can find me. Jillian: [00:38:10] I love that. Well, Courtney, thank you so much for being on the show. Courtney: [00:38:15] Yes, thank you. This was such a pleasure. Jillian: [00:38:18] If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest plus trying to grow your email list, definitely check out MiloTree. Jillian: [00:38:30] It is the smart popup you add to your blog or your site and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Just a couple of things: It's super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It's Google friendly on mobile so you don't have to worry about showing popups on mobile. It's lightning fast. It won't slow your site down, and you can grow multiple platforms at once. Jillian: [00:39:02] So check it out, milotree.com. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

My guest on episode #89 is Courtney Whitmore, lifestyle blogger/party planner on her site Pizzazzerie shares two of the best pieces of advice that will knock your socks off.    One thing about Courtney is that she is intentional with everything she does in life. On the show we talk about affiliates, Instagram and she shares a few tips on how to share your own content on social media.    Her book Pizzazzerie Entertain In Style is so lovely and worth getting before you plan your next party.        Some of Courtney's Favorites:  Godinger Marble design Dessert Plates  4-hour Work Week Bobby Brown Extra Eye Cream     Walmart Pick up Grocery $10 off first order with this link Corine's Amazon Picks    Connect with Corine   Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // Pinterest    Show Notes  Facebook Group   Music is by Ben Sound Sponsor: Audible Get your free 30 day trial and download from Audible Here.