Podcasts about tapinfluence

This course is designed to help you get everything that you need to know about influencer marketing from finding good influencers to tracking the results your influencer marketing campaign.

Culture is reinforced by strong leaders with a willingness to address some of the daily things that let emotional triggers prevent us from building a great company. Promise is building a loyal team at tap influence, innovating in a product area that's entirely uncharted, and helping evolve how businesses get heard by consumers. Prior to TapInfluence, Phelon was Chief Revenue Officer of the Resumator, CEO of The Phelon Group, and served as CEO of UpMo, an enterprise talent management SaaS system. To get more great talks and articles delivered direct to your inbox, sign up for the free BoS Newsletter at businessofsoftware.org/update --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/business-of-software/message

86: 3 Entrepreneurial Skills Nonprofit Leaders Must Learn (Matt Larson) SUMMARYThere is much to be learned between the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, and many nonprofit leaders are elevating their organizations through creative and entrepreneurial tactics. Matt Larson is a wonderful resource on exactly that type of mindset, as he’s been wildly successful in both the tech and software industry but also translated his success into nonprofit development and leadership. In Episode #86 of the Path Podcast, Matt shares three key entrepreneurial fundamentals that every nonprofit leader should employ (and throws in a few more great ideas for good measure!). In particular, we talk about keys to productivity and strategic focus (especially when you’ve got too much on your pate), and also the importance of identifying, attracting and retaining the best talent possible for your nonprofit. ABOUT MATTMatt Larson is a parenting and relationships researcher, technology entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He has been interviewed about the science of well-being on NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, Sirius XM, Telemundo, public radio, and websites like Parentology.com and Mom.com. He spends most of his time on the Human Improvement Project but is also the chairman of two software companies. Previously, he was the executive chairman of TapInfluence a venture-backed Social Media company. Prior to TapInfluence, he was the Founder and CEO of Confio Software. Confio was the fastest growing company in the database tools market. It was acquired in 2013 by Solarwinds. Previously, Mr. Larson helped found an oil and gas technology company. In the span of a year, the company grew from four employees to over two hundred employees while raising over $110 million in venture capital. In 2012, he was named an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist. Larson holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Colorado where he graduated 1st in his class. He is a member of the Mensa Society. He has also worked with the U.S. Congress and the White House to fund over $300 million in new spending for child-related causes.EPISODE TOPICS & RESOURCESBrad Smart’s book TopgradingFind about more about The Human Improvement ProjectWant help raising a happy, well-adjusted child? Try the Happy Child App

Promise Phelon is one of Silicon's Valley 0.2%. She is one of only FIVE African American female entrepreneurs who have bought, grown, and sold companies for multiple millions of dollars. Now she is an investor and mentor with a great tale to tell. Why you should listen: How to choose a mentor: go for the spark of experience with a specific skill set Promise's three part journaling practice shared by extraordinary entrepreneurs worldwide: morning pages, afternoon audio notes, and a monthly 6 hour Think Time session The top skill you need to succeed in business: building anti-fragile relationships We explore: The culture of mentorship in Silicon Valley Silicon Valley's addiction to disruption and the opportunity this brings for ‘underdogs' Why hustling for self awareness is just as important for hustling for skill development What's changing in leadership: from the messiah to the pilgrimage What she learned accompanying Tony Robbins and 50 top global ‘Lions' around the world for a year

Promise Phelon is one of Silicon’s Valley 0.2%. She is one of only FIVE African American female entrepreneurs who have bought, grown, and sold companies for multiple millions of dollars. Now she is an investor and mentor with a great tale to tell. Why you should listen:

We all want the best for our kids and in this day and age, we are bombarded with mixed messages, advice and studies that confuse us and complicate parenting.  What if you knew that parenting only came down to 2 issues, along with genetics, that impact long term wellbeing for your child?  These two “things” also impact the relationship with your kids AND your own wellbeing?  Through his studies with The Human Improvement Project, my guest, Matt Larson, explains what modern studies are revealing (through studying the way the brain responds while in an FMRI machine).  These studies are showing us whic parenting strategies work and don’t work.  We can see that if your child has a meltdown, that when we minimize their feelings it doesn't lead to calming, but, VALIDATING them DOES!  If you’re able to name the underlying emotions and why your child is feeling them, this is what helps your child calm and recover, and helps deepen your bond with your child.  In this episode, we talk about how important it is for our children to have deep bonds with their parents (just one or both).  Matt and his colleagues have found the most critical interactions we have with our kids is when they're upset. It's how we react to their upset that builds up or breaks down those bonds.  Listen in as we talk about the little things you can do to ensure the wellbeing of you and your children!    About Matt Larson Matt is a parenting/relationships researcher, technology entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He spends most of his time on a non-profit initiative called the Human Improvement Project which distributes completely free, ad free, parenting and relationship apps (In Love While Parenting, The Happy Child) that are installed by over 100,000 parents each month in over 165 countries (15 languages). Previously, he was the executive chairman of TapInfluence a venture-backed Social Media company. Prior to TapInfluence, he was the Founder and CEO of Confio Software. Confio was the fastest growing company in the database tools market. It was acquired in 2013 by Solarwinds (NYSE: SWI) for $103M. He also founded a financial firm whose partners included a former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and a former U.S. House Majority Leader. Previously, Mr. Larson helped found an oil and gas technology company. In the span of a year, the company grew from four employees to over two hundred employees while raising over $110 million in venture capital. In 2012, Mr. Larson was named an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist. Mr. Larson holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Colorado where he graduated 1st in his class. He is a member of the Mensa Society. Mr. and Mrs. Larson operate a family foundation dedicated to reducing child exploitation. They have lobbied successfully for hundreds of millions in additional federal spending dedicated to this cause. www.thehumanimprovementproject.org   The Happy Child App is available in the App store and Google Play Store: https://hipapp.page.link/XktS   From the podcast: To download The Happy Child  App, Visit the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.     As discussed in the episode, keep these key things in mind:   Notice When your Child Upset. If your child feels unnoticed or invisible, it will diminish their wellbeing. Validate your Child's Emotions: Name their feelings and why they are having them – even if you don’t agree! Create Deep Bonds: using physical touch, affection, emotional validation and celebrating who they innately are. Emotional Safe Haven: Make your home a safe place to be at all times.  Let your kids know that they can come to you at any time they need help, made a mistake, are in trouble or struggling.  It’s so important that they know they won’t be judged or criticized (or punished!) but that you are there to help support them and help to work it out.   Thanks for listening! It means so much to me that you listened to my podcast! If you would like to purchase my book or other parenting resources, visit me at www.yellingcurebook.com   With this podcast, my intention is to build a community of parents that can have open and honest conversations about parenting without judgement or criticism.  We have too much of that!  I honor each parent and their path towards becoming the best parent they can be.  My hope is to inspire more parents to consider the practice of Peaceful Parenting. If you know somebody who would benefit from this message, or would be an awesome addition to our community, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a note in the comment section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe on the podcast app on your mobile device.   Leave a review I appreciate every bit of feedback to make this a value adding part of your day. Ratings and reviews from listeners not only help me improve, but also help others find me in their podcast app. If you have a minute, an honest review on iTunes goes a long way! Thank You!!

Karen Allen is the author of Twitch for Musicians. Karen teaches artists how to grow an engaged fan base, make real money, and have FUN as music livestreamers on Twitch! As a consultant, Karen works with digital entertainment companies to help them figure out what to do with what they built or want to build. She help them understand where they fit in the marketplace and what their opportunities are, then help them grow through strategic partnerships, client development, and general industry relations. InRotation is a channel on Twitch that features a new artist every stream. They also provide consulting services for artists, labels, and others who want to build a presence and develop audience and revenue on Twitch. twitch.tv/inrotation Current/past clients of Karen include Kwaai Oak, TapInfluence, Sphere, Fremantle, Audiokite, Fullscreen, and many others. She is also an advisory Board member for Indie.Ninja. You can find out more info about Karen at twitchformusicians.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Have you ever had that fantastic business idea but have no idea how to begin? Like many budding entrepreneurs, figuring out how to start a business is just as much a struggle as finding a way to exit it successfully. Promise Phelon, the CEO of TapInfluence, taps into those pressing problems and shares how you can find the money to start with the end in mind. She gives out insights on where and how you can position yourself in the market, how to handle competition, and how to get yourself unstuck. Promise breaks it all down and hands out advice that will help you get unlimited money for your business venture and exit it right.

Wait until you hear today's episode. I'm interviewing Jenny Melrose from The Melrose Family and JennyMelrose.com. Jenny is an expert on how to win working with brands. We get into it all in this interview. Want to know how to reach out to companies you want to work with? What to write in your email? How many times to follow up? How much to charge? If you are an influencer or want to become one, you must listen to this! Resources: The Melrose Family Jenny Melrose Sway Group Pollinate Izea Catch My Party MiloTree Pitch Perfect Pro Social Bluebook Influencer Entrepreneurs Podcast The Blogger Genius Podcast Transcript - How to WIN at Working with Brands with Jenny Melrose Host 0:03 Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast. Brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Tohber Leslie 0:11 Hello everybody. Welcome back to Rhe Blogger Genius Podcast. Today, my guest is Jenny Melrose. Now Jenny has two blogs. She is a lifestyle blogger and she's the founder of The Melrose Family. And then she also has her own site JennyMelrose.com. How to work with brands as a blogger Jillian Tohber Leslie 0:30 What we're going to talk about today is working with brands, strategies for getting brands to notice you, how to reach out, and how to really build that part of your business. So Jenny, welcome to the show. Jenny Melrose 0:44 Thank you so much, Jillian for having me. I'm so excited to get to share some of my little tidbits of trainings and things with your audience. Jillian Tohber Leslie 0:52 Perfect. Okay, so Jenny, will you tell us how you started? Jenny Melrose 0:57 Absolutely. My lifestyle site, The Melrose Family has been up and running for nine years, so I'm a little bit of a dinosaur. It started off just kind of as a hobby. I was a new mother and kind of lost myself, in needed something to kind of have a creative outlet. Jenny Melrose 1:17 I started writing. Back then it was, this is what we did today and this is what we ate for lunch. And then it transitioned, as I saw other bloggers, and got into different communities, seeing that they were actually able to start making an income. As a blogger start by solving problems and pain points Jenny Melrose 1:31 I transitioned into making sure that I delivered content that solved problems and pain points for an audience. Jenny Melrose 1:38 When The Melrose Family was started it was prior to Pinterest and Instagram. So I've been able to kind of learn the strategies that work on social media, as I've grown with those outlets. Jenny Melrose 1:52 And then as I got further along in it, probably three years or so into it, I started making an income working with brands, where I would create content for them in exchange for a fee that I decided I would charge, based on my kind of influence that I had at that time. Jillian Tohber Leslie 2:13 Were these brands that were reaching out to you? And were you surprised or were you strategic? Using networks to get sponsored posts as a blogger Jenny Melrose 2:19 So when I first started, I didn't actually reach out to a ton of brands myself, I kind of used networks. Bloggers would let you know, I'm in this network, or that network, there's all, there's so many of them. There's the Sway Group, Pollinate, Izea has one TapInfluence used to be one that's now owned by Izea. Jenny Melrose 2:36 But the way that the networks work is you apply, and then you put in your social numbers, as well as like your analytics for Google, how many page views you're seeing for your traffic. And you also put in all of your personal information as far as how old are you, how many kids you have, do you have a pet. Jenny Melrose 2:53 So they can determine if you are a good fit for the brand that has come to them with a certain amount of money, and then they would hire you in order to create a sponsored post. Jenny Melrose 3:05 I used the networks for quite some time. But the problem that I ran into is that I was like a needle in a haystack. There were so many bloggers, I wasn't standing out. Jenny Melrose 3:17 So about from year three to about year five, I started honing in on my own strategy where I would pitch myself to the brands. Jenny Melrose 3:28 I never saw a million page views. I think at the height of when Pinterest really was driving a ton of traffic, as well as Facebook. I was probably seeing about 700,000 page views but have since been cut in half because of the algorithm change. Jillian Tohber Leslie 3:43 Totally. It's happened to all of us. Jenny Melrose 3:45 Yes. So because of that, I was never one of these huge bloggers that all the brands knew about, and came flooding in to work with me via email. I had to really go out there and reach out to the brands that I knew and loved, to show why my audience would want to hear about their product. Jenny Melrose 4:07 That was from year three to year five. It changed everything for me. At that time was also an inner city school district teacher, was working full time, and I had a second baby and was miserable. Not because I didn't love my students that I had. But I never saw my kids. It was I missed out on everything I felt like. So my sponsor post income actually took over for my teaching salary. Jillian Tohber Leslie 4:37 Wow. How building a blog can change your life Jenny Melrose 4:37 And I was able to retire at 35. Jillian Tohber Leslie 4:40 Wow, wow, I can tell you know, it's funny because I've, I think you are Episode 40, or something like that. How many women have a very similar story to you. Jillian Tohber Leslie 4:53 Many teachers, but many who start their blogs of as a way to make sense of their lives once they become mothers, like how to find meaning, how to hold on to a piece of themselves, how to be creativ. You know, when you're all you're doing is thinking about your kid not having a meltdown and what the right snack is to possibly solve that. Jillian Tohber Leslie 5:16 And then the fact that you've been able to learn and grow and figure out your niche. I just I'm always so inspired by that. Because I do believe that when we start businesses, we don't know where they're going to take us. Jillian Tohber Leslie 5:32 For you, by being able to be savvy and go toward what was working. I mean that you were able to change your life. Jenny Melrose 5:39 Yes, absolutely. Jillian Tohber Leslie 5:43 And be there to solve the problem of being home with your children, or being a much more present mom. Jenny Melrose 5:49 Yes. And now with having left teaching, we moved from New York to North Carolina, and I am now home with the girls. I'm able to put them on the bus, pick them up and bring them to their different events which I never got to do. Jenny Melrose 6:08 And I started the other side of my business once we moved down here, which was the JennyMelrose.com side. And I did it primarily because I knew what it was like to want to make this something, to make it a business, and not knowing who to turn to, or what to listen to, to know how to move it forward. How being a teacher helps you as a blogger Jenny Melrose 6:28 I wanted to be able to be that resource for other moms. And I honestly attract a ton of teachers, because I'm very strategic in the way that I teach things. I'm very much a teacher, and it's given me that passion. I always love to teach. I always loved my students. For me to be able to turn back into my love of teaching and now help these women make their wives business, it's a passion for me. Jillian Tohber Leslie 7:04 Yep. And again, I think that there is something to you know about building your business and learning along the way. Jillian Tohber Leslie 7:13 Because, Jenny, if I said, guess what, in five years or ten years, here's how your life's going to be. You would never believe this. Jenny Melrose 7:21 Oh, no. Like, if someone had said to me three, even even three years ago, when we first left New York, that I would be doing what I do know. I mean, I have spoken at probably 10 to 15 different conferences just this year. I have a podcast. There's so many different aspects of this, that it has become just something that I love to be able to do. I never would have believed someone that that's what I was going to end up doing. Jillian Tohber Leslie 7:48 I love that. I do again, for us, for example, MiloTree, our second business, which, if you look at it, you'd be like, wow, that has nothing to do with Catch My Party, our first business. Jillian Tohber Leslie 8:00 We built MiloTree, not because we thought it was a business, but because it's solved a problem for us for Catch My Party. It grew our social followers. And then we're like, wait a second. Because I to feel very similarly to you, which is I want to help moms, entrepreneurs, grow their businesses in as effortlessly as possible. Jillian Tohber Leslie 8:21 And so we're like, Hey, we could offer this as you know, we could roll this out as a separate business and see what happens. Be open to new opportunities as a blogger Jillian Tohber Leslie 8:29 And so again, my recommendation or my piece of advice, you could tell me what you think about this, is to just start growing your business and to be mindful of how it's growing, to see opportunities that you would never have thought were out there. Jenny Melrose 8:45 Yes. and not being afraid to take that risk. It takes courage, honestly, to do what so many of us do, because it is the wild wild west. Jillian Tohber Leslie 8:55 It is the Wild West. Jenny Melrose 8:56 Yeah, to being able to say, okay, I'm know the algorithms are going to change. I know that I'm going to have to be flexible. Jenny Melrose 9:04 I didn't go to school for technology. Cell phones didn't exist when I was in college, but I'm going to make this work. And I'm going to figure it out. And I'm just going to keep trying to push through that wall. Jenny Melrose 9:17 I firmly believe that you do something where you start looking at who your audience is, and understanding why they're coming to you and continuing to solve problems for them. It's a business and once you start to treat it like a business, everyone else will too. And it can just it can explode it really can. Jillian Tohber Leslie 9:39 Yes. I so agree. It's so it's so funny because we are so like-minded in this way. What is influencer marketing as a blogger Jillian Tohber Leslie 9:46 So okay. Let's talk then about influencer marketing. Jillian Tohber Leslie 9:52 Which is, I decide I'm going to start my blog. And I want to work with brands. You know, we all love certain brands. Yes. And so how do I think about this as turning let's say, my blog into a business? Jenny Melrose 10:10 So first thing to do is you're probably using product in your posts already. You're probably using a specific ingredient for a recipe, or a particular type of decorating to put together a party, whatever it might be, look at those brands and see who they are, your authentically using them, it's going to come across even to your audience. But it is paid. Jenny Melrose 10:38 Because a lot of the negative kind of connotation I think that comes from sponsor posts. Oh, you're selling out to be able to push their product, when in reality, it's a partnership, they see the value in your audience. Jenny Melrose 10:53 So you're going to want to be able to put it out there for your audience and continue to grow and talk to them about that product. Jenny Melrose 11:03 I always teach my audience of bloggers that are looking to work with brands, look in your pantry. Go see what's in your linen closet. What are those brands that you're already buying and using, so that you can really reach out to them and be authentic. Jenny Melrose 11:21 You want to start with an email address. And then from there, it's just pitching yourself even a little bit, freely pitching your audience because that's what they care about. Jillian Tohber Leslie 11:32 Right. Jenny Melrose 11:33 And I think a lot of times, when bloggers first start to reach out to brands themselves, they will forget that. They will think well, it's all about me, what I can do and what my social stats are. Jenny Melrose 11:45 And that's where a blogger maybe that isn't as large but maybe lives on a farm, and can show the behind the scenes of the farm. And um, any sort of like kitchen equipment she uses, it's going to connect with her audience. And because of that, that brand won't care as much about the page views, they'll care more about the audience that is engaged and interacting with her content. Jillian Tohber Leslie 12:12 So I would say this, women in general have a hard time putting themselves out there and figuring out the story, you know, that really shows them in the best light. Jillian Tohber Leslie 12:28 And I'm wondering if that is what you're saying, by not focusing so much about how great you are, but focusing on how great your audience is, that could be a way in that seems less scary. How to pitch to brands as a blogger Jenny Melrose 12:43 I do a Pitch Perfect live every four months where I do this free training on and we're in the middle of it. And the first two days we spent them really figuring out exactly what you said, about how are you unique, what makes you you. Jenny Melrose 13:05 Because honestly pitching is 50% confidence 25% is then the follow up and the other 25% is the pitch that you send. Jenny Melrose 13:15 But if you don't have the confidence to be able to send it and to be able to follow up with them you're done. Jenny Melrose 13:23 You have to really know, and be able to articulate what it is about you for yourself, and be able to look at your business like a business. So that when you send that email you're not going to take it personally when they don't answer. Or you're not going to take it personally when they come back and say, hey we don't have any money right now. And you're like yeah, you do, you are Kellogg's or whoever it is you pitched. Jenny Melrose 13:49 You have to have really thick skin. And then what I teach is you then turn it towards that audience. It can kind of get the pressure off of you. Jenny Melrose 14:02 Because like you said, as women, we have a terrible habit of not being able to know what makes us different. I had a client that kept saying to me my pitches, all right. It's good. But I can't. I don't know how to explain how I'm a little bit different. Think about what makes you different as a blogger Jenny Melrose 14:19 And I looked at her and I read through her pitch and said, well, how many kids do you have again? And she says, 10. Oh, and you homeschool them, that's what makes you different. Jenny Melrose 14:37 You run a parenting blog and you have 10 children that you homeschool. Your audience comes to you because of who you are. They know that you have experience and then you're you're not just randomly pulling this out of wherever it is personal. I'm learning from raising 10 children. Jillian Tohber Leslie 15:04 So I tend to interrupt. I'm so sorry. Could we talk about fake it till you make it? Jenny Melrose 15:10 Yes. Oh my goodness. It's one of my favorite phrases. And it's something I've been saying this entire week. So I love it. Jenny Melrose 15:17 It's just when you have that confidence that you run a business and you are a powerhouse. You're not going to take anything kind of negative coming back as badly as you would if you didn't have that confidence. When it's not worth working with a brand as a blogger Jenny Melrose 15:34 And a lot of times bloggers will say to me, well, I got pitched to work on for a bag of granola. And I'll say okay, well, is that granola, something that's valuable to you for your time? Could you say that, that bag of granola is what you would get paid on a sponsored post for doing all the pictures, doing the social shares everything that goes into it? Jenny Melrose 15:54 If the answer is no, then you need to turn around tell that company: Listen, I appreciate and I love your granola. But in order to keep the integrity of my site to my readers, and any previous brands I've worked with, I only work on compensated content. Jenny Melrose 16:10 And what they always, these bloggers that are newer will always come back to me and say, but Jenny, I haven't worked with any brands. How can I say that? Jenny Melrose 16:19 No one is going to spend their time going back to see if you've done a sponsored post or not. So to being able to just have that confidence to say, you know what, my time is not worth a bag of granola. I built up this following, I have an audience at this size. And I deserve to get paid for my time. Or I'm just not going to do it. I'm going to walk away. Jillian Tohber Leslie 16:51 Yeah, I've shared this previously. Once I became a mother, it looked like my confidence went up tenfold. But the reality was, I got super busy. Jillian Tohber Leslie 17:05 So a brand would come to me and say, we want to pay you x. And I would think that was too low. So I'd double it or even triple it. And I'd go, Yeah, sorry. Here is my rate, here is why. And I write like the fastest email. And before I could even think about it, I would press Send. Jillian Tohber Leslie 17:27 And if I didn't have my daughter at, you know, and she wasn't in diapers. And it wasn't just a big hot mess in my house, I would have gone up into my head, and I would have second guessed myself. And I would have said, Oh God, should I send this email, maybe I shouldn't double my fee. I would have over thought it and I wouldn't have sent the email. Jillian Tohber Leslie 17:48 So the fact that all of a sudden, I had all these different priorities. And you know what, I'd forget that I had sent that email. So they didn't get back me, I wouldn't remember, right. And so it weirdly tricked me into being much more confident. Jenny Melrose 18:08 Right, and you valued your time, you knew that you only had a certain amount of time. And if you were wanting to put your time into doing a post, it was taking away from your daughter, and your time is valuable. Jillian Tohber Leslie 18:21 Yes. Jenny Melrose 18:21 And we all need to realize that. And I know that there's this kind of feel, where I've watched a lot of bloggers, like rip into new bloggers about don't work for free product, you're ruining it for all of us. And that's not true. If it's valuable to them where they would spend that time and if the product is a $300 blender and their price is normally $300, that makes sense to them. Jenny Melrose 18:47 So, you know, not kind of looking down upon, but knowing what's valuable a lot of times to when you're first starting out, to pitch and work with brands. Sometimes they'll offer and it's kind of like a test. Jenny Melrose 19:01 I wouldn't say, even if you're a new blogger, to do a blog post for a bag of granola, it's not worth it. But I might say, do social share, do an Instagram story, and then prove to them with that data that you're given inside Instagram that you're worth the price that you're asking. Jenny Melrose 19:21 I've had people that bloggers that have told me, Oh, I told her I couldn't pay my mortgage with granola, can she? and I'm like oh, boy. Jenny Melrose 19:31 Yeah, not the best way to go. Jillian Tohber Leslie 19:35 I like that. But no, don't do that. Why MiloTree will help you if you are trying to work with brands Jillian Tohber Leslie 19:39 I wanted to take a short break to talk about MiloTree. Now. If you want to be working with brands, you know that social media followers matter. But not just any sort of social media follower, an engaged follower. And that's why MiloTree is so cool. Jillian Tohber Leslie 19:56 Especially on a platform, let's say like Instagram, you are converting your site visitors into followers. And what better follower than somebody who's already been to your site, seen your content, knows who you are, those are the followers you want. Jillian Tohber Leslie 20:13 Those are the followers who will make you look great on social media. So if you sign up for MiloTree now, you get your first 30 days free. So go do it. And now back to the show. Jillian Tohber Leslie 20:28 Well, okay, so we talked tactics. How to contact a brand to do sponsored posts as a blogger Jillian Tohber Leslie 20:32 First off, you mentioned email, you said find their you know, email that how do I find a brand's email address? Jenny Melrose 20:39 Such a good question. So you want to start by going to their website. And if you go up to the top tab, or sometimes even down in the footer, you want to look for something that says media or press releases. Jenny Melrose 20:50 Once you get a press release, you want to pay attention to whatever product they're talking about, because it's probably a product that you should pitch to help them promote. Jillian Tohber Leslie 20:59 Yes. Jenny Melrose 21:00 Look down towards the bottom, where it signed from the PR person and they're going to have their email address on that press release. That is the person that you want to work with. Jenny Melrose 21:10 A lot of times bloggers will come back to me and see, but it's not Kellogg's that's on there, it is some random PR company. Jenny Melrose 21:16 Every brand for the most part, unless they're teeny tiny mom and pop brand, is using a PR company. You're never working directly with that brand. But a PR company is your gatekeeper that it's going to be the one that you want to talk to. Jenny Melrose 21:32 Now, sometimes you can't find an email address. They don't make this easy. I actually had someone today asked me is there just a list of like all the toy brand emails? I'm like, Girl, are you great, right? Everyone would be pitching! No. Jenny Melrose 21:47 So if you can't find an email address, what we've actually seen huge results with it's doing an Insta story. Because what happens is like you take a picture of that, whatever the brand is that you're trying to reach out. When you say something cute about how you love it, and you tag them in your Insta story. It goes right into their DMs. Jillian Tohber Leslie 22:07 Yep. Jenny Melrose 22:08 Now when they give you a little heart for having put up that Insta story, you're going to immediately reply to them and say hey, I love your product. I'd love to get the email address for the person on your team that works on blogger or influencer campaigns. Jillian Tohber Leslie 22:25 I love that strategy. I always recommend Twitter because again, brands are listening. But I hadn't thought about doing it with Insta stories. Trying an Insta story to connect with brands Jenny Melrose 22:33 Their Twitter was actually the way that I started out teaching this too, because I've had Pitch Perfect Pro now has been open for two years. And originally it was Twitter based. But then Insta stories came out we saw the results just so much quicker because all the brands want you on Instagram. Jenny Melrose 22:53 If you're not an Instagram you're not gonna be able to work with brand at this point. And it goes to direct message which at yet the problem is with Twitter, is that you can put out a tweet but it's out there and then you need them to follow you in order to do a message as well. extra steps. This is so much easier. Jillian Tohber Leslie 23:16 That is brilliant. That's brilliant. Okay, do you have a recommend, let's sa,y I found the email address. Do you have a recommendation for a subject line that will get your email opened? Jenny Melrose 23:29 Such a good question. Do a lot of times bloggers will want to put like "blogger influencer" or "collaboration" or something like that. I tell them what makes you stand out? What makes you different? Jenny Melrose 23:41 So if you have an Instagram account that has 300,000 followers you're going to put Instagram influencer with 300,000 followers collaboration up in your subject line. Or if you do a hands and pans and you have a huge Facebook page, you're going to put that in the subject line. Jenny Melrose 24:01 A lot of times people will rely on social media to kind of say what makes them unique. But you could also mom of 10. Jillian Tohber Leslie 24:10 Yep, yep. Jenny Melrose 24:12 Exactly. You want to kind of try to stand out. Because like those blogger partnership subject lines do not work. Jillian Tohber Leslie 24:23 Got it. So that's what I was going to say. Because I'm sure they get pitched all the time. How to write an email to a brand to get a sponsored post Jenny Melrose 24:28 Yeah, and this is definitely a process. Lot of times they will test you they'll see your first email and open it up, and not reply to you. But they need to see than you actually are invested. And you're going to follow up an email them again, a lot of times, the majority of the brands will answer until the second or third email. And it's not because they haven't seen it. It's because they really want to see that you're invested. Jillian Tohber Leslie 24:54 Interesting. Okay, long email or short email? Jenny Melrose 24:58 So I actually have a pitch checklist that has nine points to it that you kind of want to include. Normally, I would say you're looking for two to three paragraphs, you're not looking to tell your life story. You're going to really hone in on audience and you want to know something about that brand. Jenny Melrose 25:19 So if you go to the brand's website, and there's a tagline that you know is theirs, use that language when you're pitching about what you're going to put together. Jenny Melrose 25:29 Now, the other thing about this is your pitch should not include a specific project or recipe that you're going to do. It should be general. So in other words, if I was going to pitch Bob's Red Mill,  I would be pitching right now. First, you want to pitch three to four months in advance, so I wouldn't even be pitching necessary fall. I'd be thinking actually kind of Christmas or Thanksgiving. Jenny Melrose 25:56 When I put together the pitch. I'm not going to tell him that I'd love to make my grandmother's award winning apple pie with a strudel crust. Because if they're not thinking apple pie, you're done. Jillian Tohber Leslie 26:09 Right. Jenny Melrose 26:10 But instead, if you had said I would love to put together a comfort festive pie for Christmas, or for the holidays, that's likely to get you in the door. Because now you can let them kind of tell you what direction they want to go. Jenny Melrose 26:28 So is it the new type of flour that just came out, that's gluten free, then you can kind of go that direction and let them lead you. Jenny Melrose 26:37 They normally have their own ideas as far as a campaign of what they're trying to pitch, because they know their products that are coming out, right. So if you're general enough, it'll let them kind of see what you're thinking and give you a chance to actually put together a proposal and get on the phone with them. Try to get a sponsor on the phone to close the deal Jillian Tohber Leslie 26:57 I agree. Oh, my God, if any time I can get on the phone with a brand I get the job. Jenny Melrose 27:03 Yes. Yes. Because you can let them lead the conversation and find out exactly where, if you can ask the one question that I think always put the brand at ease is when I say okay, what are your KPIs? Jillian Tohber Leslie 27:17 Yes! What are KPI and why do they matter to bloggers? Jenny Melrose 27:18 Key performance indicators. A lot of bloggers you know, we aren't thinking that way, were just thinking like, okay, we gotta get, we gotta get this. We need some income coming in. Jillian Tohber Leslie 27:26 They think I can make it pretty. Jenny Melrose 27:28 Yes. But they have certain goals. Are they trying to get out of product? Are they looking for you to go to their website? Are they looking to grow their Instagram? Yep, you have to ask those types of questions. They know you're really wanting to know about the brand are going to be able to help them meet their goals. Not yours. Jillian Tohber Leslie 27:47 Yes. In fact, you know, again, I have mentioned this previously also, which is we love ourselves, we do because you know what, if I love myself, I will take care of myself and I will survive, and my genes will get into the next generation. Like it's a survival thing, an evolutionary thing to put myself first, right? Jillian Tohber Leslie 28:08 So this is also the same for brands, brands love themselves. So anytime you can use their tagline, anytime you can put yourself in the position of this brand, and give them back the messaging that they are trying to give to their customers. They will love you. Jillian Tohber Leslie 28:28 So it becomes even less about you, and more about Do you see what they're about? Do you understand that? And can you pitch it right back to them? Jenny Melrose 28:37 Right. Yes, anytime you can show that you know what you're talking about. When it comes to that brand, they are going to stop and listen. Jenny Melrose 28:44 I've had so many brands that will come to me and say that they are looking for something in particular. And I'll be able to ask those questions to then drive them towards what they want. Jenny Melrose 28:57 I had one brand in particular, it's a very big skin company and came to me and asked, okay, we'd love for you to put up this Facebook video. No mention of money whatsoever. Jenny Melrose 29:08 So I emailed back and said, Listen, I absolutely love Kristen Bell. And I think she's super cute. But in order to keep the integrity and my site to my readers, and I'm previous brands I work with, I only work on compensate content, I'd love to send your media kit and a proposal for your review. Jenny Melrose 29:25 They came back and then in my proposal, I was able to talk about the fact that I have two little girls, one that's really very pale, very Irish, and the other one who is very olive skin, and I need two different sunscreens in order to work for both girls ,and how I love the company. It's the only sunscreen we use, and that resulted in a five figure long term contract with that brand. Jillian Tohber Leslie 29:51 Wow, that's terrific. Jillian Tohber Leslie 29:52 And they started simply wanting me to post a Facebook video up, because what happens is, as bloggers when been around for a while, you end up on these PR companies lists and they'll just send a blast email. They have no idea if you have 3 million followers or three. Jenny Melrose 30:10 Yeah, I think you have to come back with them. I've had so many bloggers that have been around for a while. Let's say I get these pitches all the time. I'm just deleting them. I said no, don't delete them go back at them and show them who you are. Jillian Tohber Leslie 30:24 Right, and assume everybody else's deleting them. Jenny Melrose 30:29 Yes, that's exactly right. And they do obviously have a campaign in mind. They just don't know how to get it out there. How to discuss your rates with a brand as a blogger Jillian Tohber Leslie 30:36 Right. Okay. Do I put my rate in an email? Jenny Melrose 30:41 Love this question! No. You never put rates in an email, and I believe you don't create a rate sheet. I teach that you put together a proposal and a proposal is a package price that they get one price for everything. Jenny Melrose 30:59 Because I have sat in at multiple conferences when I've been speaking and listen to other brands that are speaking, and I have heard them say, no matter what price you pitch, I'm cutting you in half. Jillian Tohber Leslie 31:12 Ooh, okay. Jenny Melrose 31:15 So if you go to them with let's say, $1,500 is your package deal. It gets them a blog posts, social shares on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. And then you also throw in... I would always recommend any form of video. So if you want to do Insta stories and IGTV or a Facebook Live, which is what I'm known for, and I have an idea of what I kind of charge for that in my own head. And you should kind of know what you're charging for everything. Jenny Melrose 31:47 But for me, I'm charging a minimum of $500 for Facebook Live. So when I tell them $1,500, and they come back at me and say, we can't quite to $1,500, but we can do $1,200 say. Okay, I'm going to take out the live broadcast. And now my blog posts, social shares just went from what I would normally say $1,000 went to $1,200. So I'm still getting what I'm worth. Jillian Tohber Leslie 32:14 Got it, but you are willing to say, Nope, I'm not going to do this. Jenny Melrose 32:18 Right. Exactly. Jillian Tohber Leslie 32:19 Will they come back at you and say, well, we kind of want that. So okay? Or not? Jenny Melrose 32:24 If they do come back. A lot of times, honestly, they don't come back once. They won't come back and ask for it to go back. And they'll just say, Yep, okay, because they feel like I gave up something without realizing that it's not the value that they're asking for. What is a "hate rate" as a blogger? Jenny Melrose 32:39 And if they try to cut me like, let's say, I'm at $1,500, and they try to cut me to $750, I absolutely tell every one of my students, you have to have a hate rate, right? So it's a rate in which you would hate yourself if you took it because your value is not that low. And the content is going to be terrible. Because you're going to be annoyed at the fact that you're working for half what you're worth. Jillian Tohber Leslie 33:07 I think that's great. I love the hate rate idea. Jenny Melrose 33:13 Yes, it's tremendous. It makes it so much easier to kind of go into it, knowing your prices. And a lot of people will say to me, Well, how do we, I don't know how to price myself? Jenny Melrose 33:23 Well, there's a site called SocialBluebook.com. It's like Kelley Blue Book for cars. But instead it's going to measure your social influence you put in your Instagram, Twitter, all of your social and then you also can pop in your Google Analytics. Jenny Melrose 33:38 So now you're able to get an idea on what you should be charging. It'll give you a range of a rate so that if you've been blogging for a while, and you're like nope. I'm worth more than that, then that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that you know, your value has been around for a while. It's a great site for bloggers that really don't know how to price themselves. Jillian Tohber Leslie 34:02 That is great, I've never heard of it. Jillian Tohber Leslie 34:05 Now here's a question, what if I just want to be an Instagram influencer? And I don't want a blog or what is your thought about that? Jenny Melrose 34:17 That is totally fine. You are absolutely running the risk of Instagram shutting down and your business would shut down with it. Don't build your business on someone else's platform Jenny Melrose 34:28 So I would always kind of try to say you don't build your business on someone else's platform. Only thing that you own is your your website, you have your own website and your email list. So brands will absolutely pay for Instagram influencers, I would just if you're going to create content, I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket. I would try to make sure that I have something that is my own. Jenny Melrose 34:59 Growing email, offering product or services that you can grow an email through, I'm using Instagram. I've seen tons of bloggers do that. And I think that that makes sense to me on just being an influencer, you can absolutely do it and make money. But who knows for how long. Jillian Tohber Leslie 35:19 I agree with you completely. I say this all the time, which is it's really cheap to start a blog. So just own a piece of real estate on the internet. Jenny Melrose 35:32 Yes. Jillian Tohber Leslie 35:33 And over time, if you're saying making content for these other platforms, just put them on. Put it on your blog, you know, like, it's not hard and just at least have a piece of real estate. Jenny Melrose 35:47 Yeah, and I think that people get caught up because they think. Oh, my goodness, if I have Instagram, and I have Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest in my blog, I have to create all this different content. When in reality, you can reuse that content, you can adjust it so that the image is Instagram friendly, as compared to Pinterest friendly. And make it so that you are still using that same content. Advice: Crosspost your content everywhere as a blogger Jenny Melrose 36:21 And you have to remember that the algorithms don't let people see things. So putting out content is fine to have it on multiple platforms, the exact same as long as you're using like the prescribed images that they say to use. That's best for like Facebook and Instagram, and then Pinterest, because it's not necessarily going to get seen right away. Jenny Melrose 36:51 And even if you have someone on Facebook, that's also on Instagram, maybe they're only going to see the Instagram post. Or maybe they'll see the Facebook post. But so cross post thing is I would highly recommend, and I think it's fine to reuse content. Jillian Tohber Leslie 37:04 Yeah, and God forbid somebody sees the exact same photo of that cake twice, right? It's not the end of the world. And remember, for people to like buy from a brand, usually they have to touch that brand like seven times Jenny Melrose 37:19 I was just going to say that that's like my favorite stat to give because it's so true, and I didn't realize how true it was until I had a client that has bought my course, part of my membership site, and has done one-on-one services with me, a year after my podcast was started and she said I didn't know you had a podcast! And I'm like, How is that possible? Jenny Melrose 37:45 I talk about this all the time, but clearly I'm not. I'm not so putting it out there continuously, your audience has to hear things at least seven times. We're just so busy and things fly by, algorithms hide things So continuing to use that content, there's nothing wrong with that. Jillian Tohber Leslie 38:06 Absolutely, so right now today it is September 5 when we're recording this. Jillian Tohber Leslie 38:15 If I were to step into the role of the brand. What am I looking for today from influencers? Is it Instagram? Is it is it traffic to my site, like what what what's most important to me right now as a brand? Jenny Melrose 38:36 If the brand is smart, they understand that beautiful photos, that also give an authentic story that gets engagement, matters more than anything else. Jenny Melrose 38:50 I think a lot of brands will get caught up in the numbers and think okay, I've got this Instagram influencers. She's got 3 million followers, but those 3 million followers may not interact the same way that that other girl with 3,000 followers may interact and engage because of the algorithms, and the way that things change. You need an Instagram business account if you want to be an influencer Jenny Melrose 39:09 So it's more about the authentic story, and the engagement that that blogger or influencer is getting. I would definitely say that bloggers absolutely need to have an Instagram presence and you need to have a business account. Jenny Melrose 39:25 If you want to work with a brand, you need to have business accounts not so they can track you. But so that you can provide them with the data to be able to say, I was worth it. I got you this many impressions and this many pieces of engagement and you have to be able to report that to them. Jenny Melrose 39:45 And on Facebook. If you're don't have a business account you are, and you're promoting that you are breaking all sorts of Facebook rules. Jillian Tohber Leslie 39:54 Yes, that is true. But like, for example, do brands want clicks to their site? Do they want people, like we've done this relatively recently where a brand was running a contest, and they want people to come, you know, see what you're saying, and then go enter their contest. Or are brands predominantly just looking for kind of warm, fuzzy? Jenny Melrose 40:20 So the smart ones are understanding that if you're paying for sponsored post, it's different than an affiliate program. Because as a sponsored post, it's about providing your influence. It's not about selling a product. Jenny Melrose 40:36 For affiliate marketing, you need to sell a product in order to make money off of that, which means you need to rely on their website to actually sell. Jenny Melrose 40:43 For a sponsored post I might promote, and let's say a salad dressing. And they're going to ask me to link to their website. If that salad dressing company thinks that anyone is going to buy a salad dressing from their website site, they're out of their mind, right? That's just not what we do. Jenny Melrose 41:04 We are influencing them to remember that the next time they go into the grocery store. Oh, so Jenny was talking about that salad dressing. Let me pick up that salad dressing so it's not trackable in the sense that clicks and buys are trackable. Brands want engagement from bloggers and influencers Jenny Melrose 41:20 And when a brand understands that that is the purpose of a sponsored post. That's when the relationship works well, when they can see there's engagement. That's how they're measuring it. They're not measuring it based on click stories and engagement. I mean, like, comments, likes, shares, any of that kind of thing, right, not necessarily clicks and purchases. Jillian Tohber Leslie 41:41 Got it? Now do you recommend that the influencer proactively send analytics back to the brand? Jenny Melrose 41:53 Yeah, so inside of my course Pitch Perfect Pro, I actually teach exactly what to provide them with. The reason I started my course was because what I found worked really well for me, as I could in a network. When I used to work in the networks. That was one and done. I never had contact with that PR company. But my sponsored income started just growing and become filling up my editorial calendar because I was getting long term contracts. Jenny Melrose 42:22 I would work with them once. And then I would provide them with my data on a silver platter tied in a bow. And they would say, Oh, my God, you just did my work for me, and delivered exactly what we were looking for or whatever it might be. So yes, let's talk about three posts or let's talk about six whatever it might be. Jenny Melrose 42:46 And that's what I teach. Honestly, like Pitch Perfect Pro isn't about just getting a one sponsored posts with the brand. It's about creating a long term relationship with a brand so that you're not looking at next month going on. Okay, what income do I have coming in? Am I actually making money, I have these expenses, whatever it may be. I remember that feeling of looking at it and going, Okay, what's coming in next month? Oh, I have no idea. Fabulous. Jillian Tohber Leslie 43:18 Right. And I would argue that your influence, your authority, with that brand increases for your audience, the more you are in a relationship with that brand. Jenny Melrose 43:30 Yes. Because they see the authenticity, then they see that relationship that you're continuing to partner with them. Yes, absolutely. Jillian Tohber Leslie 43:39 So in terms of scaling posts, do you think it's easier? Also, one thing that that is difficult about sponsored content is you're always starting over. You have a new project and like, okay, what's the new recipe, that kind of thing? How to incorporate keywords and SEO in your sponsored posts as a blogger Jillian Tohber Leslie 43:58 Do you have any strategies for how to think through your process of doing sponsored posts, so that you're not necessarily starting at the way beginning again? Jenny Melrose 44:09 So I think that it really comes down to like trying to find that rock content of what your readers are coming to you for knowing and doing your research ahead of time. Jenny Melrose 44:18 Like I know, you have had podcast interviews with people about SEO, I think, doing your research and knowing what you're ranking for is so important, so that if you're ranking for comfort food, and it's a particular type of comfort food, keeping that brand if you have three posts with them, even within that form of those keywords is about it, that them and you it's really when you create content, it's about weaving a spider web, it's not about shooting them all different directions, they have no idea what they're coming to you for. Jenny Melrose 44:50 It's about keeping them on your site. I hear from so many people, oh, my audience just comes from Pinterest, because they're looking for a recipe. Okay, but let's have other you know, pieces, other recipes, side dishes or salads, or something that can go with that recipe that you're weaving a spider web around that audience member to be like, why I really liked it. This Yes, this is the right type of food for me. This is this is the way I want to be eating whatever it might be. Jillian Tohber Leslie 45:20 Oh, I like that. So you're therefore thinking about creating cool content for this brand. But also how will this impact your authority, your SEO, your traffic? All of that? Jenny Melrose 45:32 Yes. Make sure to follow through with your sponsored content and deliver Jillian Tohber Leslie 45:34 I think that is so so right on. Okay, here's another one last question. And we'll wrap up with, is one thing that I have heard from people who work at these influencer networks, is that bloggers can be irresponsible when creating content. Jenny Melrose 45:57 Yes. And those honestly are the bloggers that ruin it for many of us. Not the ones that take a bag of granola, the ones that don't follow through and deliver. You can't be doing this, if you are going to want to get paid, you need to run it like a business, and you can't miss deadlines, and miss part of the deliverables that you're supposed to be giving to that brand if you've signed a contract. Because really, you have entered into a legal transaction with them. And they can say, Listen, you didn't deliver this, you're not getting paid. Jenny Melrose 46:35 And I think when we get into the mindset of thinking of a I'm a business, I need to make sure that if I'm agreeing to a certain deadline that I can deliver that now. There are definitely some times where I think the networks can kind of be a little pushy with the way they want things done. Jenny Melrose 46:57 And I often think that sometimes because the network is the middleman, they'll go back to the brands and come back to you, and you can end up six edits in and all of a sudden the brand decides that that's not not what they wanted in the first place. And you're redoing the entire post. Jenny Melrose 47:13 So standing up for yourself being like, you know, making sense of what they're trying to ask you. I've had some clients tell me, they told me this date. And then they turned around and because of their edits turn around and wanted it the next day. Jenny Melrose 47:26 I had that happen with me, they turned around and it was like Black Friday or over Thanksgiving, they wanted it the next day. Meanwhile, they had been sitting on it for two months, and just gave me the edits and expected in 24 hours over a holiday. So there's definitely knowing how to treat yourself like a business, to deliver what you can want is expected. And then to stand up for yourself when you need to is important. Jillian Tohber Leslie 47:54 I like that. And don't you think though, that if you are responsible, and you do deliver, and you do turn things in on time, and you do have a good attitude, that that could really work in your favor, because you can assume there will be other bloggers a lot of times, like a brand will do a campaign and they'll reach out to 10 bloggers who are all creating content for that. And if you are the blogger that delivers, they will come back to you. Jenny Melrose 48:23 Oh, yeah. And that's so true. Not even just with the networks, but also with PR companies, because PR companies don't represent normally one brand. They represent multiple. So if you fit into multiple brands, they'll go to every single time because of one relationship that you built with one PR agent, Jillian Tohber Leslie 48:41 Right. And because they know that you make them look good. Jenny Melrose 48:45 Yes, exactly. Right. Jillian Tohber Leslie 48:47 And that they don't have to track you down. Right. So Jenny, this has been so wonderful. Will you talk about your course and how people can learn more from you? Jenny Melrose 49:00 Yes. Absolutely. So I actually offer a masterclass which will walk you through how to attract your dream sponsors without selling out, and we go through just some of the things that you definitely need to avoid and just being able to put it into practice. Jenny Melrose 49:17 My course Pitch Perfect Pro gives you step by step as you could tell him very much a teacher. You do not skip steps with me. You have to go from A to Z and nothing in between. Jenny Melrose 49:31 And it also provides you with absolutely everything you would need. I'm lifestyle, I've done everything. I've done travel, I've done the vacuums, everything. So my proposals are all in there so that you can see exactly what I do. Jenny Melrose 49:55 And then you're able to actually download it and you can edit it so that you can make it in your own. My follow up procedure that I use. I have a culmination document that I teach all my students to do. Those are all in there. Jenny Melrose 50:08 Pretty much every little thing that you need. Plus, I also have a closed Facebook group that we use for any specific questions that come up. So if you're running into something with a brand. You're like, Oh, I don't know how to handle this. They're asking for rights for the photos. What do I do? That's a question I think we get asked once a month easily. Yes. And I always think double your rates. Jillian Tohber Leslie 50:29 Yes. Jenny Melrose 50:32 And there's that access to me and my team so that we can make sure that you're getting what you deserve. Jillian Tohber Leslie 50:39 Oh, Jenny. Okay. Tell me how people can find you. Jenny Melrose 50:45 You can find me a Jennymelrose.com and my pitch checklist is actually right on the homepage. As soon as you drop in there. It's a cheat sheet that's going to tell you exactly what needs to be inside your pitch on. Jenny Melrose 50:56 You can also find me on my podcast Influencer Entrepreneurs. If you go into iTunes, and you just search Jenny Melrose, it'll pop as well, and and I also do weekly free training on my Jenny Melrose Facebook page so that you can get your questions answered live with me. Jillian Tohber Leslie 51:17 Awesome. Well, Jenny, thank you so much. You are a natural teacher. I have learned so much. Jenny Melrose 51:24 Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast Jillian Tohber Leslie 51:28 If you're enjoying the Blogger Genius Podcast, please head on over to iTunes and rate us also if you have not yet subscribe. do that because that way you will miss a new episode. Jillian Tohber Leslie 51:41 And if you guys have any ideas for guests that you want topics you want me to cover. I love hearing from you. Email me Jillian@MiloTree.com.

Today I'm speaking with Kevin Espiritu from the blog, Epic Gardening. Kevin and I discuss how to hire the right people to grow your business faster, the importance of SEO for bloggers, how to monetize your blog if your mission is to teach 10 million people how to grow their own food, and how you can really make a living as a poker player. Resources: Epic Gardening Book in a Box The eMyth Revisited Catch My Party MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – How to Hire the Right People to Grow Your Business Faster Intro: [00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today, my guest is Kevin Espiritu from the blog Epic Gardening. Now, Kevin is a gardener, a website owner and a student of life. He is teaching 10 million people how to grow their own food. So welcome, Kevin. Kevin: [00:00:22] Hey, welcome, Jillian. Thanks for having me on. Jillian: Okay, I was reading up on you, and you have had a very interesting path, and I'd love you to share how you got into gardening and building online communities and an online business. Kevin: [00:00:40] Sure, yeah. I guess it depends on how far we want to go back, but it is kind of a long story. I was in school. I went to University of California, Santa Barbara, and was kind of on the track to become an accountant out of all things. Yeah, I know that's the reaction I have now. Jillian: [00:00:58] Well, just meeting you, I just don't see that. Kevin: [00:01:01] Yeah. And I don't know why I ever saw it myself. I think it was one of those things where you're asked to choose what you want to do for your life when you're 18 and you just pick a generic major and sort of see where it goes. Kevin: [00:01:14] I ended up playing actually online poker in school, and that started paying the bills. It got to the point where I was making more than I would make as an accountant so I said obviously the next question would be why would you be an accountant then. How to go from professional poker player to professional blogger Jillian: [00:01:28] So you were making real money playing poker. Kevin: [00:01:31] Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was studying the game because it's unlike many other gambling games. There's actually an element of skill in it. You're playing against other players and not the house. You actually can win long term. Jillian: [00:01:46] That's funny. I had just read that, that it's not exactly a game of chance. Kevin: [00:01:51] It's a mix so everything else in the casino is going to be a pure game of chance. Obviously, like blackjack, there's a strategy but you still can't beat the house unless you're counting cards. Kevin: [00:02:02] With poker, you're playing against other human beings. The House is making its money by taking a small percentage of the pot but if you're better by a significant margin than other people, you can actually win long term. Kevin: [00:02:12] If you're good, you can actually do pretty well for yourself. Anyway, to get back to it, that sort of put me off the path of maybe what you might say is just a traditional career. And then, I got into building and designing websites but that sort of became a bit stale. Kevin: [00:02:33] I wasn't really a designer at heart. It also was one of those things that you had to just keep selling websites month after month after month because once someone paid for a website, they were gone unless they needed some repairs or something like that. Kevin: [00:02:44] So that got me into marketing online, which sort of put me on this hybrid path of doing some consulting for other people like small businesses in my area, which is San Diego. Kevin: [00:02:55] At the same time, I realize maybe it makes sense to show these clients, "Hey, I actually know what I'm doing." I started a website myself, and it was right about the time I was getting into gardening. I just pick gardening as the test site to start. Kevin: [00:03:11] At the time, it was called something completely different. I hadn't really thought about the branding of it at all. That began the journey. That was maybe, I want to say 2010, but really, I hadn't touched the site at all in any significant way. It's certainly not as a business until the summer of 2016. So that's the short abridged version, I guess, of how I got into the whole thing. Jillian: [00:03:36] What made you want to turn it into a business? Kevin: [00:03:40] Yes, so I had seen just in doing consulting work and marketing work. I tried my hand at a startup as well. I'd seen that I could reach a certain point in business stuff. I really was having a hard time cracking past that plateau. I was making money. I could pay my bills. Kevin: [00:03:56] I wasn't really making what I would want to make to consider doing it full time. And so, I joined this publishing startup as a company called Book in a Box. The reason I joined, first of all, there are some cool people working there, but I also wanted to learn why can I not crack this plateau in business. Kevin: [00:04:17] I can't really get past a certain point, and there must be something I don't know. I joined that company, spent a year and a half there, building that out. It was a rocket ship so I contributed in some small way to it just blowing up. Kevin: [00:04:32] When I quit, I felt I had the tools to turn the gardening thing into a full time business. And that's what I did. And the reason why is just simply because I'm just not a good employee. Why become a gardening blogger Kevin: [00:04:43] I'm good at doing things I'm really interested in. I'm very, very bad at doing things I'm uninterested in to the point where at the most extreme, I just won't do them. I wanted to just do something that was fun, interesting to me, was valuable to people. Gardening is definitely helping people around the world. Kevin: [00:05:03] It could fund the lifestyle that I want to live, which is a relatively simple life. But I wanted it to throw off enough cash that I could invest it in gardening projects, different websites, or things like that just to kind of further the mission of the site. Jillian: [00:05:17] Now, what was the secret sauce that you were missing previously that you might have gained at this startup? Kevin: [00:05:23] Sure, yes. I think I come from a little bit different background than the average, maybe, listener to the show, where I noticed in the blogging world, a lot of these bloggers are bloggers first. I kind of never was that. Kevin: [00:05:37] And so I didn't have a good understanding of building communities and getting kind of people invested in what you're creating. I was always thinking of it from more of like a search and SEO perspective. That's a strength in itself because that's going to be free traffic forever and ever. Jillian: [00:05:55] I almost feel like we met at a conference relatively recently, and I was doing the SEO track. I felt like as bloggers, it's not how we think first. Kevin: [00:06:10] Right, exactly. So that is the biggest thing I noticed actually at that conference, and speaking with bloggers in general. Basically, my group of friends, who there are some bloggers, who are more I guess, in my way of the world. Kevin: [00:06:25] But yeah, a lot of bloggers are so good at social media. They're so good at creating and building cool things that people sort of organically talk about. The danger, at least, that I saw, and I will get back to your initial question, of what was the secret sauce, the danger that I saw was a lot of these people are relying so much on a platform so let's say Pinterest or Facebook. What is platform risk for a blogger? Kevin: [00:06:48] We've all seen before. I call it platform risk. If a significant amount of your traffic or revenue is coming from a certain platform, that's great because it's obviously working for you but it's extremely dangerous if that number is too high. Kevin: [00:07:04] So let's say you're getting 80 percent of your traffic total from Pinterest, one or two algorithm changes can absolutely decimate your entire business. Kevin: [00:07:12] And so that's why I focused on SEO at the start because as long as you're doing it with good practice, you're not sort of scamming, spamming or anything like that. That's essentially free traffic forever that only gets better and better over time. Jillian: [00:07:24] Yep. I totally agree. Like I plan in this podcast to talk more about SEO because I think it is, it's not sexy. Kevin: [00:07:34] No. Jillian: [00:07:35] It's not really fun, not like posting on Instagram, especially if that's kind of how you got into the world of blogging, whereas SEO is like straight up. We will talk about it but it's just like learning how the process works. The importance of SEO for bloggers Kevin: [00:07:55] Yeah, I agree. SEO has gone through a lot of different iterations and adjustments over time, as well as Google, and other search engines have gotten smarter. The best strategy fortunately these days is actually to just do what most bloggers are already doing which is create really good stuff. Kevin: [00:08:14] The only difference is a lot of bloggers are really good at thinking about things from the lens of what their community will think about it, whereas you kind of have to put on a different shade of glass and kind of think about a piece of content the way a search engine might look at it, because they're not human beings. And so it's really simple. It just takes a different sort of hat that you wear. Jillian: [00:08:39] You're so right. It's about how could people search and find my content, what questions are they asking instead of, "They already know me. They get my jokes." It's like what is the way into my content if I'm on Google. Kevin: [00:08:59] Totally. Yeah. There's things that are very simple. I was just talking with a blogger. She had a post about birthday party ideas for kids. She had showed me the original post. Amazing ideas, great photos, great content for a human being. It could have been better for a search engine and also better for a human being. How to optimize your blog posts for SEO Kevin: [00:09:22] So that's kind of the thing to think about. If you're going the SEO route and trying to improve your posts for SEO, it's really not going to degrade the experience for a human. It's actually going to improve it. Kevin: [00:09:33] She did things like added headings for the different themes for kids, birthday party ideas. So maybe under 1 or 5- 7, things like that, just formatting the piece better. And remember, if you're formatting it, that's better for the human eye, because we were attention-starved people these days. But also when a spider is crawling that, now it actually knows the structure and the importance of different sections of the piece. Jillian: [00:09:58] Absolutely. Kevin: [00:09:59] Yeah. I have a couple different things that I've done to extend upon that. Headings obviously are a core part of any article, in my opinion. One thing I've done is since my SEO strategy sort of relies on really comprehensive post so let's say, I'm doing a piece on how to grow spinach, I need to talk about everything you could run into when you're growing spinach which is a lot of different things. Kevin: [00:10:23] There's sort of a flow to that article, so there's how to plant it, what kind of light does it need, what kind of water does it need. What I'll do is install a table of contents at the top as well, so someone can just jump to whatever section they want by just clicking on that heading, kind of like how Wikipedia does it. Kevin: [00:10:40] Yes. That's pretty helpful on mobile. I'll always, like you just mentioned, I'll add an FAQ section at the bottom. One helpful tip is actually Google already sort of tells you what people are asking. Kevin: [00:10:52] Let's say you were to grow or you were to search how to grow spinach in Google, you scroll to the bottom. Usually, there are those question and answer boxes that they'll include there. Just answer those questions in the post. Very, very simple strategy that will pull in a little bit of extra traffic for you. Jillian: [00:11:09] Absolutely. Okay, so let's go back though. You were talking about the special sauce. Kevin: [00:11:15] Special sauce for me, that I learned at that company, Book in a Box publishing company, among many other things was that I was not building the right systems. I was thinking of my website as a one man operation. I wasn't thinking of it as a little mini business. Kevin: [00:11:34] It's a very common problem, I think, that most entrepreneurs would have is where you're working in the business and not on the business. I'm sure you've heard that phrase, right? Jillian: [00:11:42] No, I haven't. Explain. Kevin: [00:11:44] There's a book called The eMyth Revisited, I think. That particular book is mostly about people who run a small business like an actual brick and mortar, let's say a pie shop or something like that. But the idea is that you get into pie making because you like making pies. Kevin: [00:12:04] This would be the same for bloggers. You get into craft blogging because you really like making crafts. However, you quickly find that making the crafts is not really most of what you do. Most of what you do is everything else. Kevin: [00:12:19] The joy of making the craft actually starts to diminish a bit or making the pie. So you're working in your business, right? You're an employee for yourself which is not bad. And I think that's you. You absolutely have to start there. Kevin: [00:12:31] But what I wasn't realizing is like after let's say, I've written 300 articles on my website. Maybe I kind of know how those need to look from now on. I'm not saying you have to do this, but maybe I could use some help on that part of the business especially for me. Kevin: [00:12:50] I went into podcasts. I went into videos. I went into doing some live stuff in person. I can't be writing all the articles, doing 100 percent of the social media, all the podcasts, all of that. I would literally be working 100 hours a week. It's impossible. How to hire the right people who are intrinsically motivated Kevin: [00:13:06] And so as the site grew, I started to dedicate at least a little bit of that money towards an assistant, and not just getting a VA and telling them, "go do this," but really thinking about the processes and saying, "Okay, here's what I like to do on Instagram. Here's what's working. Write it out step by step." Kevin: [00:13:25] Train someone on how to help me out with that. Have checks and balances in there so they're not just posting willy-nilly, and you can make corrections here and there, but just really building up processes and then training people to help, that was the biggest thing for me. That's what really let me scale the site up to the point that it's at today. I just wouldn't be able to do it otherwise. Jillian: [00:13:46] So how many people do you have helping you? Kevin: [00:13:49] So right now, I have one writer. I found this wonderful woman who lives up in Northern California. She loves gardening, loves writing about it. She helps me out with a lot of the written content on the site these days. Kevin: [00:14:02] We kind of team write on that. She does a lot of the writing. I do a lot of the researching, editing, formatting, and a lot of like, "Here's what kind of needs to be covered in this piece. Here's what people have been wanting to learn about." Kevin: [00:14:12] We'll do the back and forth on that. And so I kind of consider her my editor in chief. And then, I have a researcher who will do a lot of like data processing type of task so if I need research done on particular keywords, if I need a bunch of images downloaded or something like that. Kevin: [00:14:33] I have a graphic designer that'll do some Pinterest images for me since I obviously realized a little too late to the game, that Pinterest was important. Kevin: [00:14:42] About last year this time, I actually realized, "Maybe I should think about Pinterest." Now, Pinterest is my biggest social driver of traffic. So yeah, I have someone who helps me out with that. Kevin: [00:14:53] I do all my video filming myself but I realized very, very quickly that the editing part of the videos was going to kill me. It's a thing that I could get obsessed with because that's just my personality. Kevin: [00:15:06] I realized that if I was to allow myself to get obsessed with that, it would detract from the mission of the site which is just teaching as many people as I can on how to grow. And so, I have a video editor who will put together those clips for me and make them look really sleek for my YouTube, for Facebook or whatever. Jillian: [00:15:24] That's terrific. Now, did you find it difficult in the beginning when you brought these people on to let go? Kevin: [00:15:31] Yeah, for sure. And so for me, the written part of the site was very hard to let go of. I've talked to other bloggers too, who just can't even imagine doing that because that is their voice. It's them. This is me. If I were to outsource that or have help on that, I feel like it would be disingenuous. Kevin: [00:15:52] And so I did definitely feel that. And the way I think about it now is that I'm kind of building a small little company. It's not going to be something crazy, something huge, but the voice is becoming a bit of a hybrid between both of us, my writer and myself, and the podcasts, obviously, that's my voice. Kevin: [00:16:13] I'm coming off the top of my head with all those topics. The videos I'm on it, I'm talking and so I've given up a little bit of control over some of the written tone and content, provided that I still make sure that's the absolute best quality information I can get out there. Yeah, it took a little bit of time but once I reframed it, it was a lot easier for me. Jillian: [00:16:35] I have found the same thing when I have brought on somebody to help me. Also, they might not do it my way. They might not sound like me and so I feel like the way that I've been able to do it is to hiring the right person who I think of as a thought partner. Kevin: [00:16:56] 100 percent. Yeah, exactly. And so the thing that was really the golden goose for me as far as the writing goes is she is a mom. She is a homemaker, I believe, and she loves gardening. And so in many areas, she's actually got more experience than me, let's say for a particular plant. Kevin: [00:17:19] She's grown more tomatoes than I have, for example, or different varieties. She's grown them more years. She's older than me. She's actually gardened, just mathematically, longer than I have. Even if I garden from age zero, I don't think I could have had more experience. Kevin: [00:17:34] There are certain areas where she is adding. That's just one of the principal rules of hiring. You want to hire people who are better than you at the job you're hiring for. Why would I bemoan the fact that she does it a little differently? Maybe her different is actually better. Jillian: [00:17:50] Yes. I think that there is that mind shift of, I don't have to be in charge of everything, meaning I can work with this person together, come up with a solution. Kevin: [00:18:08] Totally. I'll find a lot of the times that my direction will be overruled. So I'll say, "I think we need a piece on this. I'd like to cover this sort of stuff." Kevin: [00:18:18] She'll say, "You know what? I'm actually going to add in an extra section on this particular pest because this particular pest specifically attacks this plant a lot. It seems like a lot of people are asking about it. I'm going to cover that." Kevin: [00:18:32] It's something I maybe wouldn't have thought of because maybe I have less experience than her growing that particular plant or that pest isn't in my region. There's a lot of tiny little things that hiring someone better than you is going to help you out at. You really can't know until you do it Jillian: [00:18:46] I totally agree. And you have to be willing to. Again, it's that entrepreneurial spirit of you experiment, and you fail often and fail fast. If in fact, I've hired somebody and it hasn't worked out, I always try to make it that it's not personal but this isn't working out. I let that person go very quickly so that I can go find the right person. Kevin: [00:19:10] Totally, yeah. I agree with you. So what that's sort of a key thing for me is I'd like to do test projects. Jillian: [00:19:17] Yes, I do too. Kevin: [00:19:18] So with this particular writer, I did a test project but I kind of knew right away it was going to be a fit, and that was rare for hiring like an assistant type of role. I find that the test projects are really valuable. Kevin: [00:19:32] Sometimes, you even want to have multiple test projects just to make sure that it's going to be a fit. But for the particular skill of like let's say a writer, an editor or something like that, I think it's something I don't see a lot of people talk about is obviously, you want to hire for someone who knows what they're doing, but you kind of want to think about like extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. Kevin: [00:19:52] An extrinsic motivator is they get money. Money, I got paid. However, if you only hire someone who is extrinsically motivated, then there's sort of a mercenary. They don't really care about anything except for that money. Kevin: [00:20:07] They'll do a good job, sure, but only if they're getting that money, whereas if you hire someone who has a bit of a hybrid of the two, for example, my writer really loves gardening, loves writing, and loves to synthesize and share. That's within her DNA, so she's willing to go the extra mile because she actually gets intrinsic joy out of it. Kevin: [00:20:32] That's something I really haven't seen a lot of people talk about when it comes to hiring. They get a lot of bang for your buck that way. Jillian: [00:20:38] I think that's so true because I do think if you're hiring somebody who is doing it for the money, over time, it becomes less interesting for them. And if you can find somebody who gets excited about what you get excited about, what your business is about, you both can nerd out about it. Kevin: [00:20:59] Exactly, yeah. In our Slack channel, we do this. We do that. We'll talk about the tomatoes we want to grow. We'll talk about the seeds that we just bought, all sorts of stuff like this, that. It really wouldn't happen if I just hired a mercenary-type person. Jillian: [00:21:13] Exactly, so our assistant - we have a business called Catch my Party. We're the largest party ideas site on the web. I have an assistant, and she lives in Portugal. I love her. She's a designer so she has this really beautiful eye. Jillian: [00:21:27] So we will totally nerd out. We have a Slack channel. She'll say "You're not going to believe this party that somebody uploaded to our site," and then, we'll go through the photos and we'll be like, "Oh my God. That's so beautiful." Jillian: [00:21:43] She is special because, this is funny like, we'll do something design related on our blog. She won't like the font, and she'll be like, "It's hurting my design eyes," and I'm like "I totally get it." But she sees it. She sees the world in beautiful ways. So therefore, she brings that aesthetic. She can't help it because she loves beautiful things. Kevin: [00:22:08] That's a good way to put it is she can't help it. I have a story similar. I was actually just on Slack, right before this interview, talking about - I have an article on the Staghorn Fern which is a really popular both indoor and outdoor houseplant. But a lot of like millennials are growing it these days. Kevin: [00:22:23] It's just a really cool looking plant. Someone had commented about this very obscure pest that's like only in Australia. There wasn't a lot of research on it, and so I said, "Hey, do you know anything about this particular pest because I don't know a whole lot." Kevin: [00:00:00] She didn't say anything for like 10 minutes and then, she came back with this entire tome of knowledge about it, and then updated the piece, responded to the guy. If I told her about it, it was going to bug her until it was done. It's a similar type of thing that you're talking about. Jillian: [00:23:01] Totally. Now, what is it like because you have this mission of wanting people to grow their own food, right? And it seems like it's coming from a deep place inside you. Kevin: [00:23:14] Yeah, I think to me, the reason I got into the gardening thing is because I had been in marketing for so long, and I'd marketed all sorts of products, services, etcetera. Kevin: [00:23:26] I would say very few of them actually felt like they did any real difference in the world. Not to say they didn't. It's just more of a surface level of things. If you're helping a lawyer out, great. He has some more clients, and those clients got some help. Kevin: [00:23:43] Let's say I had some earlier website projects that didn't have the most grandiose goals. It was just kind of to make money. But once you kind of get past that point, let's say you're making okay money, it really does become about, "Why do I actually want to do with my days? And what is the effect of what I do on the world itself?" I kind of went down. You're familiar with like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, right? Jillian: [00:24:09] Yes. Kevin: [00:24:09] Right. I kind of went down the chain, back down. Jillian: [00:24:14] Not up the chain? Kevin: [00:24:15] Yeah, because once you kind of get up the chain, maybe you want to help other people get up the chain. Not to say I'm at the top of the hierarchy or whatever but going back down. Kevin: [00:24:25] So for me, gardening, the mission kind of came from the audience. I'd get emails. Early on it was a lot of hydroponics, contents, growing without soil. A lot of areas, soil's terrible. You can't grow in the soil. Kevin: [00:24:38] A lot of people would be writing into me from Africa, the Ivory Coast or Chile, all these different places that really, I had no idea I was affecting or I was touching, saying like, "Hey, I'm using your guide right now to grow basil, mint, and cucumbers for my mom who is like 78, and she needs something to do. She's getting a lot of joy out of it. She's going to eat some of this food." Kevin: [00:25:02] And so then I really started thinking. You really can't know the people that you're affecting because the people who email you are only a small segment of the people that are reading your stuff. I kind of felt as your site gets bigger, your responsibility kind of grows to be putting out the best stuff you can, stuff that's actually helpful. It's not sort of destroying the world in a way. And that's where that kind of came from for me. How to monetize a blog with a mission Jillian: [00:25:28] Interesting. Yeah, because I can feel your mission. My next question is how do you monetize that mission? Because you also have to eat, live. Kevin: [00:25:39] Totally. I'm, again, kind of different from probably many of the bloggers who are either listening, or you've had on the show in the past. My background was SEO like I said. Ads, for me, doing the whole AdThrive or display ad thing, that was always a throw away source of revenue for me. Kevin: [00:26:02] Until recently it was a throwaway source of revenue for me. It was easily the lowest amount of revenue I made based on. It just wasn't a lot. Early on, I was running Google Ad Sense. Ads just degrade the quality of a site in my opinion. It's hard to argue around that. Kevin: [00:26:20] But for many of us, it's a necessary evil. And for me, it actually wasn't a necessary evil for a while because it wasn't making that much. And so I didn't have the money. Kevin: [00:26:30] Only until recently have I started adding ads. Ads, of course, are there. I would like to decrease the amount of ads that I have on the site as the site scales up, and I get revenue from other places. Amazon affiliates is pretty good for me. That's one area I've seen a lot of bloggers kind of struggle with, is making some affiliate revenue via Amazon or other channels. Jillian: [00:26:52] Why do you think it's good for you? Kevin: [00:26:54] Well, it's good for me because I have approached it from an SEO perspective on the Amazon stuff. And so for me, there's a wealth of tools and products in the gardening space that I can talk about because I've used them. Kevin: [00:27:08] If I'm talking about, let's say pruning shears, I actually have a real opinion on what the best ones are and why or what the best ones are for a particular scenario, like if you're elderly or if you need a longer reach. Kevin: [00:27:23] I'll do review sort of posts on those types of products that are not really social media type of posts. In fact, I often don't even post them to my social channels, but I know that they'll do well in search. Kevin: [00:27:37] The people who are looking to have that problem solved for them, there you go. It's the most comprehensive guide you're going to find on that particular product. And so Amazon will do pretty well. I've done a few different brand deals. I'm kind of recently exploring that. Kevin: [00:27:53] Just after meeting a bunch of bloggers at this conference, I realized kind of how little I knew about the brand deal world, which is so funny because a lot of those bloggers are making all their money on ads and brand deals. They're shocked when they hear about what I was charging. I think I did one with WD-40 and charged $150 bucks or something like that. Jillian: [00:28:13] Yes, you are undercharging. Kevin: [00:28:15] I mean, to be fair, that is the first one I ever did. I was just kind of stoked that they even wanted to work with me. That was a different story. I've since increase my prices. Not waiting for the brands to come to me, for example, going to them, pitching them ideas and saying, "Here's what I've got." Kevin: [00:28:32] Podcast sponsorship is one that I've only recently started to explore so I had a sponsor for the first quarter of this year on the podcast. That was a nice chunk of change. It's kind of just one of four or five different sources of revenue that all add up to enough that I can fund the company and fund myself. Jillian: [00:28:50] And then what about YouTube? Kevin: [00:28:52] Oh, that's true. Yes. YouTube, I monetize my videos. Unless you get to significant scale, it's very difficult to support yourself on YouTube alone. I would say, after you get to around 100,000 subscribers, provided your videos get decent viewership, you can make enough to like bare bones live off of. Kevin: [00:29:14] I would never, ever rely on YouTube as a core strategy unless you have a product or service that you're also selling via that channel. So if you have like books, courses, physical products etc., then that can be a definite source of revenue. Actually, it's something I'm exploring. It's doing the courses or physical products next. Jillian: [00:29:35] Got it. Now, I would think that brands would want you to be doing video. How to work with brands as a blogger Kevin: [00:29:39] Yes, so that's sort of what I was going with the the brand deal stuff I learned. I actually learned a lot from the food bloggers about brand deals because a lot of their stuff is just so highly visual. Kevin: [00:29:50] Most of them are really big on YouTube. And so I learned doing like one a month videos. They'll do these videos anyway. The beauty of food bloggers is they have a recipe. Recipes contain many ingredients of which there are many brands that sell those ingredients so you can have a soy sauce sponsor. Kevin: [00:30:09] If you're making Asian cuisine, chances are you using soy sauce in every video so you can say, "Hey, we do a video a week. We use soy sauce in almost all the videos. If we do a minimum of one or two videos per week for you for a year, pay us two grand a month or whatever it is. Kevin: [00:30:27] You can think about it from that perspective, and for me, I kind of think about it like this might not really relate to many people in the audience, Kevin: [00:30:35] But for me, I grew up skateboarding and sponsored pro skateboarders were very similar where they have their sponsor, their grip tape sponsor, their wheel sponsor. But for us, it's the same thing. Just think about your niche, think about sort of the categories of your products in your niche, and then, go talk to the people who sell those who have a reasonable shot of landing as a sponsor. Jillian: [00:30:55] Absolutely. And I always say reach out to those brands on Twitter. Kevin: [00:31:00] Okay, Twitter has been working the best for for you? Jillian: [00:31:02] Yeah because they're listening. The brands are listening. I have found Twitter to be the best way to get to the kind of the right people at the company. Kevin: [00:31:16] So for you, for your party business at least, are brand deals are pretty significant part of your revenue? Jillian: [00:31:22] They are. And again, they have been for the last couple of years. I would say we were making most. The largest contributor would be brands. And because we're parties, we can be anything from like work with Bounty or Party City or those kinds of companies. Jillian: [00:31:45] The one thing though about working with brands that I have found, unless you have that deal where you get the soil company to sponsor your content working with brands, creating content for a brand, it's hard to scale that. Kevin: [00:32:02] Yeah, for sure. Jillian: [00:32:03] So it's like you building websites. So every single time you're starting at zero, "What am I going to create, and how am I going to create it?" And so I tend to overthink a lot of times, like the projects that I'm working on with brands. It might take me longer than I think it's going to. Kevin: [00:32:22] True. So for you, does a brand deal kind of look like you incorporating their product into a party planning idea? Jillian: [00:32:29] It's typically like a recipe like Nabisco or something. We've been doing a lot of work with SweeTarts for holidays. Hey, create a craft or an Easter basket. Here's our candy, and use our candy in the post. So then a huge big box of candy shows up at my house, and my daughter is delighted that I have to kind of hide it from her, that kind of thing. Those are much more of how we work with brands. Kevin: [00:33:02] Gotcha. And that's something that, I guess, at your scale you probably get a bunch of inquiries. But are you also reaching out to those brands and saying, "Here's who I am. Here's what we can do"? Jillian: [00:33:12] I've done both. Typically though, right now, we work with some companies like TapInfluence. It's a company that connects bloggers to brands. And right now because I'm split between Catch My Party, MiloTree, and this podcast, I haven't been reaching out to brands as much. I'm really jazzed about doing these interviews. And so I notice that this is where my attention is , where I want to be spending all the time. Kevin: [00:33:44] It's where you're naturally focused on. Jillian: [00:33:46] Yeah. So I feel like I don't need to be right now working, reaching out to brands. But there are times where I'm like, "Hey, guys. We'd love to do some sponsored content with you. Do you have any opportunities?" Kevin: [00:34:00] Totally. Yeah, I think it'll probably follow a similar trajectory for me where I don't really want to, I guess, buy myself a job by taking on so much brand work that that's kind of all I'm doing. Kevin: [00:34:13] But at the same time, I was talking about with that whole platform risk idea, or maybe you might call it revenue risk, if all your money is coming from one thing, and that thing gets hurt, you're in a bad spot. So definitely learning how to do the brand stuff is on the docket for this year. Jillian: [00:34:28] Yeah, and I would say like the soy sauce model could really work for you. These longer term sponsors where you don't have to necessarily create different stuff for them, but it naturally fits in with what you're creating. Kevin: [00:34:44] Yeah, my dream scenario for that would be thinking about a garden at least you've got soil and fertilizer. You've got maybe garden beds or something like that. You've got tools, lots of different categories of products and since gardening is such a seasonal over time industry, you're growing tomatoes, it's four months. Kevin: [00:35:03] So taking those types of deals where its like, "Hey, I'm doing this right now this year so this is what's coming out this year." For example, for me this year, I'm working on a book. The book is going to be focused on how to grow as much food as you can in a small space no matter what type of small space you live in. Kevin: [00:35:22] And so I'm taking an extreme case. I live on a relatively large urban home. I'm going to go extreme. I'm going to grow as much as I can with as many different methods as I can. That's the goal for this year. Kevin: [00:35:31] Obviously, that's going to be coming out on the YouTube channel, on the podcast and the website. And so if a brand wants to work with me, they can work with me over the course of that year. I'm not going to say, "I'm going to guarantee you get 25 posts" this and that. I'll just say like, "Look, anytime your product is in the video, in the post or in the picture, you're getting a mention." And so it's going to be a little less quantifiable but totally totally workable because I'm doing that work anyways. Jillian: [00:35:58] So our first sponsor for Catch my Party, we give away a lot of free party printables. I did this weird thing where I said to my husband, "I'm going to reach out to HP because HP makes printers." Jillian: [00:36:12] What I did was I went to the HP website. I reached out to customer service. My husband is like, "This is never going to work." I go, "Just wait." Because I saw that HP at the time was giving away some printables, I said, "Hey, is there any way you could connect me to the people at HP who are working on the printables?" Jillian: [00:36:41] And I went through a chain of, I don't know, 15 people. "I'm not the right person but maybe you should try this person." I just kept at it. Jillian: [00:36:51] Ultimately, I got to the right people, and it turned out it was an agency that was working with HP that was creating this content. I said, "Hey, what if you guys sponsor our printables?" So we were still creating them, and they were just paying us a monthly fee to get HP featured on these blog posts. Kevin: [00:37:13] And on the printables themselves, I would imagine, right? Jillian: [00:37:18] I think what we did was we added a pdf. Because the goal is to always provide value, I put together like a sheet, a PDF, that would go in front of our PDFs that would say, "If you're going to print out these printables, here's what you need: scissors, tape, glue dots and here's some HP paper that we recommend." And the truth is I did recommend the HP paper. That was authentic. Kevin: [00:37:47] Yeah, exactly. And that's really the crux of influencer marketing. It's the fact that you can influence. And the only reason that you can influence is if you believe in the things that you're doing over time because your audience trust you. Kevin: [00:38:00] So for me, when I worked with WD-40 and drastically undercharged, which we will never speak about again, I did a video. They sent over some of their pumice soap, and they sent over some oil. It's like lubricating oil. Kevin: [00:38:14] I said "How do I actually use this in a way that's relevant to gardeners?" I had some pruning shears that were relatively expensive pruning shears that I kind of neglected. They had a bunch of rust on them so I showed people how to rust the tool. I used the lubricating oil to coat it afterwards so it won't get rusty in the future. And it worked wonderfully. In the post and in the video, there is their mention, the 3-in-1 oil from WD-40. Jillian: [00:38:40] Totally. And I think that is a win-win. Everybody's winning. Kevin: [00:38:45] Exactly, yeah. I actually would go one step further and say it's a win-win-win where the audience is the third winner. Jillian: [00:38:51] Yes. And I would say that's the most important win. Kevin: [00:38:54] That's the most important win because without that, then no one else is coming to the table. The brands that want to work with you if your audience doesn't care about you and you aren't supporting yourself if your audience doesn't care about you. Jillian: [00:39:05] Totally. So what is your favorite thing to grow and eat? Kevin: [00:39:13] Oh, man. That's a good one. I'm kind of weird in that. Like if someone asked me my favorite movie or my favorite book, I really don't have any. Kevin: [00:39:22] I just have what I like at the time, so what I like at the time right now is I'm growing this pea. It's a purple dwarf pea variety called a dwarf. I think Desiree Dwarf Dessiree dwarf [00:39:37] Blauwschokkers [0.6] Pea. Very interesting name. Kevin: [00:39:40] I probably didn't say it correctly but it's delicious. This is really dark purple pea. You can just pick it right off of the vine and just pop it in your mouth so every time I go out. . Kevin: [00:39:49] Yeah, it's really sweet actually. It's very tasty. Pop those in my mouth as I'm out in the garden just kind of tending to it. Not many of them actually make it to the plate. They just want to be eaten out there. Kevin: [00:40:01] Yeah, I really like growing weird stuff so a pea. It's a purple or have a bean variety that kind of looks like white and red speckles. Sometimes, I'll sacrifice the taste of something just because I like the look of it, which is who knows if that's the right idea. I definitely like some weird looking stuff. Jillian: [00:40:20] Well, they say the more colorful, the better. Kevin: [00:40:24] Yeah. Usually in the more colorful and the more dark, the better because of the compounds that are used in a plant to create the dark color typically are also good for health. Jillian: [00:40:34] Wow. Yeah. We live in California, and we just try to eat lots of different colors. Kevin: [00:40:41] Yeah. I think there's probably some diet book out there actually about that, the Color Diet. Eat the rainbow or something like that. It's a good heuristic for sure. Jillian: [00:40:51] Yes, Kevin. I have to say I have so enjoyed, first of all, meeting you and talking to you. I recommend people check you out because when I first met you, you feel like a gardener to me. You feel like a salt of the earth. Kevin: [00:41:11] Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. Jillian: [00:41:13] I could tell you like to put your hands in the dirt. Kevin: [00:41:16] Definitely. Yeah. I mean sometimes, if you're running an online business, sometimes, it feels like you don't get a lot of work done at the end of the day because you're just clicking buttons. So if I'm out in the garden, it definitely feels like I did something even if I did even more work online. Jillian: [00:41:31] I get that. So how can people reach out to you, find you? Kevin: [00:41:34] Yeah, sure. I don't use Twitter a whole lot to be honest. So you can find me on Facebook if you just Google my name or search my name. Jillian: [00:41:44] How do you spell your last name? So it's Kevin. Kevin: [00:41:45] Yeah, the best way to spell it is just think of it like this: You have the letter E, then the word "spirit" and then, the letter U. So E-spirit-U. Jillian: [00:41:54] I love it. Kevin: [00:41:55] Yeah, I say that because I have like little participation trophies from like soccer with every possible vowel at the end of my last name, so I've had to figure out the best way to describe how to spell it. Jillian: [00:42:06] It kind of fits with your vibe. Kevin: [00:42:08] E-spirit-U? Jillian: [00:42:08] Yeah. Kevin: [00:42:10] I'll take it. I'll take it. Jillian: [00:42:12] Yes, because "spirit" is in the middle of your name. Kevin: [00:42:14] There we go. Yeah, Facebook is probably the best way. If anyone who's listening wants to talk, I'm happy to give you guys some pointers on that. And then if anyone is actually into gardening themselves, you can always go to epicgardening.com. Kevin: [00:42:29] And that book that's coming out, if you just go epic gardening.com/book, you can kind of sign up for the early release list where I'm kind of sending out like little DIY plans, chapters and updates and stuff like that . Jillian: [00:42:41] I just want to say if you are a gardener, definitely check out your podcast. Kevin: [00:42:45] Oh, right. Yeah. Jillian: [00:42:46] Because you give lots of pieces of good, good information. Kevin: [00:42:53] Yeah, daily podcasts. Any podcast player you guys use, just search Epic Gardening, and it'll be there. It's like three to five minutes a day. One topic. Keep it really simple. Jillian: [00:43:03] I love that. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for being on the show Kevin: [00:43:07] Thank you. Yeah, I had a blast. It was great talking to you, Jillian. Why bloggers and entrepreneurs should check out MiloTree to grow their social media followers Jillian: [00:24:06] 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: [00:24:18] It is the smart pop-up you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:24:27] 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 pop-ups on mobile. It's lightning fast. It won't slow your site down, and you can grow multiple platforms at once. So check it out, milotree.com. Jillian: [00:24:53] We also offer your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Welcome to episode 008 of the Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Mary Anne Kochenderfer from the blog, Mama Smiles. Mary Anne has been a blogger for nine years, has four children, and is currently homeschooling three of them. Here she shares how to be a successful mother and blogger. In this episode we talk about how she turned a creative outlet into a business, why she thinks it's a good idea for her kids to see her working, plus, her thoughts on admiration vs. jealousy. Resources: Mama Smiles MiloTree TapInfluence  Transcript -  How To Be a Successful Blogger and Mother: Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:11] Hey everyone. Today I am here with my friend, MaryAnne Kokendurfer from the blog, Mama Smiles. And I have known MaryAnne for a couple of years and it's really fun to connect with her, and I'm excited to have her on the show. Welcome, Mary Anne. Mary Anne: [00:00:30] Hi, it's great to be here. Jillian: [00:00:32] OK so let's talk about Mama Smiles. First tell me about what your blog is. How she turned her joy of everyday parenting into a blog Mary Anne: [00:00:43] The central focus is about finding joy in everyday parenting. And for me everybody's going to find that in different ways. Mary Anne: [00:00:53] The things I love about being a mom are having time with kids, like learning, creating, traveling and just exploring new things, so that's what you'll find on my blog. Jillian: [00:01:09] I want to know how you were inspired. But let's go back. So you are an educator. You have a Ph.D. in education. This is what you live in breathe. Mary Anne: [00:01:22] Yeah, well my Ph.D. is actually public health, but it was like arts programs for kids with PTSD. So it's still very education focused. And I do have a Master's in Education from Stanford so. OK. And I'd say yes I'm an educator. Jillian: [00:01:37] And you do have a bunch of kids. Mary Anne: [00:01:41] Yeah I have four kids. My youngest is 5, and I have an 8 year old, a 10 year old, and an 11 year old. Jillian: [00:01:48] Can you share the story of how you started Mama Smiles? Mary Anne: [00:01:53] Yeah. It was almost an accident. I would say I was home with two little kids and anyone who's had two kids knows that that life can get very exhausting. And I was looking for a way to focus. And I really wanted kids. I mean I was one of those women who really really want kids. I was like How is this. You know I need to I need to enjoy that. I can survive it. Yeah. Mary Anne: [00:02:21] And so I was looking for a way to focus on the things I loved about being a mom with little kids. I didn't start intending to create a business but that is what it's turned into. How her blog evolved from an outlet to a business Jillian: [00:02:43] Can you share how it has evolved? So you started it really as an outlet. Mary Anne: [00:02:51] Yeah it started as an outlet. I would say it still is because I derive so much joy from actually writing something and publishing it. Jillian: [00:03:01] What do you mean by that? Mary Anne: [00:03:05] I've come to realize I value community and I'm really lucky. I mean I have a really great local community. But I do value that that has expanded into global community. Mary Anne: [00:03:27] I work from home and so much of what I do is really valuable, like feeding and clothing and cleaning. But it all gets done within 24 hours. Jillian: [00:03:38] Yes. Mary Anne: [00:03:40] On my blog. I get to write something and it's creative and it makes me think and then it stays done. Jillian: [00:03:53] That's so interesting. I get that. I find that blogging for me gives me enough distance so that I can then reflect on what's going on in my life. Mary Anne: [00:04:10] Yes. It's like that social awareness. And I feel like it's a constant re-evaluation of what matters to me and why. Jillian: [00:04:20] So you start this blog, and you're writing about what you're doing with your children. Jillian: [00:04:27] Yeah. Then when did you say great, this is a business and I could really think about it as a business? Mary Anne: [00:04:34] I don't think I even realize. I was such a naive beginning blogger. Mary Anne: [00:04:41] I was just, I need a creative outlet so I created an outlet. Blogs are amazing because you can have zero startup costs. Right. And I started reading blogs a few months before. It's like, I could do this. And so I started writing. Mary Anne: [00:05:00] And then at a certain point, companies started contacting me and then you start to get the ad revenue, and it's like OK now, and my kids started getting older. So I'd been kind of focused on being home when they were little, and that I really wanted to continue to be home. But I have this education. Like ok, I don't want to like throw all the education out the window and spend my days doing only mundane things. Jillian: [00:05:25] Right. Right. Right. Mary Anne: [00:05:28] Not to undervalue those things at all, because they are the essence of all of our lives. Jillian: [00:05:34] Right, but I do think again and in all honesty, once you have a child, and you've got four, nobody is applauding you for packing the perfect snacks. Mary Anne: [00:05:50] No, and it's a bizarre experience to go from being this high performing person, yes, to being treated as almost a nobody which devastates me that that's how we treat mothers. And and that was another piece of it. Mary Anne: [00:06:08] There was also a kind of I hope that people can see my blog and see some of the things that stay at home mothers do with their kids, that nobody realizes are happening. Jillian: [00:06:23] Can you give an example? Mary Anne: [00:06:23] Well just things like the value of having a parent there taking her kids on a walk or a care giver. Mary Anne: [00:06:33] It doesn't even have to be a parent. I just want caregivings to be more valued. Mary Anne: [00:06:39] I hope that people can recognize what an impact they can have on the life of someone, who really has that kind of hands on attention. Mary Anne: [00:06:50] Because I think we don't realize all that goes into raising children. Jillian: [00:07:02] And one thing I think about is, I talk to bloggers all the time and there's a similarity. Especially mothers, which is it is hard to be working like we used to work before we had children, and blogging is an opportunity to be home and be entrepreneurial, and to set your own schedule, so you can put as much or as little as you want into it. But that it is a way to carve out something for ourselves. Why it's healthy for our kids to see us working Mary Anne: [00:07:36] And I think it's healthy for my kids because they see that I am working and they see the benefits of that. Mary Anne: [00:07:45] I mean if you think back like 100, 200 years ago mothers were working and children were seeing their mothers work. And then we went through the phase like in the 1950s, mothers were reduced to only the housework and the cleaning and the cooking, and again I never undervalue those things. Those are the things that keep us all alive right. Mary Anne: [00:08:10] But those women still had brains, and I felt like that got lost, like they almost weren't allowed to and this created the happy medium of like still recognizing intellect, on at least on some level. Mary Anne: [00:08:32] I think it's really important for children to see their parents working. Jillian: [00:08:35] I do too. Mary Anne: [00:08:37] I mean luckily my husband has a job where they can go see him at work too. But it's really unusual for children to be able to see their parents working. Mary  Anne: [00:08:45] I know that's like a post industrialization phenomenon. Children used to see their parents working. Mary Anne: [00:08:52] And and I think when they see us working, it helps them understand why they need to contribute positively to the household. Why they need to be responsible members of the household. And when they can't see us working, they don't really understand because they go off to school or daycare. And they are given responsibilities there. But it's still primarily like child centric. And I think that's because that's all they know. Mary Anne: [00:09:21] They think that we go off and play at work all day. Jillian: [00:09:24] Like for example, I'll be doing a craft post or recipe. And my daughter is watching me climb on my kitchen chair so that I can take a photograph of whatever I've made, and she sees the mess, she sees what goes into it. She sees the magic. Jillian: [00:10:00] She sees everything and she participates because she'll be in some blog posts and I will pay her to be in blog posts. It breaks it down for her. Like this is what work is. Jillian: [00:10:10] The truth is when you're a blogger it is a lot about that kind of stuff. Like yeah, there's the glamorous fun stuff and there's some crappy stuff, but the truth is it's not magic. No. It's a lot of work and I like my daughter to see that. Mary Anne: [00:10:33] And I think it's going to help our kids go into the workforce having had that you know, fly on the wall view, and even participate in what goes into a job. And that's been the highest cost I feel like of industrialization for families. Mary Anne: [00:10:57] I think it's so important for children to get a view of what a job is. Jillian: [00:11:01] And I would say an entrepreneurial job. Jillian: [00:11:10] The fact that we could make these little businesses from our homes, and really chart our own path. We don't have bosses telling us what to do. It's like. Well today this is what I want to do, or this is the direction I want to grow my business. Jillian: [00:11:29] And that can be scary. And it does take somebody who is motivated. Jillian: [00:11:38] But if you can put one foot in front of the other, like whoa you know for you it started as an outlet. And all of a sudden you have a business. Jillian: [00:11:48] OK so let's talk about the business side of it. So you started your blog what 10 years ago... 8 years ago. Mary Anne: [00:11:57] So I just finished my 9th. Monetizing your blog Jillian: [00:12:01] And so I like how you said that you started to find ways to monetize almost by accident, like brands reaching out to you and you figuring out that you could put some Google ads up on your blog, and you can start to make passive income. Can you explain that journey, and where you are today with that? Mary Anne: [00:12:23] So I actually have a very entrepreneurial little brother who had Amazon affiliate links way back in like 2000. So I think I started with Amazon affiliate links and then I added in the Google ads. Mary Anne: [00:12:45] And then the company started offering me sponsored posts. Mary Anne: [00:12:51] And those are still like the three main revenue stream I have and still I still mostly monetize with affiliate links. Jillian: [00:12:59] And it's mostly Amazon or do you use other brands as well? Mary Anne: [00:13:05] I would say Amazon is my top. Etsy I do alright with and then some ad revenue. I'm a little bit picky. Mary Anne: [00:13:18] I could probably have more ad revenue than I have. Well, I know I could.I try to keep the ads in conspicuous. Jillian: [00:13:28] You haven't blinged out your site with ads. Mary Anne: [00:13:31] Yeah there are ads there. But yes. Mary Anne: [00:13:35] And then I do take the occasional sponsored post but I'm pretty picky about those. Jillian: [00:13:40] What would be a brand that you would be cool working with? Mary Anne: [00:13:46] Anything education oriented, especially hands on education. Corporate banks bizarrely, but OK I think because well I am very good at budgeting and finance stuff, and apparently they picked up on that, even though it's not a topic of my blog. Mary Anne: [00:14:10] I try to research the companies I work with pretty carefully. I mean, no company is perfect, like no person is perfect right. Right. I try to stick with things whenever I'm offered and say, OK do I see value in this for my readers? Or occasionally it'll just be a cause personally just think needs awareness. Jillian: [00:14:39] So now how are you finding... Are you working with these... I don't know what you call them... aggregator companies, where they come to you, like a company works with a bunch of brands and then they reach out to you to say, hey we have this opportunity or are you reaching out to brands or are brands individually reaching out to you? Mary Anne: [00:15:03] I work with TapInfluence, it's my favorite. I do work with them. They're what you're calling an aggregator. I don't know what to call them. Mary Anne: [00:15:12] I like them because they understand what bloggers need to know to create a post. And companies don't always know, that right. Mary Anne: [00:15:21] And they also know what blogger's expect. Jillian: [00:15:29] I work with TapInfluence and I really like them. Mary Anne: [00:15:37] Yeah, I think if you can get in with them, I think they're hard to get in with these days. But they are absolutely the premier to work with. Mary Anne: [00:15:49] Then sometimes companies approach me. Mary Anne: [00:15:53] I have done very very little reaching out to companies. I know people that it works for. Jillian: [00:16:06] Well again it depends on where you want to put your focus. Like if you want to track down brands, you've got to commit to that. There's a lot of work that goes into that. Mary Anne: [00:16:22] Yep and that's that's the one thing. If you're going to go in with a clear idea of what you want, then make those expectations clear. Just like that's what I want from brands. As a blogger, do you have to do video? Jillian: [00:16:36] Can we talk about video, because I really like the way that you think about it. I feel like everybody is like video it's not just the future, video is the present, if you're not on video you're screwed. Mary Anne: [00:16:56] Yeah. And I'm not on video. Oh there you go. Jillian: [00:17:00] But this is the crazy part, you've been able to continue building your business without doing video. Mary Anne: [00:17:10] that's true. I have been able to continue building income streams and everything without doing video, and I'm not going to promise I'll never do video right. So I haven't gone into video. The main reason is that I prefer not to consume video content myself. Mary Anne: [00:17:33] And then there's the fact that video is very time consuming to produce and it requires absolute silence, which you can hear. You know how many times my girls come in this room over the course of this interview. Mary Anne: [00:17:46] But really, it's just that it's not my favorite way to consume content. I think the majority of people do seem to love video. I don't know if they always will, but that does seem to be the preferred majority right now. One thing that I think people forget is that blogs often reach niches of people, and I'm not completely convinced that my niche loves video. Most of my readers are not big screen families. Mary Anne: [00:18:22] I think we all, myself included, use screens sometimes. OK. But it's more like carefully selected screen time. As a mom reading blogs, I can read a blog and my kids mostly ignore the fact that I am reading a blog. I can't watch a video without them wanting to watch the video too. MaryAnne: [00:18:50] And I just I don't think you need to do something until it makes sense to you personally, like you don't have to do it, just because everybody else is do it. Jillian: [00:19:01] I love that because the next question I was going to ask you is given that you have been at this for nine years, what advice would you give somebody starting off? Mary Anne: [00:19:18] Pick something that you are passionate about, and that you can enjoy working hard on, that will be personally rewarding to you to work on for an extended period of time. Jillian: [00:19:33] And then how do you deal with the fact that you're online and you're in communities of other bloggers and you're see what they're doing, and you're seeing their Instagram and their videos and how you navigate what is right for you and what isn't? Do you find that challenging? Mary Anne: [00:19:54] I was literally raised to be a misfit. That was actually my mother's goal, was to raise misfits. That was frustrating as a teenager. But is the greatest gift to my adult. Being comfortable being yourself. Jillian: [00:20:17] Do you ever struggle with that, when especially if you're consuming other people's content who are in your space? How to admire other bloggers without being jealous Mary Anne: [00:20:27] I think it's really important to look at them and allow yourself to admire them. That it's OK to look and say wow, that person is amazing. You don't have to look and say, wow why am I not that person? That's been kind of life changing for me. Mary Anne: [00:20:49] No I say, I can like that person and I can just admire them and enjoy the fact that I can admire them, like we can do that with celebrities right? I mean, I can look at an actress and say, wow she's so talented and she's so beautiful. Mary Anne: [00:21:03] I think we need to let ourselves do that with the other people in our lives. Jillian: [00:21:07] I really like that because it's so hard. I understand that there are evolutionary reasons for this, that we are so self-absorbed. So I don't mean that pejoratively, I don't mean that as like a criticism of us, yet but we are so self-focused that when you're a blogger, one of the hard parts is you are home mostly by yourself. Even with kids. But it's not like you're going to an office, and it's hard not to get up in your head, and look around and see what other people are doing, and think, oh my God that's not me or I'm not doing as well. When the truth of the matter is is it has nothing to do with you. Mary Anne: [00:21:51] Right. I mean it doesn't help anything. Yes so for example you know I just moved into this beautiful house. I was in a very dark condo and it made photography so frustrating. Now there are bloggers who conquer that problem with lights and sets. Mary Anne: [00:22:13] And I didn't. I could have conquered by investing in a good light. And so I can either be like, oh my life is so unfair or I could look at all the things, all the tools I do have, what I can do and focus on what I can do, or I can problem solve. You know buy the lights, or eventually move somewhere where there is lighting. Mary Anne: [00:22:38] But it's OK for people to have things you don't have, and it's OK for people to excel at things that you don't excel at. I think that's exactly how we make space for ourselves, is by being different and I think it's all about... you can look at them and you could admire them, and you could learn from them, but that kind of jealousy slash putting yourself down never helps anybody. Mary Anne: [00:23:09] I mean it doesn't help them either. You're just hurting yourself and it usually has a neutral effect on them. Why harm yourself right now in terms of social. Jillian: [00:23:20] Again, as we're reading in the news, social media can be a good thing and also a destructive thing. Like how do you think about social media when it comes to your business? Mary Anne: [00:23:35] Yeah. I think social media is a tough one because it can be a 72 hour a day job if you let it be. Blogging happily is all about deciding where you're going to focus your time Mary Anne: [00:23:48] I just think I think blogging happily is all about deciding where you're going to focus your time, what matters enough to you to invest time, money, resources into, and then focusing on those areas and accepting that you're going to just let some things fall through the cracks. Mary Anne: [00:24:06] So unless you want to really throw a lot of money into it and hire an entire team, and supervise that team, and that's not the kind of blog I run. Jillian: [00:24:14] So what platforms are you on or do you think are important for your business? Mary Anne: [00:24:24] I think they evolve constantly. I am on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook. I'm on Google Plus, but I don't know how beneficial it is. Mary Anne: [00:24:35] I happened to have a pretty big following there. I ran with it as I was an early adopter. I think Google Plus is mainly useful because of its links to Google. It is most well organized social media site I've ever seen. People haven't gotten to it. Jillian: [00:25:00] So what about your business today are you most excited about? Mary Anne: [00:25:11] As you know, I've got three girls who are homeschooling, and I've always had an education focus on my blog, and now with them home, it makes it a lot easier to just kind of like delving into that aspect of it more. Mary Anne: [00:25:23] Ok, so I'm excited about that. I have a couple of products and ebooks I'm hoping to release in 2018 and I'm excited about it. Jillian: [00:25:38] What are they. Are they about homeschooling? Mary Anne: [00:25:41] They're about kids activities. Yeah. They're about hand-on parenting. I hate dividing into like homeschoolers versus non-homeschoolers because so much of the stuff I do as a homeschooler I did without homeschooling. It was just hard to find the time for it. Or like it can be a summer activity if your kids go to school. I am not a fan of like just mommy wars in general. I think there's room for all of us at all. I'm so much for cooperation and mutual respect than competition. Jillian: [00:26:24] Yes I'd love that. Yes. OK. So if somebody were to be starting a blog today, and I know we've kind of touched on this, knowing what you know now, what would you say they should focus on, or do, or think about? The value of creating an avatar for your blog MaryAnne: [00:26:49] Some of the best advice in terms of getting started that I've heard. I can't take credit for this, is the idea of creating an avatar for your ideal reader. Like thinking, Who do I want to reach? And then what do they want to read about? How do they want to consume this content? Are they going to watch video, or do they want to want more written tutorials? And then where will I find them and how do I connect with them? Jillian: [00:27:18] And a lot of times, and I've said this before, our avatars typically are similar to ourselves. MaryAnne: [00:27:25] Yes I agree. I mean that's the beauty of the InternetYou can find those people whom you connect with. Actually that was one thing when I started blogging. I did a lot of crafts with my kids and none of my friends in real life at the time were very crafty. Like they would come to my house and their kids would do this stuff with my kids, but they just did not get why I thought this was cool. Mary Anne: [00:27:51] I moved across the country and they're still life friends, they're amazing amazing mothers. But it was so refreshing to meet other women who understood why I thought cutting out cardboard was awesome. Jillian: [00:28:03] And that is the wonderful thing again about blogging and the Internet. You can not just be craft blog. You can be a toilet paper roll craft blog and you can find your tribe. Jillian: [00:28:48] I think that is one of the most powerful things about what we do. Not to be afraid to go niche, to niched down. Mary Anne: [00:29:00] And I am a probably broader than would be recommended if I'm trying to maximize income streams. But yes there is a lot of room to niche down. Jillian: [00:29:11] And also the one other thing I would say is this idea, like for you, having been at this for nine years, us too, we've been at it forever, is to allow your blog to evolve over time, that it can grow with you. Advice: Pick a name for your blog with room to evolve Mary Anne: [00:29:28] And another piece of advice would be to pick a name with room for evolution. Mama Smiles is could mean a lot of things. Jillian: [00:29:41] Yes I agree. I absolutely agree with that. Where if you say my blog is toilet paper roll crafts. Mary Anne: [00:29:51] Then you're stuck with the toilet paper rolls. Jillian: [00:29:53] If it's Toilet Paper Roll Crafts for 10 Year Olds. You're kind of screwed when your kid turns 11. So I love that. Jillian: [00:30:02] So MaryAnne, where can people find you? How can they reach out to you and see what you're doing? Mary Anne: [00:30:09] Now you can find me on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram as Mama Smiles, and I'm always happy to hear from readers, other bloggers. I'm very happy to connect with you. Jillian: [00:30:24] Well thank you so much for being on the show. Mary Anne: [00:30:28] Thank you for having me. Jillian: [00:30:30] 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. 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. Jillian:[00:30:52] 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 pop-ups on mobile. It's lightning fast, it won't slow your sight down and you can grow multiple platforms at once, so check it out MiloTree.com. We also offer your first 30 days free.  

I decided to change it up on this episode of FOMOfanz as I switch to the other side of the microphone for two very unique interviews I did on the topic of influencer marketing.  As you'll hear in both interviews I tried to provide a unique perspective as someone that grew his brand as an influencer and has worked with 30 different companies in an influencer capacity while also being someone that has implemented influencer marketing campaigns and works with brands in 2017 to build out strategies for brands in both the B2B and B2C space.   First half of this episode is my interview on the Onalytica Podcast where the focus of the interview is on the on the importance of influencer marketing in 2017 and how to #ThinkLikeaFan Second half of this episode I joined the Influence Pros weekly show hosted by Heidi Sullivan of Cision and Julianna Vorhaus of TapInfluence to discuss Why Engaged Influencer Communities Trump Influencers With High Following! Topics covered in this episode: Why change, collaboration, and community are key to any business How building a community is far more effective than having a following Why incentives and rewards need to be individualized How to guide interactions into more valuable one on one conversations Why employee trust is the first step toward embracing influencer marketing Quotes From This Episode ”No one event, no one gig, no one opportunity is worth losing the trust and authenticity I have with my community.”  —@iSocialFanz ”People want to be able to engage and have conversations with you.” —@iSocialFanz “A mutual understanding of unfiltered trust and transparency so we can learn from each other. I think that is the future.”1 —@iSocialFanz “I actually think of an influencer now as three different types. I think of an influencer as a social amplifier, or a celebrity type. The second type being subject matter expert or someone that is really the one that is boots on the ground practitioner. And then the third one being the thought leader, the one that has the read, has the stage, but also is the one that knows who the right expert is to connect with and often times who the right amplifier is.” —@iSocialFanz “The strong influencers of today are not people that ever mention how many followers they have, they talk about how many people they engage with, how many conversations.” —@iSocialFanz

In today's episode, we host Promise Phelon, CEO of TapInfluence, to discuss "Transitioning From Services To SaaS."

In today's episode, we host Promise Phelon, CEO of TapInfluence, to discuss "Transitioning From Services To SaaS."

Promise Phelon is the CEO @ TapInfluence, bringing the first ever influencer marketing platform to the Fortune 1000. Under Promise’s leadership the company has enjoyed a 300% increase in revenue in 2015 alone, they made the successful transition from a services to a SaaS model and were successful in raising a fantastic $14m Series B. Prior to TapInfluence, Promise was the Founder and CEO at 2 startups, one of which, The Phelon Group, grew to 8 figure revenues and was successfully acquired in 2009. Before that, Promise got her start at BEA systems. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Promise made her way into the world of SaaS and came to be at BEA systems, one of the most exciting companies in the valley at the time? How does Promise view the importance of building long lasting relationships with colleagues? How does Promise suggest is the right way to leave a job and sustain the best communication and relationship with former employers and colleagues? What does Promise mean when she states the importance of upward empathy? What are the benefits of installing this in your organisation? What is the right way to breed a culture of upward empathy? How does Promise differentiate between ‘advocate’ and ‘mentor’? What is the right way to attain each of these? At what point in one’s career is the right time to have each of these? What does Promise believe is the formula for making the successful transition from a services based business to a SaaS business? How can one make the change without significant customer churn and revenue loss? 60 Second SaaStr What does Promise know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning? How does motivating people differ when outside of the valley? Should customer success be able to upsell? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Promise Phelon

In this episode: Don Bailey of Lab Mouse Security was our featured guest. News from Boom Supersonic, TapInfluence leaving Colorado, Microsoft, ProtectWise, SecureSet, LogRhythm, Ping Identity and root9B. Full notes here: https://www.colorado-security.com/news/2017/6/30/22-73-show-notes Happy birthday 'Murica It's our nation's birthday! We hope you are grilling a hot dog, hanging at the pool in your flip flops as you listen to this episode. We kept it quick so you don't burn (on your shoulders or your grill) while you listen. Robb sat down with local security entrepreneur Don Bailey of Lab Mouse Security. Plus all kinds of great local news.  Sign up for our mailing list on the main site to receive weekly updates - https://www.colorado-security.com/. We're continually working to improve the show, and appreciate the feedback we get from our listeners. If you discover any audio issues, or have suggestions for our format, let us know. This week's episode is available on Soundcloud, iTunes and the Google Play store. Reach out with any questions or comments to info@colorado-security.com Feature interview: Don Bailey, founder and president of Lab Mouse Security, sat with Robb to talk about how he made his way from studying and playing music, to hacking phones and cars, to securing the Internet of Things. Don sheds some light on the Colorado security scene and where he sees the industry going. Find Don on Twitter. Local security news: The Denver Post tried Amazon’s Prime Now in Denver. Here’s what you need to know.  Ax throwing, Denver's latest bar game, is like darts but with axes Boom Supersonic unveils new airplane, sees aircraft orders increase sevenfold Tech firm TapInfluence moves headquarters to Silicon Valley Microsoft gives $25.8 million to expand Colorado workforce training program ProtectWise & sep2 announce channel partnership root9b tops the Cybersecurity 500 List again SecureSet adds Senator Mark Udall to its board LogRhythm Blog: Deploying Netmon freemium at home to monitor IoT Job Openings: Ping Identity - GRC Analyst SecureWorks - Senior Security Program Manager Swimlane - Technical Content Writer Vail Valley Medical Center - IT Security Analyst Amazon - Sr Security Engineer Oracle - Sr Security Analyst LogRhythm - Professional Services Consultant, Senior PS Consultant, & Manager of PS Salesforce - Manager - External Certifications, Sr. Analyst - External Certifications, Sr. Analyst - IT SOX Upcoming Events: This Week and Next: DenSec - Meetup - 7/3 CSA - July Meeting - 7/11 Denver ISSA - July Meetings - 7/11-12 COS ISSA - Chapter meetings - 7/12-13 Colorado Innovation and Technology Experience - 7/13-14 Other Notable Upcoming Events: COS ISSA - CISSP Exam Prep - 7/29 7th Annual Cyber Security Training & Technology Forum - 8/30-31 View our events page for a full list of upcoming events If you have any questions or comments, or any organizations or events we should highlight, contact Alex and Robb at info@colorado-security.com * Thanks to CJ Adams for our intro and exit! If you need any voiceover work, you can contact him here at carrrladams@gmail.com. Check out his other voice work here. * Intro and exit song: "The Language of Blame" by The Agrarians is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Raviv Turner. He’s the co-founder and CEO of CaliberMind – the first marketing, technology platform to apply machine learning in human language analysis to build detailed psychographic profiles. He has more than 10 years of experience leading products and development for high growth B2B SaaS companies. His previous roles include Director of UX at FullContact and VP of product at TapInfluence. Raviv is a mentor at Techstars Accelerator and holds a Masters in Interactive Media at NYU. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Hacking Marketing What CEO do you follow? –  Bart Lorang Favorite online tool? — Asana, 7Geese and Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Doing my best If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Your network is your net worth”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Raviv to the show 02:25 – CaliberMind analyzes and boosts structured and unstructured data 03:18 – CaliberMind is a SaaS model 03:36 – Monthly billing starts at $2K 03:46 – Average customer pay per month 04:15 – CaliberMind was launched in 2015 04:48 – Raviv adapted the idea from the military 05:05 – Raviv was in product design for the past 15 years 05:23 – The analytics structure data 06:30 – CaliberMind currently has their first 12 customers 06:54 – CaliberMind has bundled packages of services 07:40 – CaliberMind was bootstrapped on their first year 07:55 – CaliberMind had raised their $1.1M seed round after seeing traction from the customers 08:20 – No customer churn yet 08:42 – CAC and LTV 08:56 – The account-based marketing 09:20 – Team size of 8 and based in Colorado 09:39 – Most of the team are developers and data scientists 09:46 – They have Nic Zangre who was a Director of Marketing at AdRoll 10:00 – Raviv shares how he convinced Nic to work with CaliberMind 10:26 – Nic has equity in CaliberMind 10:45 – Some companies that are in the space are Usermind and Pegasystems 12:25 – The Famous Five   3 Key Points: Work with people who share the same passion and vision as you do. Taking that leap out of your comfort zone is often risky and also, often, worth it. Find ways to help the people in your network without expecting something in return.   Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Promise Phelon, CEO of TapInfluence, has built successful companies on both coasts and made her way to Boulder in 2015 to lead the leading Saas company for influencer marketing. In this authentic and engaging conversation, Promise shares and influential stories from her early career that have shaped her approach to leadership. She also talks about her experience of landing in a city in the middle of her career on the SFO to NYC flight path: “In the Valley, there’s become an archetype of who gets what — opportunities, venture money. And I wonder if that archetype is either dated or needs to be revisited. What I think about is there’s nothing conventional about Boulder, so can there be a different archetype or an anti-archetype that gets welcomed here?” She is embracing the opportunity to build a big company that looks nothing like big companies in the Valley. How can you scale an influencer marketing business that depends on authenticity of speakers to support the major brands that are clients of TapInfluence? According to Promise, “authenticity is risky, which is why it’s so popular. The secret is having influencers be motivated by more than money."

Heidi Sullivan and Todd Cameron, Senior VP at Cision and Head of Content and Strategy at TapInfluence respectively, join the Social Pros Podcast to discuss their brand new Influence Pros Podcast and how influencers are causing a marketing paradigm shift. Special thanks to our sponsors:

If someone is saying yes, just get them to keep saying yes. I recently experienced this in downtown Denver with an Uber driver, and it was a win-win for both of us. Why don't we see this more often in the real world? GET MORE JAY TODAY & SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/jaybaer00SPROUT SOCIAL SHOUT OUTToday's Sprout Social shout out goes to Holly Hamann (http://twitter.com/hollyhamann) who is the VP of Marketing at TapInfluence, a network that connects brands to influencers. Follow Holly and TapInfluence in social media. OUR SPONSORSCandidio (http://candidio.com), a simple and affordable video production company. Follow @candidio on Twitter. Sprout Social (http://sproutsocial.com), a social media management and analytics company that Jay uses for much of his social media every day. Follow @sproutsocial on Twitter.ABOUT JAY TODAYJay Today is a video podcast with 3-minute lessons and commentary on business, social media and digital marketing from New York Times best-selling author and venture capitalist Jay Baer. Join Jay daily for insights on trends, quick tips, observations and inspiration athttp://bit.ly/JayToday.Find More Jay: https://www.facebook.com/jaybaerhttps://twitter.com/jaybaerhttps://plus.google.com/u/1/+JayBaerhttp://instagram.com/jaybaerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbaer

If someone is saying yes, just get them to keep saying yes. I recently experienced this in downtown Denver with an Uber driver, and it was a win-win for both of us. Why don't we see this more often in the real world? GET MORE JAY TODAY & SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/jaybaer00SPROUT SOCIAL SHOUT OUTToday's Sprout Social shout out goes to Holly Hamann (http://twitter.com/hollyhamann) who is the VP of Marketing at TapInfluence, a network that connects brands to influencers. Follow Holly and TapInfluence in social media. OUR SPONSORSCandidio (http://candidio.com), a simple and affordable video production company. Follow @candidio on Twitter. Sprout Social (http://sproutsocial.com), a social media management and analytics company that Jay uses for much of his social media every day. Follow @sproutsocial on Twitter.ABOUT JAY TODAYJay Today is a video podcast with 3-minute lessons and commentary on business, social media and digital marketing from New York Times best-selling author and venture capitalist Jay Baer. Join Jay daily for insights on trends, quick tips, observations and inspiration athttp://bit.ly/JayToday.Find More Jay: https://www.facebook.com/jaybaerhttps://twitter.com/jaybaerhttps://plus.google.com/u/1/+JayBaerhttp://instagram.com/jaybaerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbaer