Moving into 2023, I want you focused on the business of blogging so that you can have that thriving business you’ve always dreamed of.
IE 312: The Business of Blogging Based on Over a Decade of Experience
You need be treating your blog like a business, looking forward to it as a business, and setting goals for it.
In order to get to do that, I will walk you through my P.A.C.K. framework, which is going to help you have the confidence that you need in order to really start to scale your business.
As we go through this, you are going to want to make sure that you have that workbook so that you can take notes.
If you haven’t already picked up my book, Influencer Entrepreneurs: The 4 Step Framework to Building Your Audience, Growing Your Business and Making Money Online, you are going to want do that because it is going to give you a deeper dive into the topics that I’m going to talk about.
Philosophy of the Past
I believe that everything that has happened to us up until this point, the good, the bad, and the ugly has actually shaped us into the person that we are today.
It is then up to us to make ourselves into the person that we want to be, rather than letting our past experiences actually hold us back.
We need to use our past.
Both the good and bad as building blocks to get where we want to be.
Now, I know that the events that have happened to you thus far probably haven’t all been unicorns and rainbows.
It’s very likely that some of the events were tragically painful.
And while I wish you never had to feel that, I need you to take what you learned from that tragedy and apply it to your future.
Find a way to be grateful for the experiences that led up to or that might have come after them.
Keep a place in your heart for whatever it is that caused you pain.
I know it sounds crazy, but if you want to be the woman that you’ve always dreamed you could be and have a life that you’ve always dreamed up for your family, you need to learn from those experiences and press forward.
Part of me hesitated for years to write my book, and I’m so glad that I did because I don’t actually have a tragic story.
I haven’t experienced gut wrenching loss or extreme tragedy, but I remind myself that my journey is mine.
I’ve learned from it and built the life that I now have because of it.
One of the things that many people are always surprised about me is that I’m actually an introvert.
Yeah, you probably have heard me say that once or twice on this podcast, but I actually am.
So in order for you to be able to learn the art of actually authentically influencing, you have to be willing to show your true self.
I’m going to need to do this with you as well.
Theories on Sales
Many of us grew up thinking that sales were bad.
Sales came with a negative connotation, and people often refer to those in sales as used car salesmen with dislike.
Of course, sales people were those who were willing to tell you anything to make the sale.
I learned firsthand, in the heat of the summer and the ice cold of the winters in Rochester, NY that sales was the art of influencing, not pushing stuff on people.
You probably have never heard my complete background and it’s important to understand how an introvert like myself now teaches hundreds of thousands of people how to sell.
After graduating from Hamilton College in upstate New York with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and creative writing, I had no idea what I was going to do for a real job.
So I enrolled at Syracuse University in order to get my master’s degree in social work.
Prior to attending Syracuse, I got a summer job.
That summer job was door to door sales.
I knocked on doors and influenced people to purchase certificates for buy one get one pizzas or discount tickets for a local amusement park.
Crazily, I actually enjoyed it.
It was so far out of my introverted comfort zone, but it challenged me to connect with people in only a matter of seconds.
I learned to have thick skin, and that success was a numbers game of finding the people who I could connect with as well as who could also use the product.
Somehow I was actually good at it.
I looked at it like it was a game, and I became one of the top sales people in my office and even earned a trip to The Bahamas that summer.
I was enjoying it so much, I decided to defer my enrollment to Syracuse.
Are you flabbergasted yet?
I was, and so was my family, but I’ve always been one to enjoy a challenge and I was going to figure it out on my own, even if it killed me.
It didn’t kill me, though.
Instead, I worked my way up in the company and opened my own office in Albany, New York the following year.
After six months of running the office in Albany with my then boyfriend, who today is my husband of 16 years, we closed up shop.
I learned a ton, but I missed working with kids and wanted to help solve bigger problems and helping people save money on their pizzas wasn’t it.
I went back and got my master’s in education in literacy from Sage College and became a reading specialist in an Inner City school district.
As an Inner City school district teacher with two young daughters, I had an hour and a half commute to and from work each day.
Meanwhile, my husband worked 10 hour days for a national retail store that sucked the life out of him.
I felt like I never got to see my girls and when it came to my students….
Well, I was set up for failure from the start, but we’ll get into that more later.
I was unhappy and knew that there was more to life in the doom and gloom than I felt every single day.
At the same time, I was working on my then side hustle, my lifestyle blog, The Melrose Family.
I had started my blog before Pinterest and Instagram even existed.
I had no idea what I was doing and it was more of a hobby than a business.
The Shift from Blog to Business
That is until I started to treat it like a business.
That shift and pivot in my approach created a new path for my family and me.
One that resulted in bringing in enough income to replace my teaching salary of $75,000 with a lifestyle blog that didn’t even have its own product or service.
That was the start of my entrepreneurial journey, and it has only continued to.
By the end of this series I hope you’ll have the tools to make that pivot in your own journey so that you can create the life for your family that you’ve always dreamed of.
Whether that is working full time on your business or whether that is supplementing what it is that you already do.
I want you to be able to feel that connection with what you love and having a purpose for doing it.
So if you haven’t already, make sure that you download the workbook and grab your book.
Action Steps:
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