Transcript: How To Become A Mom Blogger and Make Money FAST

Transcript: How To Become A Mom Blogger and Make Money FAST

Welcome to the Holistic Wealth Podcast. I’m your host, Kesha Blair, wife, mother of three, author of Holistic Wealth and Founder of the Institute on Holistic Wealth. The show will showcase various experts in the key pillars of holistic wealth. Each week, we deliver the best information on how to become holistically, wealthy and live your best life.

KEISHA BLAIR: Today, I have a very special guest with me. I have Jessica Burgess and Jessica is the founder of the blog, fantabulousity.com. She’s also an online business owner of 10 years. Her blog helps others to start and grow their own blogs and online businesses. She reaches over 10 million equally each month with a website and her social media platforms. She helps busy moms by sharing easier recipes and organization hacks to help them simplify and live their best lives. Jessica, welcome to the show.

JESSICA BURGESS: Thank you so much for having me.

KEISHA BLAIR: Great. It’s great to have you here. And so I just wanted to talk about your journey just to give listeners an idea of your transition into blogging because I suspect, you know, like you were in the corporate world, like a lot of women, and then transitioned into your own business. So can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

JESSICA BURGESS: Yes. I did work for corporate America for quite a few years and I married my now husband and he owned his own business. So I started dabbling in the entrepreneurial field and saw how it was kind of interesting for me to see that. And because I didn’t grow up seeing that. And so I started to find myself really intrigued by this owning your own business type thing. And I really helped him for a long time grow his business. But when I had my first kiddo, I stayed at home with him and I started to feel like something was missing.

And I always feel bad saying that because I was so thankful to have a kiddo and I was very busy. So to feel like it’s, so to say something like something was still missing.  I still feel bad about that sometimes. And that’s just an internal feeling, honestly, but I think the better way to say it or explain it, even though most of us say something just feels like it’s missing the better way to explain it is there was definitely a lack in my creativeness that I have. I’m a creative entrepreneur and I thrive on creating things and making pretty things and doing all sorts of things like that.

And I didn’t have that. Although I was helping my husband grow his business. That was his dream. That was his passion, but it wasn’t fulfilling. The creative need that I had. So about that time 10 years ago was about the time Pinterest started rolling out, becoming more popular. And I started spending my free time on Pinterest and noticing that there were these things called bloggers and blogs.

And I thought I could do that. I like styling parties and making recipes and I love writing. So why not? So I started my blog as a hobby and it wasn’t until about a year later, somebody said, you can make money doing this. And I thought, huh, I can be a stay at home Mom, do what I’m already doing for free, but get paid for it?

And for lack of a better term, I became obsessed with the idea of, and really started honing in on how to make it make money to at least pay for itself in the beginning, which isn’t a lot, thank goodness for blogging, but I thought, how cool would it be to turn this thing that I’m passionate about doing already.

And that I enjoy doing into something that makes an income too. And here we are, you know, 10 years later and it’s, it’s a successful business and thank goodness, like it’s becoming more so known, I guess you could say, cause back then you’d say, Oh, I’m a blogger and people would just kind of give you a look like, Oh, that’s sweet. And that’s sweet that you have a hobby, and now it’s becoming a thing where like, Oh, okay, you do online media work and it’s nice that people are starting to understand it more, but it’s been a journey and it’s been a good one. And it’s still something I love to wake up more in the mornings to do.

KEISHA BLAIR: That’s absolutely wonderful. And it’s so funny that you mentioned people referring to it as like a hobby, and for some of us, for many of us, I’ve had several guests now say that they’ve monetized their hobbies. So definitely in the world that we’re living in, I think lots of people are wondering how to do that.

And so Jessica, how did you turn it into a business? You mentioned Pinterest, and I really want to hone in on when you got started, what were the main things that helped to grow this into a business? And I’ve heard several times that Pinterest is a major engine for doing that, especially in the type of niche you are with recipes and events. How did you start to grow this into a business?

JESSICA BURGESS: I think it’s a great question because it can look a lot different for a lot of people. So when I say my experience or how I did it, you know, it may not be a one size fits all method, but in the beginning I knew you can make money through ads.

And I thought what does that mean? And the more I started looking around, I did notice when I’d gone on websites, I’d see these ads on the sidebar or at the bottom or in the middle of the content. And I realized you can make money from the advertisers wanting to put their ads on your website and to make.

Long story short, I went to a blogging conference and I met with an ad network and I had them explain to me how that works. And they said, when you get to a certain amount of page views a month, which at that time, I think it was at 25,000 page views a month. And I was currently getting 15,000 page views. They said, we’ll take over your advertising, we’ll help you manage what ads get on your site, and just kind of help you with the process. So I made it my mission to reach that threshold, that goal. So I could work with them. So I wouldn’t have to worry about implementing the ads on my site and following things like Google AdSense has rules.

And, and I also had heard that when you work with a blogging network, that when they manage it for, you can potentially make more money than trying to do it yourself. They have more connections out there with the brands. And so making that my goal was a game changer for me. I think the first month I got with them, I made enough to pay the electric bill of our home and I thought, Oh my gosh, what an amazing accomplishment look, honey? You know, I ran to him. I said, look, I just paid the electric bill. And a few months later I made enough to make a house payment and then it just snowballed from there. And so ads were my biggest thing. And to be honest, still today, they are my biggest thing.

It’s my biggest income driver, I do also sell courses and eBooks and things like that. And then I have affiliate partners too where, if I recommend a company that I truly love and somebody buys. That product, I can earn a commission from it. And then there’s sponsored posts. I’ll have brands contact me and ask me if I’d like to work with them.

And if I do, if I feel like it’s a good fit for my business, they may pay me to write an article or use their product and take pictures of it. That’s the beautiful thing about online business. There are no caps involved and you can decide how and when you make money and it’s just a great. Great feeling, especially when you’re doing it on something that you love.

KEISHA BLAIR: Absolutely. And I’m just wondering in terms of your different business lines, and you mentioned that ads are still the largest source of income for you, and then which one would come next, would it be courses and eBooks? And I just wanted to ask about that because. I know several bloggers will say that it’s mainly their eBooks and courses. And so I just wanted to get a sense from you, how that breaks down?

JESSICA BURGESS: I love that you asked that too, and I didn’t realize that is probably the most, the second one for most, because that’s not for me. I know exactly why too, but the second source of income, I would say underneath that would be my affiliate income.

So I will recommend clothes. I like fashion. I like clothes. It’s not something that I necessarily blog about all the time, but when I do, I include affiliate links to the products that I’ve purchased, or I may link to beauty products or a kitchen cooking tool or something. So that’s actually my second highest source of income for the blog.

And I know why. The product sales and e-courses and things like that, that I sell. I know why it’s not my second. And it’s because I do not thrive in selling. I don’t want to sit here and say, I’m not good at it because I am good at it when I want to be. And I rarely want to be the salesman for my business.

I just have a really hard time. I have this heart. I’m just wanting to give everything. And that works really well for me with blogging, because I can give, give, give, and give for free, and my readers can get this stuff for free, get this information, get the recommendations. And then the brands and the advertisers pay me instead of my readers.

And it just kind of works hand in hand. But you know, I do have that source of income from my products, but not as much as I would if I really pushed it or. I guess tried harder is the best way to say it. Hey, no, that’s interesting because lots of women are like that. We have a hard time selling and especially when we have to do it, especially when we’re starting out and we have to do it with our close friends, our close family members. It’s just the hardest thing.

KEISHA BLAIR: And that’s often from what I’ve heard from many entrepreneurs on this podcast. That’s often where many women have to start to get the business coming in. It’s from your close network. So I know how that feels. And so I can relate in terms of building up your website, traffic, and I guess your email list to get those advertisers and sponsors on board. How did you build up the traffic? Was that just organic? Was Pinterest a major funnel for you? Or can you tell us a bit about the strategies that you use to build that trust?

JESSICA BURGESS: Sure. So in the beginning, yes, Pinterest was and still is today a great way to generate traffic to your blog. So I actually help bloggers start and grow their. Blogs. Pinterest is something that is on the first of their checklist that I give him, you know, create that account, create a business account with them because unlike social media, where you have to have the followers typically pay for the Facebook ads to be seen, Pinterest is a platform where you can pin something and be seen by so many immediately because they will push it out in the newsfeed and it’s not relying on somebody to follow you necessarily. So Pinterest is a big thing still today, but I always like to recommend and mention that don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Pinterest could disappear tomorrow. We don’t have control over that.

So I always recommend making sure that you’re spread out, but not in a way that somebody is sitting there pointing their fingers, saying you gotta be on all the platforms all the time, because that’s exhausting. You need to pick one platform to really focus on, to grow traffic and to really grow your blog.

But I just always want to keep that reminder in there. Don’t solely focus on one item. So with that said, Yes. Pinterest is a big part for someone like me and for a blog. Like I have, however, you will find me on Instagram and Facebook. And then I am also growing my email list. And email is really important.

I feel because all those social media platforms could disappear tomorrow, but you would still have your email list because you own those contacts. When somebody subscribes and people don’t hand over their email. Just loosely when they hand it over, they want you to have it. And that’s special. Those people are not just somebody scrolling on a Facebook feed and accidentally seeing your posts.

Those are people who are saying, I want your information, give it to me. So I try to make sure to kind of spread myself out. But I also say when you notice something working, sending traffic to your blog, why not maximize that platform and focus on that one and why not work on, what’s already working to send more tracks.

KEISHA BLAIR: Did you implement like free offers or people to sign up? How did that grow? Yeah. In the beginning I did. And I I’ll do I’ve changed it honestly, over the 10 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve changed it a few times to try to figure out what works because what you may think will work. Wonderfully may not work very well.

So being open to change and testing things out is key. But yes, in the beginning I offered, I think it was a free party planning checklist. Well, then I realized people started coming to my blog a lot more for recipes, and I started thinking, well, they’re not going to want a party planning checklist. Some may, but why not capture who’s already coming and what they’re coming for. So, I’ve changed it to a grocery shopping checklist. And up until recently I had that and now I’ve changed it to a meal planning, printable package or bundle, and my five meal planning secrets. So, I’m trying to capture that audience there.

And I’m actually in the middle of a transition to where I am going to be capturing the many different niches on my side. So, I blog about organization and fashion, product reviews and even blogging. So what my plan is, and what I’m working on right now with the virtual assistant is we are implementing opt-in boxes on certain blog posts that have to do with that topic. So say for instance, somebody comes to my blog because they found me on Pinterest for a home decor item. Well, you may find on that home decor blog post an opt-in box for my free five decorating secrets, and then I’ll add them to a specific email list.

So I can specifically only email them about home decor and not necessarily. Quote, unquote, bother them with recipes or fashion. Right.

KEISHA BLAIR: So it’s like segmenting your email list into different segments and interests.

JESSICA BURGESS: Yes. For sure.

KEISHA BLAIR: And that’s an amazing strategy as well, for sure. Especially when it’s a lifestyle blog that covers many different topics. And very niche. So, that’s interesting. And so Jessica, would you say then that you’ve grown it into a six-figure business? Are you comfortable with where it’s at and the direction you’re going? I’m just trying to get a sense of at what stage in the business you’re in?

JESSICA BURGESS: Yes. I would consider it a six-figure business. I will say though, because I’m very transparent. I’m really big on authenticity. And my blog hit six figures about three years ago, I would say. And so in 2015, I really started taking things serious and it just grew and grew and grew from there. So about three years ago, maybe I don’t really remember what year it was, but maybe around 2018, it was reaching the six figures.

And about that we had some personal home things going on. My son was very sick. And I took a step back and taking a step back with blogging is really great. I mean, to be completely honest, because you can take a step back to focus on life and focus on what’s going on and your blog is still living. Your blog is still evergreen on Pinterest. You’re still receiving traffic through Google and posting when you can is okay, because it’s still alive. It’s still living out there on the internet, so it can still function without you. But with that said with about me taking three years to kind of back off and focus on family and not really put out a lot of new content, my blogs stagnated.

I can’t really think of the word. I hate to use the word stagnant. It, it stayed where it was. Did it grow? No, because I wasn’t working with brands and working on creating new products or new blog posts at the time. So the beautiful thing is now that I finally feel like life is getting my business is finally getting back to one of my top priorities.

Now that we’re getting all the health issues figured out, I can see it growing really quickly again, because I’m focused on it. It’s just like anything in life. If you want to work on your marriage and you actually spend time and focus on it. It, it can improve. Right? So, and then same thing with the business.

It has the potential to grow and am I happy with it where it’s at? Absolutely. I mean, the fact that I get to wake up every day at home with my kiddos and blog and do what I love and make money doing it. I’m thankful for making $20. If that’s all I make right. But as the entrepreneur side, I’m constantly thinking, okay, how can I take this to the next level?

Because I mentioned earlier, there’s no cap with an online business. You can make as much money as, I guess you want or work for. And there’s nobody sitting there saying, Oh, you can’t make more. Then this certain amount, or you can’t do that. I mean, the options are endless. So as the entrepreneur side of me, I’m going, Hmm, I am happy with where it’s at, but I’m ready to take it to the next level. And I think, I don’t know if I’ll ever get rid of that feeling to be honest.

KEISHA BLAIR: No, and that’s amazing because that’s so true. And you are talking about something that’s so familiar to many moms, including myself about having to take that time off due to an illness because after my husband died suddenly after I gave birth to my second child, I had to do that. And of course, whether it’s your career or your business, you will experience that stagnation and it’s the price and the sacrifice we have to pay as moms, but there is a deep, steep price sometimes. So as a mom, how have you been juggling? And what tools and strategies are you using? You know, especially during COVID-19, when many moms are struggling with online learning, doing different things, juggling kids at home, how are you still growing your business and fulfilling your functions as a mom?

JESSICA BLAIR: I believe that this isn’t a physical tool, but I believe that we all go through seasons, and I believe that a lot of us moms carry the mom guilt, whether it’s, Oh my gosh, I worked too much today and I didn’t pay attention to my kids. Am I screwing them up? You know, no matter what we’re focused on and no matter what tools we’re using, I feel like we’ll always have that thing deep down inside.

Like, what did I do wrong today? You know, I didn’t make dinner or I didn’t work with them on their homework as much as I should. I think if we get really real with that fact that a lot of us do that, no matter how hard we work, no matter what all we get done in a day that we still have the underlining of feeling or thought, I think it’s safe to say that, you know, we just take things day by day.

And so for me, like the tools that I use for working at home and I’m homeschooling my kiddos and I mean, they’re, they’re wild boys, right? They’re young boys that want to be playing outside and. Want to jump off the coffee table in the living room while I’m working on my computer. Like there’s, there’s always something going on.

So I truly believe that the biggest and most effective tool that I use is not a physical tool and it’s just a system. And although that system may change every day, it’s a system that I use that works for me and it may not work for everyone. But my system that I do is I do theme days. What that looks like is on Mondays, we call that our adventure Monday. So if you follow me on Instagram or use the hashtag #adventuremonday, you’ll see us going on all these adventures. And on Mondays, my kids know that we try to do something new every day, or we drive somewhere, just go on a drive, just to look at things. And I’m barely on my computer on a Monday.

I will make exceptions, but I may check my email every now and then, and on Tuesday, that’s my work day or my pay bills day or my laundry day. I have found that no matter if you’re a work at home mom, a stay at home mom or work outside of the home mom, theme days can work for you because you get to determine what that looks like, what your themes are.

And that way it’s not the suffocating feeling of, okay, on Mondays at 10 o’clock, I have to pay bills because life doesn’t work like that. Your kids will get sick. You know, there’ll be jumping off the coffee table in front of you and you’ll break something and spill something and get distracted. And I feel like, uh, Like I’m failing.

If I restrict my schedule that tight and although it may work for some, it just doesn’t work for me. So scheduling or coming up with these theme days, knowing that on Mondays, this is the plan I know not to schedule podcast interviews for instance, or something like that, necessarily. If I can get around it.

And I just kind of have like this aerial overview of my day, knowing that, okay, I need to throw a load of laundry in some time today. That’s all I know or I know I need to pay bills today sometime, and I’ve found a lot of success for that. So I’ll use that kind of system. And as far as like a physical tool, I have to say Trello that free online software. If somebody listening’s never heard of it, I honestly don’t know how people live without it, after I used it for so many years now, it just keeps my thoughts organized, whether it’s meal planning or my business thoughts, it’s just a lifestyle.

KEISHA BLAIR: Okay. That’s amazing. And so Jessica, like you must also be versed with SEO as well. I know you give several workshops, in terms of your courses and what you teach bloggers. And so I’m wondering if you can pass on any nuggets of wisdom in terms of growing your blog through SEO and through other methods online?

JESSICA BURGESS: Absolutely. So in the beginning of blogging, we’ll just blog about whatever’s on our mind and that’s okay. And it’s still okay to do that every so often. But I’ve found that that doesn’t really drive page views after the first day after you push it on social media. So I’ve kind of transitioned from the early days of blogging to, I pretty much only write blog posts or answering a question to somebody’s problem or to a question that they’re searching for an answer to.

And I found that when I write like that, I get a lot more traffic because people are specifically looking for an answer to their problem. And my blog posts hopefully will answer that problem for them. So my suggestions and tips really focusing on SEO is a game changer. I really started implementing that into my business the last few years.

And although I do get traffic from Pinterest, SEO is typically a pretty even playing field with the traffic I received from that. And by that, I mean, you know, search traffic from Google. And if I’m making dinner for my family tonight, and I want to make a chili recipe, I may not just make, and I, and I know I want to blog about it.

I won’t just do chili recipe. I may look on some of my tools that I use for SEO to figure out what are people searching for? That they don’t have a really good answer for yet. And I may put a spin on it. Maybe a lot of people are searching for an easy chili recipe without beans. So maybe I’ll make a chili recipe without beans to satisfy that need out there in the online world.

And so I’m feeding my family, I’m cooking anyway, and I’m also creating an answer to what somebody may be looking for and that’s paid off a lot and that’s an amazing tip, Jessica. That’s really good because you’re right. We tend to blog about what we’re interested in and sometimes forget that it’s honing in on those questions that people are asking.

KEISHA BLAIR: And so where do you go to find these questions? Is it Quora or do you just search, you know, questions about chili or, I don’t know since you mentioned the chili recipe, I’m just wondering how you hone in on the right exact question that you’ll answer through your blog post?

JESSICA BURGESS: Well, I’m a little bit of a nerd. I like to check out quite a few different tools online to figure this out. But when I am working with a newer blogger, I’m straight to Google and I say, that’s your first place. And what I mean by that is type in the keyword or the keyword phrase that you’re thinking about writing on and without hitting, enter in the search bar, just see what automatically populates, right?

What are some suggestions that Google is giving you right away? So if you type in, you know, and I could probably do it as I’m talking to you. If I go into Google and type in chili recipe, it’s automatically popping up suggestions, crockpot, instant pot, no beans, vegetarian. And so I’m going, Oh, well, instead of writing a recipe on chili recipe, that’s so many other bloggers or bigger bloggers or big websites are already ranking for, instead of trying to beat my head up against the wall and try to outrank them, why not niche down a little bit more and see how I can put a spin on it. So that’s my first suggestion. And then I also use tools. I use the free version of SEM Rush. You can get up to 10 searches a day for that and without paying for it.

I think it’s like a hundred dollars a month right now. And that’s just not something as after taking the quiz with you, you know, it’s something that goes hand in hand with how I operate my business. If I don’t have to spend the money, I’m not going to spend the money. So I will use their 10 free searches over there.

I actually pay for and use key word search. That’s another platform that’s very affordable and it gives a lot of good information. And then I recently started using a brand new platform called rank IQ and. That has been really interesting and really helpful to help me figure out what keywords to write about and maybe what kind of keyword phrases to supplement along in that blog post to help it rank better.

Okay. No, that’s amazing. Those are some amazing tips. And I just wanted to ask you in terms of working with brands. How can bloggers start working with brands? Do you recommend proactively reaching out, you know, to the brands that are, you know, in alignment with a particular blog, or is it that you have to wait until you reach a particular growth target? Like, you know, number of hits on the website, email list gets this large. How would you recommend bloggers start working with brands?

JESSICA BURGESS: There’s not one specific number you should be at before you start pitching brands. Now I say that. With, of course, you know, some, it depends on the brand. Some brand will say, well, you know what? We need to wait until you have so many pages a month until you have so many followers on Instagram or something that, but every brand is different. So never say, no, you could wait because there are brands out there that will work with you. Because if you have 20 followers on Instagram, they may be dedicated followers.

They may be really niche focused followers that want to buy every single thing that you post about. Right. So. With keeping them in mind that every brand is different. I don’t think you should wait. And I think if you are using a product already in your daily life, I think it’s worth reaching out to them.

But how do you reach out to them? There are different ways. I don’t recommend popping in their DMs and saying, hi, what can you pay me to work together? You know, or anything like that? Start. Showing them love on social media. Start looking to see if you can find on LinkedIn or just typing in a PR your favorite company and Google your favorite company’s name in Google for public relations and trying to find a contact for that.

And if it’s a product that you use already every day in your life, and you’re just starting out as a new blogger. I’m telling you, I am not above in the new blogging stage of working with a brand for free. And there’s probably people listening to this going. I can’t believe she just said that you shouldn’t work for free, but what I mean is in anything in life, I feel like if you want to get in the door or build your portfolio, it doesn’t hurt to offer your services at a majorly discounted price just to get in the door.

And I did that in the beginning. There was a company, I bought their cereal all the time for my kids. We loved it. It was wonderful. And I reached out to them and I charged very little, very little for a big party that I styled and I, because I thought I can now put this brand on my portfolio and say, we worked together.

If I do a really good job and I go above and beyond for them, maybe I can get a testimonial from them to use, or maybe we’ll build a relationship and work together. And I’m here to tell you, 10 years later, we are still working together. They still send me free cereal every few months, just a box will show up. And it’s just, it’s one of those things that you kinda got to put your ego aside, but I’m also not saying that you have to do everything for free because you’re creative, you’re talented. You’re time is worth something, but starting out, contacting them and offering, what can you do for them? You know, it’s never, I never liked to see anybody come into the blogging or influencer business, thinking that brands should feel flattered to work with you. I like to look at it like I feel flattered to work with you. I am thankful because there’s so many people out there doing this and for you to choose to work with me, I’m honored and thankful for that.

And if I can go above and beyond for you, I hope you’ll keep that in mind. The next time you have a campaign come up and, or an influencer collaboration come open and that has paid off tenfold.

KEISHA BLAIR: That’s amazing. And some good tips there for sure. Now, Jessica, through my book, Holistic Wealth, I’ve created this personal financial identities framework because readers of the book came back and they’re always like, I want to get to know my personal financial identity. How can I identify it? So I know you took the quiz. And I’m eager to hear your thoughts on it in terms of how it integrates into your business and your philosophy and your spending and money and budgeting and all of that nice, lovely stuff? And of course, in terms of you and your husband, you know, in terms of your relationship too, cause that’s such a critical part of it. And I’m also trying to get insights for listeners on that as well. So just eager to hear your results.

JESSICA BURGESS: Okay. Well, I am definitely the minimalist and what’s really interesting is, you know, in any business or especially online, we all typically have taglines, right. And, or just subtitles to explain what your business is or what it does or how your blog can help your readers.

And I use the word simplicity and the word simple living all the time. So when I see the results for a minimalist on your quiz, it’s, quote-unquote simple living, keep it simple. I know that’s amazing. Yeah. It just fits so perfectly with what I blog about and how, I mean, my lifestyle blog is a, an inside look at my lifestyle.

And so I try to keep things simple. It was just the perfect results to describe how I am and especially on my businesses. So what I love so much, or one of the things that I love so much about blogging and online business is I don’t have a lot of overheads, you know, and I’m sure you can understand.

I don’t have to have an office. I don’t have to have a bunch of employees or all these things that you may relate to a brick and mortar business or you know, something like early on working with my husband, all of the things he had to have. And so that means that my overhead costs are low. So I don’t have to spend a lot to make a lot of money and it just, it works out beautifully and how it ties in with those results.

It’s just, it’s just really interesting to see that now on a personal level, You know the saying of opposites attract.  I always tell my husband, I’m a tightwad, I don’t want to spend any money. And the perfect example is this morning, he was looking for a mouse for his computer to go to his office. And he said, have you seen that? And I said, well, I haven’t been, do you remember the last place you saw? You know, you’re almost like I’m talking to her, my kids and he said, no, well, I do remember. And he gave me this story and I said, okay. And he goes, yeah, you just kind of waved his, flipped his hand at me, you know, kind of like, don’t worry about it.

He goes, they’re just $45 online. I’ll just get another one. And I just went $45 and I thought, no, I’m going to look for it at least. Five minutes to see if I can find it for you. And he got on a phone call. I went upstairs, looked where I thought it would be found at, gave it to him, said, Oh, where did you find that? And I said, well, it was in our office stuff. And he said, Oh well. And I said it, and you almost spent $45 on a mask. And he said, well, you know, I don’t want to. That’s just my personality. I don’t spend a lot of time looking for something. I’d rather just go buy a new one. And I thought, I know, and you know what? I love you because opposites do attract, but, and that comes in handy sometimes. But right now I just saved us $45.

KEISHA BLAIR: That’s interesting. And so I’m thinking your husband might be a Maximalist, but I’m not sure. There’s no way to just tell, you know, from one example it would be great though, if he took the quiz and then you can let me know afterwards, because I am super interested to hear.

JESSICA BLAIR: My husband’s a Minimalist, so I can, I, as you’re talking, that’s,  exactly the scenario that we had in our house this morning when I couldn’t find something too. So absolutely I completely get it. And so that’s why I love this quiz. I think it’s so great for so many things. It’s great for relationships, both at home and at work and in our businesses. And it’s just great for self-awareness too. And so before we go, Jessica, it’s so funny when you were speaking, one point came up to me that I wanted to ask you about when you mentioned your minimalism. Blogging today. I think you start to 10 years ago. And so it’s so much more difficult to have a breakthrough now because there’s so many blogs and in every niche you can think of. And so for so many people starting, they’re getting bombarded with like buy these ads, do Facebook ads, Instagram ads, as everywhere, ads, ads, ads to gain customers, to gain subscribers, to gain just page views. It’s unbelievable. Even now on social media platforms like Facebook and even Instagram limit your post to a certain amount of people so that you can buy ads.

KEISHA BLAIR: And so I just wanted to ask you before you go advice for people trying to build a blog, it’s not in the world of 10 years ago where it was probably easier to break in and to, you know, accelerate fast. Is there anything that they can do now to break through all the noise? And to really grow that blog as fast as they can?

JESSICA BURGESS: My personal opinion, I’m sure there are people out there that have different opinions, but yes, my personal opinion is creating a blog or blogging about. Topics that you’re passionate about is the first key, because it’s not going to be easy, just like anything. There’s going to be hard days. There’s going to be days where you don’t feel motivated, but if you start off blogging about something that you’re interested in or passionate about, that should be the motivation to keep you going through those hard days now is passion and. Something you’re interested in enough to make you successful?

Nope, probably not. So it’s also good to keep in mind the things like SEO, like I talked about earlier, you know, the good thing about Google is it’s free, right? They do have Google ads, but I’ve never once created a Google ad. And I receive hundreds of thousands of page views a month from Google. So why not take advantage of something like that? So becoming well-versed today, in my opinion of starting a blog, start a blog out on a topic that you’re passionate about, that you know a lot about. That you don’t think you’ll get tired of blogging about, you know, in three months or whatever it is, and write specific blog posts with intention, don’t write blog posts on whatever you just feel like writing.

And do I still do that as I mentioned earlier? Yes. Because it helps me be creative and it helps me when I’m feeling unmotivated. I’ll maybe write a blog post that just feels good in the moment. Maybe it doesn’t have all the research behind it to make it show up on Google, but that’s okay. Every now and then I would say focus on that as well. I really like to recommend the email list. I had a client last month who had an online Etsy store and she physically made products. Every time someone placed an order. And she said, Jessica, I’m just so tired. I have three kids, I have this online business. And I feel like if I don’t get this order made and out the door, you know, they’re going to leave me a bad review. And it was like she was living for the Etsy and living for the products. And she still does that today. But I took her and her business under my wing. And I said, let me help you turn this business and grow this business into more of a relaxed atmosphere to where you can still bring in an income and honestly, more income than you’re making now. And you not have to do physical work. On the backend or on the front end, or however you want to look at it. So where you don’t have to create a product after someone has paid, let’s look at this, how can you create a product in advance? And then people can pay you for it later and you don’t have to deliver.

I really like if my clients are interested in that, take in the idea of that passive income, I really try to help them grow and shift their business into that. And so to take her business, it’s a hand lettering business. And so when she hand letters, these products for these people that they buy off of Etsy, I said, how can we take your passion and your niche?

We’re starting this blog already. And let’s offer them something that they can digitally download in the hand, lettering a niche and give them something that they want, but you don’t have to make it or physically mail it out to them. So long story short. We created this hand lettering workbook. It teaches people who are interested in how to hand letter.

So whether they find her through Etsy, through her products and they fall in love with her hand lettering and they say, Oh, I love this. I’m going to buy this from you. Oh. But wait, you also teach how to write, like you give me that workbook right now. So she can, she has on her blog, you know, a link to buy the workbook and when somebody buys it.

The money is deposited into your account. And email is set up to where it automatically sends out that workbook to her. And so her life now is yes, she’s still making physical products, but she’s also making income, giving people what they want, but not adding more to do’s to her list. So I always want to encourage.

New bloggers to think about that. Think about your niche. Think about what products you could create that maybe won’t require you to do more work at the end of the day. What do you already have that you could sell online digitally? And that has been really paying off for myself and for my clients. Okay.

KEISHA BLAIR: That’s amazing. And so Jessica, where can people find you in terms of your website and social media

JESSICA BURGESS: Visit fantabulous city.com. That’s my lifestyle blog. And that’s just the easiest way you can find my email subscribe newsletter list there, or my social channels there. Or if you just want to head over to this social channel of your choosing, the good thing about my long fantabulous city name is it’s not hard to find, so you can just start typing it in and it should pop up.

KEISHA BLAIR: Thank you so much for being on the show today. Some amazing tips shared with the audience. I’m sure everyone will benefit. Thank you for joining us.

JESSICA BURGESS: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for joining us this week on Holistic Wealth with Keisha Blair. Make sure to visit our website keishablair.com where you can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or via Rs so you will never miss a show. While you’re at it, if you found value in this show, we’d appreciate a rating on iTunes or if you simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out too. Are you a member of the Institute on Holistic Wealth? If not, what are you waiting for? Go to Institute on Holistic Wealth/memberships to choose your membership plan and join as a member. You get so many perks, free worksheets, advice coaching, and a member’s workshop to design an intentionally designed life. Do you need to figure out your life purpose? Take the Build Your Life Purpose Portfolio online self-paced course. Are you struggling with all your money decisions? Take the free financial identities quiz and then take the personal financial identities course. Did you recently suffer a breakup job loss or experience the death of a loved one? Take the Holistic Healing online course. Do you need an overall plan to achieve holistic wealth? We will help you figure out your Holistic Wealth Blueprint and of course, if you want to start making money by helping others achieve holistic wealth, become a Certified Holistic Wealth Consultant. Regardless of what career you’ve got, the Institute will show you how to increase your income and walk in your purpose. The sooner you join the sooner you start to achieve a more holistically wealthy lifestyle and you’re going to want to stay for a very long time so go to Institute on Holistic Wealth/memberships to join. If you haven’t read the book yet pick up a copy of the award-winning best-selling book Holistic Wealth: 32 life lessons to help you find purpose prosperity and happiness