336: FBP Rewind – The Freedom of a Niche with Isabel Orozco-Moore

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Hello. Hello. And thanks for tuning in to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. This is Bjork Ostrom. Thanks for tuning in. Today we're doing a Food Blogger Pro Rewind episode. And this is when we surface an interview from the past that we feel like is important to occasionally revisit because there's a lot of good information in it and we want to make sure, hey, if you missed it, that you get a chance to hear the interview again. And a lot of times it's pretty timeless conversation that happens in these Food Blogger Pro Rewind episodes. So in the rewind episode today, we're going to be talking about the significance of a niche and we're going to be talking with Isabelle from Isabelle Eats and she's going to be sharing a few different things. She's going to be talking about how she went through the process of rebranding her blog, why that was really important, and the resulting focus on a niche, the impact that that had for her. She's gonna be talking about the ways that she monetizes her blog, which is something that obviously we're always interested in hearing about, kind of the business strategy that people take. She's gonna be talking about going through the process of hiring a virtual assistant. One of the most important things that you can do is figure out how you can continue to do the most high level tasks for your work. And Isabelle's gonna be talking about what that process was like and how she did that. We're gonna be talking about this idea of a keep, delegate, delete list. What are the things that you wanna keep, what are the things you wanna delegate and what are the things you just say, hey, you know what, I'm done with this. I'm gonna delete it. I'm not gonna do it at all. And then we're gonna be talking, just generally speaking, about how you can get better at really specific tasks and improve your skills and refine those skills. It's a great interview. And Isabelle is extremely talented and she has a lot of impactful things that she shares in this interview. So let's go ahead and jump in. Isabel, welcome to the podcast.

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, we're excited to talk to you today. There's a couple different things that we are going to dive into, but before we do that, I just want to say congratulations. You were nominated for Savur Award Most Inspired Weeknight Meal and would love to hear what that was like. How did you get that call? How did you hear about that? Did you have any idea that that was happening behind the scenes.

Well, first, thank you. So I sort. I didn't know that it was happening at all really, but I knew that like the blog words were a thing because I follow a lot of food bloggers on Instagram and people were saying, hey, you know, I'm gonna. Or will you nominate me? Or something like that. So I saw that and I asked my husband, actually I asked my husband, hey, would you nominate me for something? He's like, yeah, sure, of course.

Yeah, the ultimate supportive husband. Of course I will.

So I like sent him the link while he was at work to his slack and I was like, okay, here's the link. Just fill it out, whatever. And there's like different categories of nominations. And I was actually mainly wanting to be nominated for. I think it's like the Best Food Culture Blog. Just because my blog is mostly Mexican recipes. And that's what I was expecting. And I think that's what he nominated me for. So, you know, the nomination people have like, I don't know, maybe one or two weeks to nominate someone and then they close and then the editors of Savor pick who the nominees are. And I got an email or no, I didn't even get an email at first. I found out on Instagram someone tagged me saying that I was nominated. I was like, what? And immediately I told my husband. But I was surprised that I was nominated for the Weeknight Meals and not the Food Culture blog.

Yeah. So.

And I got an email and that was that.

Cool. With Most Inspired Weeknight Meal. With that nomination, is there one specific recipe they're looking at or are they saying as a whole, when we look at your blog, we think that this is like, hey, really good Weeknight meal recipes.

You know, I have no idea what their criteria is.

Sure.

I think you do put in like maybe a paragraph or two about why you're nominating the blog for this specific category. And I think maybe you can highlight like add a link to a post that you think really represents the blog well, but it's really kind of just out of. Out of our hands. It's.

Yep.

I have no idea what their process is.

Like kind of a black box in terms of the decision making process. Totally. Well, congratulations on that. Interesting that you mentioned that you had thought that you're going to be nominated for another category. Remind me the name of that category that you thought that it was.

I think it's Best Food Culture. Let me see. Yeah, Best Food Culture Blog.

Got it. And that's actually one of the topics that I'D be interested in talking to you about, because as you had mentioned, a lot of the recipes, the majority of the recipes on your blog are Mexican recipes. And I know that you also gone through the process of rebranding your blog, the name of your blog. And that's something that a of lot. A lot of people I know are thinking about. They're wondering, is my brand right? Is my niche right? And I would be interested for you to take me back before the rebrand and what were you blogging about? What was the name of your blog? And at what point did you realize, hey, I think it makes sense to start thinking about doing a rebrand?

Yeah. So I first started. When I first started blogging, it was back in 2015, and it was really just like a fun way for me to share anything interesting that I was learning or doing. Not that it was with sharing it with anyone because nobody knew about was basically like. It was like back in the day, Live journal, Zanga days, if you remember that.

Totally. Yep.

Yeah. It was like a personal journal type of thing. And I got the idea of doing a blog is because I was just looking for something fun to do and. And I started watching a ton of YouTube videos about whatever, and I really got sucked into this channel that was about vegetable gardening and how to compost and all that stuff. And I remember the woman whose channel it was, she was, like, very normal. She showed you how to do things in her normal backyard. It wasn't anything fancy. The video production was, you know, like, normal, probably with an iPhone. And I just thought it was so cool. I was like, I can do that myself. And so I kind of did. I'm kind of dorky. So I love. I, like, would love to learn how to code and like, CSS styling and all of that. I kind of just like jumped right in and, like, Googled how do I start a blog? And all of that. And so I had no idea what I wanted to blog about. So I actually. I remember sitting on the couch talking to my husband about, okay, what could this blog be about? I need to. At that point, I was like, I need to niche down. I can't just blog about everything.

Right.

So it was like, okay, I'm starting a garden. So what if it's gardening stuff? I cook often, so what if it's food stuff? And at the time, I had one cat. I have two cats now.

Nice. Yep.

I was like, okay, what if I also post pictures of my cat? Sure. So then that's how I landed on my first blog name which was from cats to cooking, because.

So it's kind of like, hey, it covers everything.

Exactly, sure. So that's exactly what I blogged about, just whatever was on my mind. But then I really started diving into, like, looking at other blogs and reading other blogs, and I realized that people were actually making money from them and that it could be like a nice little side business if I wanted it to be. But if I wanted it to be that I would have to kind of really focus on what it was that I was sharing, or at least it would be easier to grow that way.

And what do you mean by that? Can you. Can you expand on that a little bit?

Yeah, so I think it would. If you focus on one thing, I think you can easily. People will easily be able to, like, see that blog and say, okay, this person is all about Mexican food. So that person will become like the resource for Mexican food. Whenever you're in the kitchen wanting to cook, like, tacos or something. So it's just easy for. I think it makes it easier for people to get to know you that way.

And.

And then later on, if you're looking to, like, branch out a little more, at least. At least people already know who you are and, you know, they won't be super surprised about other things that you're doing.

It. It. I think of it as an analogy to stores, and it's. If you think of stores that you go to, almost all of them will have a really specific thing that they do. There'll be a bakery or they'll be. It'll be an athletic store. Or, you know, you'll go somewhere and you'll get shoes. And it's like, oh, I know I'm going to. I want to get shoes and I want to get athletic shoes. I know that I'm going to go and get those from Nike or Under Armour or whatever it be. And I think the same applies for a blog online. And I think the distinction that you made that's really interesting is you had said, I kind of had this realization that this could become a thing, this could become a business. But if it did, I. I would need to go through the intentional process of saying, what is this thing doing? Like, how is it serving people? And what is the niche? And in a way, you're kind of thinking through, like, what is the. What is the store? When people come here, what do they expect to see and get? And when they arrive, you want to be sure that you're presenting that. And there are the Walmarts of the world and the targets of the world that kind of have everything, but they're also these massive, massive, massive stores. And you can have a blog that does that, but it just is. It's a really hard thing to do to have this kind of catch all, even if it's broad recipes in general. Right. So I think it's really wise that you especially early on, went through this process of saying, okay, I kind of want this to become a thing. If I need it to be. If I want it to become a thing, I need to figure out what specific kind of niche that I'm focusing on. And then my guess is at that point you also thought there's probably, I should probably go through a rebranding process and I'll have to let go of some things along the way. Like, you could still post pictures of your cat, but it's probably not gonna be like once a week you're doing blog posts on that. You have to let some of that content go. So walk me through the process of. Let's say you made that decision. You kind of left us off there. What did you do next to say, okay, here are the steps I'm going to take to go through this rebranding and refreshing process for the site?

Yeah. Well, first I had to make the decision about what I was going to focus on. And I pretty much wrote out all the things that up to that point that I really enjoyed writing about and what I felt like I could write about for a long time and not get bored.

Sure.

And one of those things was Mexican food because it kind of just. Well, first of all, I am Mexican, so it kind of comes naturally. And that's kind of the food that I grew up with. At the time, I was living in Pittsburgh and my entire family is in Oklahoma, so I was really missing my family. And Pittsburgh has a very small Hispanic population. So I was like, extra missing them because I didn't even hear the language often. I remember I'd get on the phone and talk to my mom and I'd forget some words in Spanish and I'm.

Like, no, I can't forget how to speak.

I know, it was so sad. So I think focusing, making the decision to focus on Mexican food also kind of like gave me a little comfort. Like, okay, I can at least connect through this food that I grew up eating and that my parents are currently still making today. So I decided that. And I was definitely very nervous about niching down because you immediately think, oh my gosh, what if there aren't enough ideas around Mexican food? What if I run out of things to talk about Mexican food? Well, there are so many ideas, and you can create content your entire life around that topic, which I quickly realized. But, yeah, that was a big fear. But. So once I decided Mexican food, I knew I had to probably change the name of my blog, because From Cats to Cooking didn't really.

It doesn't really communicate the essence of Mexican cuisine.

No. And people actually, I remember someone sent me an email about them thinking that the blog was about, like, cooking cats.

Oh, sure. So you're like, this maybe needs to be addressed.

Yeah, yeah, maybe we should change that. And I knew that, like, maybe someday in the future it would be more than just Mexican food. Like, I wanted it to be also a little bit more personal. So that's why I decided to put, like, my actual name in the blog name. So I decided, okay, Isabel Eats. That gives me room to grow, if I ever want to grow. So I decided on that, and then I knew.

And I think a real quick point on that that I think is important to point out. I think there's a lot of wisdom for you to say I want a broad name. And maybe what I'll do is I talk about this. When people are going through the rebranding process, pick a broad name and a specific tagline, because the name long term is going to be harder to change. But your tagline and your focus can evolve. In examples would be Zappos or Amazon. Like, if Amazon started out as Bookstore.com, like, it'd be really hard to expand out into web services or clothing or, you know, basically everything in the world. And I think picking a broad name, Isabelle Eats, and then a specific kind of tagline or focus, which right now for you, that's Mexican food, allows you, like you said, long term, to expand out. So just a quick point on that to shine a light on that for other people who are thinking about going through that rebranding process, I think that's a really wise move. So I just want to point that out.

Yeah, thanks. So after I picked the name, I knew I had to tell my audience. And at the time, it was very small, but it was honestly more of a thing for me. Like, it was. I wanted to write a post saying, I am changing the direction of the blog. Not that anyone was really, really listening.

Because when was this? At what point?

I think it was like one year in, when I started getting serious about it. So, like, 2016.

Yep.

So I wrote a post and I just said, you know why I'm deciding to change it, because I wanted to get more in touch with like, my Mexican culture. And it's something that I knew really well and I wanted to share that. And I saw that there were a few Mexican food blogs, but there's not a lot. And so I wrote that post and published it and kind of just went from there.

And I think there's something like you said, even if nobody would have, you know, noticed or at that point, it's still really early on. I think there's something personally for declaring and saying here's the point. And even historically to go back and look and say this is the point at which I switched focus and it's nice to have some type of kind of declaration, even if it's just for you to say, here's. Here's how things change and here's what it's going to look like moving forward. So were there specifics in terms of like, the technical aspect of doing that rebrand or at that point, like when you published that post, had you switched over the domain name as well? And what was that process like? Was there anything that you learned going through the technical side of updating your site?

Yeah, so I think at that point I had changed the domain name. So I found one that I liked, I purchased it on my own, and then I kind of knew that I like doing all that technical stuff was not going to be my forte.

Totally. As much as you liked it, like talking about liking CSS and HTML and I'm the same way. Like, I would love to geek out on that stuff, but you just have to realize you can't do everything. You can't be good at photography and writing and recipe development and CSS and HTML and SEO. So wise again. So what did you do? What decision did you make as it relates to that?

So I think I found someone in a Facebook group to change the domain for me. So I hired someone and it was a very low cost. Like, I guess it's not really a big deal, but I didn't know how to do it. So I hired someone to do that. And I think they redirected the URL to the old URL to my new one, which I don't think it redirects anymore, which is fine because there's no traffic going there anyway.

Yep.

So, yeah, got it.

And so for anybody else that's thinking through that, that's a. That's an important consideration, that redirect that you talked about. And for you it was still early on. So it's kind of. It's more it's lower stakes versus like if you're to do it now three or four years down the line. But for anybody else who's thinking about doing that, the most important thing, the thing you need to jot down is this idea of a 301 redirect. And if you, if you are thinking of doing any type of update to your site or to your blog, make sure that you have, when the domain changes, that you have this thing called a 301 redirect which not only redirects people to, if they click on a link to go to the page, but there's also an SEO benefit where Google then sees those links as continuing to pass authority to the new posts. So it's one of the higher stakes things, especially for people who have are doing this down the line. But for you, it's nice that it was relatively early on that you did this because you didn't have to worry about it as much. It was similar to when Lindsey and I switched Pinch of Yum From Tumblr to WordPress. So this was way back in the day and it was probably around the same time we had been blogging for probably about a year and we're like, what is this thing called WordPress? Everybody's talking about it, it's supposed to be so awesome. We think Tumblr is cool, but apparently WordPress is the place to be. So we switched all the content over and it was like this really manual process. I had no idea what I was doing. I was like downloading HTML and uploading it and it was a whole to do. So I think really wise to get somebody to help with that. So what was that like after you made the switch, you rebranded, you decided to niche down to focus on a specific niche. Did you notice anything different around what it was like for you to create content? Because as you mentioned before, sometimes people would be a little bit nervous about like, hey, maybe I won't know what to write about, maybe I'll run out of stuff. Did you notice that to be the case or was it almost the opposite? Where now that you had these kind of artificial boundaries that you put in place, was it actually easier?

Yes, the latter. It was so much easier. So at first I had, you know, ideas of about posts that I could write just in a small list of things that I thought, okay, these are Mexican staples, I know I can do this. Let me start there. And as I started creating those, I got more and more ideas and more and more and you just, it's easier to focus on it because you're not thinking, oh, let me make something that's like Italian or let me make this or that. And especially because I already had knowledge about like the ingredients and, you know, like peppers and cooking with dried chilies and things like that, I didn't feel like I had to learn all of that on my own and then try to teach it, teach it to someone else. Like, I already had that knowledge. So, yep, it just makes things a lot easier.

I think there's something to be said about figuring out what, like, where is your depth of knowledge or where does your knowledge go the deepest? Because one of the things that we are learning on Food Blogger Pro for the courses that we're creating is, hey, let's try and talk about the things that we already know and are interested in, as opposed to, like you said, trying to learn something and teach something. And I think people, more than they know, have a depth of knowledge in a certain area. Even if you feel like I don't really have anything that I'm especially interested in or that I know, chances are people come to you with questions around something for you. Isabella, it might be, hey, how do you, you know, what is your go to Margarita recipe? Or how would you, you know, do like, what's your favorite mojito? I'm looking through your page right now, so I'm pulling these in like sangria. What's your favorite sangria recipe? It wouldn't have to be all alcohol, but that's just, I'm on the drink recipe section. So that's why meanwhile it's like 9am yeah, right. Exactly. Right. Maybe that's what we could do. It could be a new tradition for the Food Blogger Pro podcast is having some type of drink that we have along with it, alcoholic or non alcoholic, but maybe not at 9am so point being, for those who are listening to the podcast, think about what your knowledge area is, where you go the deepest. And it sounds like, Isabel, for you, you said, hey, I have this even. It's probably was even like a part, like kind of on the soul level, like who you were. Do you feel like you knew that you knew that or was. Did you almost have to go through the process of discovering like, oh my gosh, I actually know a lot about this just through like osmosis of being around it, of absorbing it with my parents, on my own, when I'm trying to like connect to my family, being away. What was that like to discover your authority? Essentially? Yeah.

I mean, I, in the beginning I had no idea That I did know so much about Mexican food because it just came because I just like. Like you said, I just grew up around it. I just thought it was normal and because it wasn't really what I had focused on. When I started the blog, like that first year, I was kind of all over the place. I was posting things, like, things that were very trendy, like things like gluten free and paleo and things like that, but my heart wasn't in it. Like, I wasn't as interested as I thought I was. Once I sat down to write those things, and then once I said, okay, Mexican food, and I sat down to, like, write posts about it, a lot of the things just like, came naturally. And I could just say, oh, yeah, this is how you, like, deal with dried chilies and use them in cooking. Like, I didn't have to look that up. I just kind of knew. And I didn't realize that it was a strength of mine until, you know, until people would come up to me and say, oh, that's how you do it. Okay, great. I remember I would, while I was still in Pittsburgh, I would come visit my family in Oklahoma and I would come home and specifically for my mom's rice and her enchilada sauce, I literally followed her around in the kitchen and wrote down every single thing she did.

Yep. It's like documenting her brain probably, because she's probably not using a recipe. It's just like all stored in her head.

Oh, yeah. And she's like throwing pinches of things in there. And I'm like, no, mom, wait.

Measure, measure.

And so that type of experience and like, you know, just knowing what my mom's rice always tastes like and trying to recreate that. Like, not a lot of people have that.

Yes. Yep. So I'd be interested at this point to start talking about what that's like, running the blog as a business, because you knew that that was something that you wanted to do and you're intentional in setting it up in a way where you're focusing on a niche where you're rebranding and you're thinking, okay, I want this to become something where it's a thing. So at this point, from a business perspective, if you were to say kind of percentage wise, would there be a pie graph of, like, I make the majority of my income from ads. I make a little bit from. From sponsors, a little bit from affiliate all ads. If you were to break it out, what does that look like?

Yeah. So right now I would say ads are probably like 75%. And then sponsored this year was probably like 20%. And then affiliate was small. 5%.

Got it. And on the sponsored content side of things, are you having to say no to certain sponsors who might not fit within your niche? I think that's another worry that people might have in niching down is that it closes other opportunities or do you find that it's the opposite where because you have this really clearly defined niche that people come to you because they're like, hey, we know our brand is a really good fit for what you're doing. What is that like working with sponsors? And how has that been?

Yeah, well, at first it was definitely hard because as you're growing, you just don't have. You're still small, so you don't have as many opportunities as you would once you're a little bigger. So I did find myself taking on sponsors that probably weren't the best fit. But honestly, I feel like that's how you learn. You do that job and then you realize, oh, that was not that great. I should probably not do that again.

There was when this was really early on in the process for Pinch of Yum and it was some type of, like, protein shake thing, and we did a sponsored content for it. And that's exactly like what you're talking about, where you're like, wow, this was terrible and not a good fit. And the hard part is uncoupling the ask. When somebody reaches out and they say, we like your blog, we want to work with you, we want to pay you with the, like, branding and audience fit. And it's really hard in the early stages when either you. Somebody reaches out to you or there's a connection and they say, yes, we want to work with you, we want to pay you to say no to it. That's really hard to do. And I think what it requires is to go through the process multiple times to then realize, hey, this isn't worth it, and then to have that taste of that relationship linger long enough to then remember that the next time that it happens. So what would your advice be for other people who are trying to figure that out as they navigate doing sponsored content with their niche and making sure that things are a good match. How do you go about doing that?

Yeah. So, okay, so first you, like, as much as I can say, try to stay true to yourself and try to work with brands that you love, sometimes you're just not going to do that. And then like we were talking about, like, you'll just learn on your own, you'll Just learn that it's not a great fit. And then once you do have that experience, just try to remember when someone reaches out to you that. Remember how you felt when you published that post and you had to promote it and you weren't that excited about it.

Yeah.

Like, you don't want to do that again. So I think just realizing that just because someone reaches out to you with an offer doesn't mean you have to say yes. Like, this is your business and you get to decide whether you want to pursue that or not.

Yes. And for people to know, we for Pinch of Yam, you know, we're coming up on 10 years and are still figuring this out. Like, we're still navigating what that's like and how to do that well. So it's not. You will never arrive and be like, and now I have made it to the point of understanding exactly how things will play out and exactly how things match up as it relates to a brand with. With my brand new. It's a continual evolution. But to be intentional about it, one of the things that I think would be helpful post sponsor content, post relationship is to do kind of a debrief and to say, like, hey, here's what went great, here's what didn't go well. I try and do that each week. So I look back at the week. Here's what went well, here's what didn't go so well. And I think you can do that with sponsorships as well. So you have that documented somewhere so you can go back and look at it. So at this point, at this point, I know that you had. Excuse me, that you had set out to say, hey, this is something that I want to do, I want to pursue. I want this to be a job, a career. Where in the timeline of things, where does that land right now for you? Are you 50% of the way there where you're like, hey, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel? Or is it the. Are you working on this full time and it is what your job is? I'd be interested to hear that knowing that you've been doing it for a long time. Four years feels like a long time. But a lot of people we interview on the podcast have maybe been doing it for like, seven, eight years. So you're kind of right in the middle there. Where are you at with it and what is your goal as you continue to work on it?

Yeah, so I went full time in 2017, so I've been doing it full time for two years. Which is crazy, because I feel like it was just yesterday that I quit my job. Um, and it's even two years in, I still don't feel like I have the hang of it. Like, I understand, okay, these are the things that I need to do, but it just gets a little nuts. So I think the thing that I've. I've learned is that I can't do everything myself. And that it's. It's really important to. When you are able to. When you feel like you have even just a little bit of money to set aside to pay for someone to help you to go for it, because you get so much, even if it's like two hours a week, that's two hours a week that you could spend doing something that you're really passionate about. So in the beginning, I did my own Pinterest and my own Facebook scheduling and all of that. And then I quickly found out that that is so much work, even with, like, it's funny you would think that, because once you go full time, you'll have all the time in the world and you'll have all the, you know, to do all these things. Somehow you don't. You just have more things to do.

Yes, totally. Totally.

The list of things you have to do just grows and grows and grows for some reason. So, hiring. So I hired someone to schedule out my Pinterest and schedule out my Facebook. And that was also a learning process, too, because I didn't know who to hire. I just went on some Facebook groups and found virtual assistants that people were recommending. I've gone through a few virtual assistants, and at this point right now, I'm actually writing a job description to hire someone to, like, help me with social media, like marketing in general. And I want it to be someone local because I feel like after trying all of the virtual assistants and people you know, elsewhere, not local. To me, it's really. It's really hard for me to, like, connect with them and feel like, oh, this is a team. Like, I think. I think the next step for me is to have someone who I feel like could grow with me into, like, a bigger team as opposed to just like a virtual assistant that I pay hourly.

Yeah, they say that. So if you view what we are doing as a startup as opposed to a blog, I think sometimes a blog calling something a blog discredits it, which is a little bit of a bummer for a business named Food Blogger Pro. But it's like, these are businesses and these are startups, and they talk about startups. As one of the, one of the most important things you can do is your first hire. And because your first hire is going to be probably not a really specific job that only does one thing. But like you said, it grows with you and evolves. And for the team that we have, I know that that's been true. If you were to ask anybody on our team, the, the things that we are working on, it changes, it evolves, you know, on a month to month and definitely a year to year basis where a lot of people, the thing that they were hired for, they're not even doing anymore and it's only two years later because that has evolved in the needs change. So what have you learned that you would. What is the advice that you'd give as it relates to kind of that first hire or the first person on the team knowing that you've been through it a few times, you've seen the benefit of it, but also have had to jump some hurdles along the way where it sounds like it wasn't the ideal fit. What have you learned and what advice would you give to people?

Yeah, so I think your first hire, I think you'll learn whether like part of it was learning my style as well. Like my style of managing. I don't think I did well managing someone from afar, which is why right now I'm focused on finding someone local just because it gives me a little bit like I'm going to be accountable for this. I want to have like weekly or bi weekly meetings or something like that. So I think just trying to figure out what type of manager you're going to be because this is your business, so you have to tell people how you want it done. And that can be really hard too, especially when it's been you for so long and whenever someone comes in, you're just ready to throw it at them because you need time back. It's like here, do do it however you want to do it.

But how I want to do it technically. Exactly, yes, for sure. And that's the hard part with. Yeah. And also it's a new skill. Like you have over the past four years, gone through this process of developing some really unique skills. Like you have beautiful photography, you've learned recipe development. I'm sure that you've learned how to communicate recipes in a way that, you know, four years ago you wouldn't have had. And now it's like, okay, it's kind of for most of us, for most people that listen to this podcast, it's kind of if you go through the process of building a team, you are then kind of starting over. You're creating this new skill. And then it goes from me working on a thing to a team, and it goes from my thing to our thing. And that process changes the work that you do as well. So do you have any thoughts on that as you contemplate the switch from strictly maker to also being manager? And it's another startup conversation where a lot of times in a startup early stages, you are the maker and then you make this transition into manager. And I know that, like, for Lindsey, we've had this conversation, and she wants, as much as possible, she wants to stay in the maker role. She loves writing, she loves recipe development, she loves photography and doesn't have this desire to transition into or away from that. So for you, what does that look like? How do you balance that? And I know it's still early stages, but I think it's an important consideration.

Yeah. So I'm kind of in the same boat as Lindsay. Like, I want to. My favorite things are photographing and creating the recipe. I'm actually not. I'm not in love with writing just because I don't. I don't personally think I'm a great writer, and it just doesn't come easily.

Sure.

So I'm still kind of figuring that out. But for the moment, I think it makes sense for me to write just because I do have, like, that knowledge in me already. You know, I know about. I know about Mexican food. So for right now, I'm focusing on. I'm really wanting to just do the cooking and the photography and the writing and then give everything else to other people. Just because when your mind is in so many different areas of your business, it's just hard to get anything done.

Yes, totally. And I think there's something to be said about figuring out the things that you love and that are also important for you to do. And an example would be for this podcast. People would notice if it wasn't me doing the podcast, and it's not strictly me. Alexa has a huge role in the podcast, and she has a voice on this podcast as well. But as it stands right now, it's like we don't have really, you know, a crew of people who do it. It's kind of me. And for you and your blog, it's your recipes. It's. At this point, it's your voice, it's your photography that has a unique look and feel to it. It'd be really hard for somebody else to come in and replicate your Exact same style, both for recipes and photography. Those are really important. But people don't know if it's you posting to Facebook or to Pinterest. And those are still really important things. But around any business, especially any business that has that personal aspect to it, there are probably, you know, a hundred different things that all of us are doing that nobody would know the difference if it wasn't us actually doing those things. So I think it's, you know, as you ponder what that looks like, it makes so much sense for you to say, hey, these are the things I want to do, I want to continue to do. I want to focus on that I like doing and that are important for me to do. And then what are the other things around that that I can bring somebody in to help with?

Yeah, and I just want to say, like, once I started really thinking about hiring someone locally to possibly grow with me at some point full time, I made a list, a spreadsheet of every single thing I do in my business. So that's like photography, recipe development, post writing, like SEO research. I also create my own videos and then Instagram, all the things. I made a list of them, and then I made three columns, and I titled them Keep, Delegate, or Delete. And I was like, okay, I'm going to keep. What are the things that I really love doing that I can continue doing, at least for the moment, at least for a year? What can I do for a year? And I won't regret it. Put that in the keep column, the delegate things that I need to keep doing that are important for the business. Put that in the delegate column. And things that are just. They're busy work, they don't really need to be, like, done. They aren't making a difference. Put that in the delete column. And that was really helpful. And that made me realize, okay, a lot of the things in the delegate column are Pinterest, Facebook, email marketing, all.

Those things that are important but aren't necessarily things that you need to do.

Right.

And what was an example of something that was in the delete?

So I actually have nothing in the. I'm looking at it right now. I have nothing in the delete column. And I was actually going to get rid of that column. And then a friend of mine said, hey, why don't. Why don't you keep that column? Because you can come back to this spreadsheet, like, say in six months, and if there's something that you realize that you're doing that doesn't need to get done, or if you Ever add anything else onto your plate and you realize, hey, I don't need to be doing that. It's not making difference. Move that to the delete column.

That's great. Yeah. I think it's really helpful to do kind of an audit of your day. There's a book that I read a while back and it was out of college class that was really popular. I don't remember. I think it's maybe at Stanford. But the book is called Designing youg Life. And one of the exercises they had was essentially a version of what you're saying, which is like, do an audit of your day. Throughout your day. What are the things that. That. That you are doing? And another thing that they had added to that, which would be a potentially interesting column to add, is like, for the keep area, keep stuff. Like on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy doing that? And so they had this little, like, fuel meter that was essentially like, this fills me up or this, like, drains my tank. My guess is if you put it in the keep column, a lot of that is like, stuff that you actually enjoy. But it was another interesting kind of assessment as you audit your day that I think is helpful to reflect on. So I think even that little takeaway for anybody listening to Create. And it doesn't have to be complicated. You could pull it up in Google Drive and create a sheet. And like you said, you outline, you put essentially a simple task, what it is that you're doing, and you say keep, delegate, or delete. And my guess is for anybody that does that, you will have things that come out of that exercise. And I'm guessing this is true for you, Isabelle, where you have things that come out of that exercise that have an impact on, like your quality of life and your quality of work, where you have the freedom to say, these are things I'm not going to do anymore. I'm going to delegate these things. And now I know clearly these are the things that. That I'm gonna keep. Did you notice after doing it, your work shifting in terms of what it looked like to your daily work routine and what it looked like for you to actually work on things?

Yes, actually. So. Because I'm in the process of really trying to hire someone soon. So if all these things were in my keep column before, Right. Until I moved them to delegate, I, like, maybe two, three weeks ago, before I made this spreadsheet, because it's literally only three weeks ago that I made this, before I made the spreadsheet. All the things that I Currently have in my delegate column were just kind of falling by the wayside. Like, I didn't even want. I didn't do them, or if I did, I'd, like, forget to do them or things like that. But now that it's in my delegate column and I know at some point I'm going to hire that out, it kind of has motivated me to, like, get it done because I know I'm going to hand it off anyway. Like, I only have to stick with it like, a few more months, you know.

Yes. It almost switches the task a little bit from doing the thing to the task, then becoming, figuring out somebody who will help do the thing. Whereas before it's this. It's hanging over your head. You're like, oh, I got to do this. And now it's like, okay, this is something that has to get done. But the bigger to do is finding somebody to help me within the business to work on this.

Yeah. And now that it's in my delegate column and I am, when I. When I get it done, now I'm really focusing on, okay, what am I doing? What is this person going to need to know? What sort of, like, knowledge transfer do I have to hand over to them? Because, say, like, I'm teaching someone about email marketing. If they don't know anything about it, like, I'm gonna have to teach them. So I find myself, like, focusing on the process more now.

Yes. And I think one little takeaway there is a great tip would be the. What you just said, focusing on the process. What is the thing that actually has to happen from start to finish in order for this to be accomplished? And there's lots of ways that you can document that. For me, I love recording these screencasts, and anybody on our team will probably kind of like, laugh and roll their eyes a little bit because of how much like screencast recording I do to communicate ideas. But especially for a remote team, it's a great way to communicate ideas. And we use a video recording software called Loom L O O m. That's been super helpful to. To just record a quick screencast and share that. So I think what you said is so important about the process. Whether that's writing it down, taking screenshots, recording a screencast, all of those things are great ways to document that process. So then you can, when you have this person who comes on, communicate really effectively what that is and how they can go about doing it. So, Isabelle, we're coming to the end of the podcast. One of the things that we love to do. One of the things we love to end with is this question of advice that you would give for anybody listening and specifically would like to ask that question around you making this transition into working on your blog full time in a relatively short amount of time. You started in 2015, you made that transition in 2017, and you've been doing that for a couple years successfully now. What would your advice be to somebody else who wants to in some way replicate what you have done, not in specifics, but in this general sense of working on the thing that you love, creating a site, building a following. What would your advice be?

Honestly, I feel like the one thing that really helped my blog grow is, aside from like niching down, is focusing on one thing at a time and getting better at that one thing. So like in the beginning I really focused on photography and I spent hours and hours like learning, you know, all about lighting and all of that. I was in Food Blogger Pro, so I learned a lot through those videos.

Awesome. Great.

Yeah, so at one point I focused solely on photography. Right now I'm really focused on SEO and, you know, maybe next year I'll be focusing on something else. But if you can focus on one thing at a time, practice and get really good at that thing or just have a solid understanding before moving on to the next thing, I feel like you will just learn so much more than you would if you were trying to learn everything all at once.

That's awesome. There's this concept that, I don't remember who it is that talked about this, but this idea that if you read, essentially it was like read a book month or I don't know, I don't think it was a week, but it was like a book a month. And if you do that for two to three years in a specific topic like SEO or photography, that within two to three years you will be top 5% of whatever it is in that certain category. Now obviously there's a lot of disclaimers that come along with it. Like, it's not like you're going to be a medical doctor or something like that, but idea being like, you can, you can get a lot of knowledge with really intentional pursuit of a narrow focus. And for you, you know, you gave the example of photography. SEO is another example. You can, you can gather most of the information you need if you are really for focused for a short amount of time. So I think that's a great tip and hard to do because it's so easy to get distracted and kind of have that shiny object syndrome. Or as I was at a conference and somebody accidentally called it, they called it shiny squirrel, which was such a funny, like entrepreneurial Ms. Speak, which is like the exact reason why we need to focus on one thing and not the shiny object. Because then we eventually call it the shiny squirrel. Like this idea that it's just so distracting. But I think that's a great takeaway and a really important thing for people to consider is to go deep on one thing, to really get good at that and to not get distracted along the way. And it's obvious that you've done that when you look at your blog. Isabelle, your photography is awesome. It's obvious that you've been really intentional to craft a brand and a focus and that shines through in how it looks. And also, it also shines through in sites like Savur nominating you in to win an award. So if people want to follow along with what you're up to, what you're doing, where can they find you and how can they follow along?

Yeah. So my blog is isabelleats.com and then I'm everywhere on Isabelle Eats. I'm mainly on. I do a lot of Instagram stories, so you can see my face there.

Awesome. Isabel, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

Oh, thank you so much, Bjork.

That's a wrap for this episode. Thank you to Isabelle for coming back on. Technically, it's a rewind episode, so coming back on or letting us share this again on the Food Blogger Pro podcast and for the insights that she shared in the conversation here today. And thank you for tuning in. Obviously, we couldn't do this podcast or we wouldn't do it if not for thousands of people tuning in and listening every week. And it makes it possible for us to continue to jump in and press record each and every week. And without you, we wouldn't be able to do it. If you haven't yet, you can check out foodbloggerpro.com to see what we're up to on Instagram. We're sharing little clips from these podcast episodes. We're starting to do video now so we can share a little highlights from what we consider to be the most important parts of the podcast. So you can follow along over on Instagram to make sure that you're catching those. If you don't download every episode. And if you want to get notified whenever a new episode comes out on your podcast app, you can just hit subscribe or follow depending on which podcast app you use. So I hope you're doing well. I hope that the holiday season is going well for you and your family. And as always, our hope is that in doing this podcast, we can help you get a tiny bit better every day, forever. That's why we exist, and that's why we do what we do. And we wouldn't do it if not for you tuning in every week. So thank you. Make it a great week. We'll be back here next week, same time, same place. Thanks, Sam.