425: Thriving within a Niche and Creating Your Dream Job with Amy Palanjian from Yummy Toddler Food.

This episode is sponsored by Clarity. C L A R I T I and I kid you not, I was going to record this half an hour ago, but I was in Clarity and realized there's an opportunity for Pinch of Yam that is a project we should move forward with. So I created a video, communicated it with a Pinch of Yum team and said, hey, we should move forward on this and really get to work cleaning this up. In our case, what I had done is I said, hey, show me all of the posts in the past year on Pinch of Yum. And then I sort ordered that in reverse order by page views. So I was looking at pages that on Pinch of Yum in the last year got zero page views and I realized we have a lot of really thin, not valuable content and it's important to clean that up. In our case, we're gonna delete a lot of that content and we should have done that a long time ago, but we just didn't get around to it. And it wasn't until I was using Clarity that I realized that that was something that we should have done. I was able to see that a lot of like, old giveaway posts and things like that. So we're going to move forward with that and clean up Pinch of Yum. And that's what Clarity is for. It's to help you discover that actionable information to create a project around it. And either you can follow the project or you can assign it to somebody within your team and then track the impact that that has by making notes or seeing when you made those changes over time. We bring all the Information in from WordPress, Google Search Console and Google Analytics. You hook it all up and then you can sort, order, and use Clarity kind of like a Swiss army knife for your content. So if you're interested in checking it out, go to clarity.com food cl a r I t I.com food and that will get you 50% off your first month. Thanks to Clarity for sponsoring this episode.

Hey there.

This is Emily from the Food Blogger Pro team and you're listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. Today on the podcast, Bjork is interviewing Amy Palangen from Yummy Toddler Food. Amy worked in the magazine industry for many years before transitioning to starting her food blog. Since then, she has really leaned into the niche of yummy toddler food and has grown an incredible resource for parents and a super successful food blog. Bjork and Amy chat a lot about all of her different strategies for running her blog because everything she does in her business is super intentional. She talks about how she built out her affiliate marketing strategy and how she's worked to diversify her income streams. She also talks about why she decided to transition from selling ebooks on her site to selling her first printed cookbook, which is out now. Amy talks a lot about being intentional, about choosing the parts of her job that she loves doing and is good at and outsourcing those that don't bring her quite as much joy. She also talks about kind of the nitty gritty of outsourcing certain tasks, including how she manages all of her business related files and how she communicates with her team. Bjorke and Amy also chat about email marketing and why she uses both Substack and Convertkit in her email marketing strategy and why she chose to work with a manager for her sponsored content. It's a really interesting interview. Amy is full of great information, so I know you'll enjoy this interview. I'm going to let Bjork take it away.

Amazon.

Amy, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, this is one of those interviews where as I'm kind of looking into it and researching it, I can kind of get lost and transition from podcast host and interviewer to consumer of content. Because we have a two year old and a four year old, almost three year old and five year old. And your specialty, your focus is all about food for kids, toddlers, and that's like the world that we're living in. So tell me about how you came into that and how you started back in 2014.

Sure. So I worked in magazines as an editor for about a decade and during that time like all the magazine jobs I had kept going away.

Sure. And was that like Internet industry things are changing? Kind of that, yep.

The magazine industry like has consolidated so much and so like a company would buy magazines and then they would hire and staff and we would like give it a go and then they would give it like two years and then the magazine would be shut down. And so it was like that was happening and then that was sort of like the heyday of the original style of blogs. And it kind of coincided with having my first daughter. And so like I knew. So I had worked as a food editor and a recipe developer and also a lifestyle editor. So I sort of knew how to create content for an audience. I didn't know how to put it on the Internet, sure. But I came into it with that sort of audience angle. So I started just like on Squarespace, posting recipes that I was making in real life. And like solving the things that were coming up for me with my daughter who was then one. And at that time there was like, there was no content for this in between stage. There was like baby food stuff and there was kid food, but there was nothing in the middle. And it's such a particular as, you know, phase of independence and voicing opinions and then also just like still learning the logistics of eating and having like slightly different nutritional needs.

Yeah.

So it started as a hobby. So I was like doing it alongside of my other jobs. And then there was a point, I think it was in 2017, where I knew the magazine job I had was going to go away. Like, I could read, I could read the signs, I knew it was going to be shut down. And I, I just had to make a decision that I had to turn the website into my actual job because I was spending so much time on it or I had to stop doing it and do something else. So I sort of like learned how to be a food blogger. So it took me like about a year to figure out, like how to use a camera, how to properly format a recipe so that Google could read it. I had my website moved to WordPress and like learned how to do SEO and formatted like every post I had correctly.

Yeah.

And then within six months of doing that, it was my full time job because, like all of the URLs had history on them and they were suddenly formatted correctly. And then like my traffic just jumped.

That's really cool. That must have been a cool moment. It's so much, I think, of what happens in this world is like the culmination of a lot of effort over time and then occasional unlocks, like if something gets unlocked and you get to like. Similar to in North Dakota, you know, we're in Minnesota, so we hear about people who go in North Dakota and they drill for oil. And like, you drill and you drill and you drill and you drill and then eventually you get to oil. But I think a lot of that is the same in this world where like you work on something for a long period of time, you try and figure it out, and then occasionally you get an unlock. And obviously there's always those incremental things along the lines. But I think another point with your story that's important to point out and for all of us to think about is like, it wasn't even just your. The three years that you had between 2014 and 2017 where you were producing content and learning how to do good content. It was also the ten years before that, where you were learning editorial process, recipe development, like how to craft, like, consumer first content. So what would you say were the biggest things from that decade of work in the magazine world that you took with you that were helpful for you to have a leg up and to have a little bit of kind of an unfair advantage, to use a term you hear occasionally in the world of publishing, but just digital publishing versus traditional publishing.

I think one thing was understanding the goal of solving problems. So that when just in the way that I talk about the process of cooking something or even when explaining, like, the difference between two products that I might, like, sort of intuiting what the. The pain points are going to be for the audience, like, really putting your mindset with the person that you're trying to reach. And since I was in that phase with my daughter when I started, like, I knew it, but I also knew just from cooking, like a cooking standpoint, like, where the pain points might be. And then another thing that I did differently, which is, was directly out of magazines, is that I started doing product recommendations really early on because I knew that if I was showing something or I was like, trying to give the easiest way to pack a lunch or the easiest way to cut something for a child, that I needed to give people the information on the things I was using. And so that over time has also built up into a very strong affiliate presence and also just building trust with my audience because they know that I actually use these things. And I think all of us who do this job have our favorite things and we have the things that we use all the time. But there can be this, like, reluctance to talk about them because it can sometimes feel salesy. But I kind of just embrace that, like, this is a service. This will potentially make someone's life easier. And so I'm going to always tell you the thing that I'm using. So that was like, I just, I sort of packaged the content from an early. From an early point. As you would do if you were flipping through a magazine story.

Sure. Like, and in a magazine story, you would have things like, here's this tool, here's this product. You have these different kind of categories of content. You'd have recipes, but you'd also have, like, recommendations for travel. You're traveling with your kid. Here's some great products that will help make that easier. And I think the, you know, one of the great things about having a niche and a focus is that you're maybe able to identify a problem set in a different way. Like, I think of Pinch of Yam as a pretty broad site in terms of who could potentially go there. But as you start to get more focused, you also can get more focused on what the problem is. And I think things seem less salesy the more connected they are to a specific problem. And so in the case of Food for toddlers, yummy toddlerfood.com, it's like, okay, people know what it is when they go there that you also know that they're going to have these problems. And if you create an affiliate post with like, here are the after, you know, six years, seven years of producing content, the products that I feel like are the 10 best food related products for you as a family with toddlers in your house, like, that's incredibly valuable and it's a really great overlap with your audience. And so I think it becomes so much less, it feels less like a sales pitch the more connected it is to the problem set which you talked about and the greater the need there is for that. Like people are looking for it and they want it as opposed to like, let's say on Pinch of Yum we were like, here's, you know, the, well, same thing. Like here are the top toddlers food related items you should get. It feels like, wait, it's going to be a match for some people, like maybe 10% of our audience, 15% of our audience. But for the others it's going to be like, oh, this isn't super helpful. So I think it's one of the things that you have going for you with a niche. Can you talk more about what that has been like to create content in kind of a narrow path? Because it's a incredible advantage in that it provides boundaries. Hey, it's going to look like this. But my guess is there's also some challenges where you maybe are like, oh, there's this really cool thing that I want to talk about, but it doesn't make sense for me to talk about it here because it's going to be outside of the boundaries of kind of my focus or my niche. Is that true?

You know, it's interesting because so I didn't. So when I started the site I didn't know anything about like how to choose their topic. Like I just chose the thing like all of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I chose the thing in the name that like fit at the time. And it, it definitely has been beneficial. And I think the thing that has surprised me because everybody thinks what you just said about it being limiting, but the thing that has happened over time is that I've been very deliberate in covering, like making a really comprehensive website that works for families with kids in this age group. So baby food to like 3, 4, 5 years old.

Yep.

But once I did that, the flexibility that I now have to post recipes that are more generally for families with kids of any age has increased in a way that I couldn't really have predicted. So the ability that I have to rank for like, you know, I'm never going to like, compete with like a giant food site, but I can, I hold my own pretty well with like, general recipes that appeal to both the younger age group and an adult. And my, my goal is really to make most of the food appropriate for an entire family so that you're not needing to cook more than once.

Yeah, but I.

But it's been really satisfying to be able to have like my core content and then to be able to post more sort of general recipes that are the ones that I want to do. So I sort of feel like I have like two things kind of going on at the same time. Like I'm always posting and updating my core stuff and then, you know, if I want to do like vegan chocolate mousse or some sort of popsicle or like a pasta recipe, like, it's. I think showing people that they can make the same food for their family with like very small adjustments is. Has been really helpful for my audience.

Yeah, it's almost like you focus on that narrow and I think this is one of the best approaches to any like, niche or genre or focus area. You kind of do complete coverage of that. Like, what does it look like to holistically cover all the different angles that you could look at this piece of content or this content category from, and then you can kind of build around it with like content adjacent things. So maybe it's something that's not like a toddler, like lunch for toddlers, which as just a curiosity I googled as we were talking here and you're number one result for that. It's like, it's such a great example of what it's like to kind of own a category. But then you can start to do like a banana bread. And it might not be like, oh, that's something you'll always make for lunch for toddlers, but it's something that you could make. And we're entering into this stage with our four almost five year old where like Solvi is starting to help make meals now. And so it's like, what does it look like to work on that together or what would this look like to make something that's not like a kid meal necessarily, but something that everybody would like and enjoy. And you can kind of expand out from that so that, that makes sense when you think about kind of the approach for covering the category and then expanding beyond that as well. What if, what does it look like for you? You know, as you've built it up, you've talked about kind of the different focus areas, the, the different like buckets that you think of. You've talked about affiliate. You talked about like building the traffic which would be ad related. Are there other buckets that are kind of unique to the niche of or even within a niche to focus on? I know that email is another important one for you. I don't know that there's specific perspective.

I don't know that they're specific to my content type. But I did, I think it was about three years ago. I tried, I paid a lot of attention to like diversifying where my income was coming from. Because you know, like every single six months there's like some Google scare where everyone thinks they're going to lose all of their organic traffic. So, so I have the ad revenue and then I have affiliate income and then I do a fair amount of sponsored work with brands and then I sell ebooks which are embedded on my website. So they sort of just sell themselves. I like push them maybe like four times a year on Instagram and in my newsletter. But they are mostly like, there's a yummy toddler snacks, there's a yummy baby food, there's yummy toddler lunches. It's like all of like the core areas of my niche have a corresponding ebook so that if someone wants all of the content together, they have an opportunity to get that. And they're really low priced. So it's. That's like a volume thing.

Yep.

And then I don't really do this anymore, but I did do freelance writing for a while. I have a cookbook coming out and then the newsletter.

Can you talk about the cookbook? Because you have. It sounds like that's a traditional, more traditional cookbook. What was the thought process with doing ebooks first and then what was your thought with going into the more traditional cookbook?

I went back and forth for a long time about whether it made sense from a business perspective because financially the, the income that you can make online from ad revenue is more than I could make from a cookbook advance.

Sure.

And I think that's quite common depending on like how Your traffic is and all of that. But I felt like I was getting so many requests for a printed book and while my ebooks have the option of printing them, like, I knew it wasn't the same and so I. There just sort of came a point where I was like, I think I just want to do it and see if it does anything for my brand. That like, I don't know, it was kind of like, I'm curious to see if this makes any sort of a difference. It has been the longest process.

Sure. It's so hard. And it's such a different way to produce content. I mean, we just hear that like over and over, that it's just like a really difficult process. In, in our world, we have such a short feedback loop. Like you have an idea, you develop the idea. It's different for everybody. But like, you could go from like idea to development to publishing within like three to four days, potentially.

Yeah.

Whereas a book, it's like, you know, a year or three years. No, it's.

Yeah, it's been, it's been a really. Like my son, I think was like six months old. Like, it's. He's four and a half now. Like, it's really so. And I think also the. One of the things that I love about my job is that like, I have that direct connection with my audience. I can make adjustments to things. Like, I can, you know, go into a post and edit it. And so that was like, I will not look at the book because I'm like convinced that there's going to be like something wrong.

Yeah.

But I do think it's. It's the book, which is called Dinnertime sos, has all of my tips for simplifying that time of the day. It's like how to reduce food waste, what to do when you get to the table and the kids don't want to eat. How do you cook a meal for everyone? It's like all of the context and then there's like the stable of recipes that are really easy, really doable. There's no blenders, there's no food processors. There's minimal chopping. I try to use frozen vegetables or jarred sauces or kits or things that a parent with a two year old on their leg would just be able to put into like a pot.

Yeah, totally.

But it is true that it would be if I wrote this book now, it would be different. Like it is. You know, I have lived a lot of life since I read that.

Yeah. It's interesting because it's like what, in three years, four years, what you go in the perspective, like any of us, it changes over time. So it's also one of the hard things when we're used to chronicling kind of our journey as people, as business owners, parents, like content creators in real time. It's kind of like you pick a time and you develop it, you document it, you ship it, but then by the time it's getting in front of people, it's maybe like two years after you were in that same headspace. But to your point, and I think this is. There's something really true about that that's hard to identify. Is there something about a traditional book that shows up in Barnes and Noble and on Amazon and is a physical book that you can buy that does. That lifts your brand in some way? And I don't know what that is or how that works or what all of the different indicators are. I think there's just that perception in general from people. But I think there's also something around your authority as a published author that changes. I don't know if that ties into search at all, if you are a published author in the eeat world of Google, but all of that stuff, I think adds up and makes a difference. So I do think that there's something there and something valuable and it's like a gift to your followers and your readers. Like, it's something they want and it's something that it's. I would assume part of it is like a labor of love as well.

Yeah, yeah. I'm really. I do think that it is going to be useful. I hope it is as useful as I intended it to be when I put the whole thing together.

Totally. So one of the things that is really impressive about what you've built is like, your presence on all the different, different platforms. And obviously we're all kind of always trying to think about building out a following in different places. But like on Instagram, as example, almost at a million followers, how do you view your. The, the different areas where you're showing up online? And how do you prioritize those, knowing that for some people, like, they have a million followers on Instagram and that's all they do. They just like, are on Instagram as an influencer. But for us, like, we have these different places we can show up, the site's really important. You know, an email list is really important. So how do you view the. And kind of prioritize the different places that you show up?

So my website is always the. My first focus that is the thing that is the most planned, I am usually like six weeks out scheduled and I feel like I have a very good handle on that schedule. And I, because of holidays and season seasonal things with back to school. Like I, I know when to put everything on the calendar and I have a good system with my va, who does she like, formats posts for me and puts in the images and then I write the bulk of the content. And then from there I think Instagram is sort of next because that is where my sponsored content primarily shows up. I post everything on TikTok. But TikTok was sort of was. I waited because you know, I just was like. But now it's. I post the same things to TikTok and then it's interesting to sort of see what happens to it. So I think website and then Instagram and then like kind of everything else like comes after that.

All the other stuff.

Yeah, I mean and keeping up with the video production for Instagram for sure is the thing that is like a constant struggle because it just volume wise it's so much content and figuring out like when to do it. Like just the, the logistics of producing all of these different things. But one thing that for sure helped was so I moved to a different state about a year and a half ago and I was like, I have to figure out a better system for the way that I'm working throughout my week. So I found a local food photographer who comes to my house on Wednesday mornings and we usually shoot for recipes. He. So he brings his, his camera, he does all of the lighting and everything and then he edits all of the images and drops them in a folder and taking. So I used to do all of that. So taking that off my plate and making it just this like regular thing that we do has completely change the way that I work.

And previously that was you doing it.

It was me doing it. Yeah. And it was like it took me three times as long and then I had to edit everything and upload everything and it just was like I was more than I could do. And it's a really cost effective way to have professional photos done because I'm making the food and styling the food and then he. He's here for a certain amount of time.

Yep.

So that totally changed things for me and then gave me a little bit more time to work on making videos.

Yeah. And I know one of the things that you've intentionally done is protected the stuff that you enjoy the most about how you work and what you work on. And it sounds like also Thinking strategically about what are the things that you don't want to work on? What are the things that you can have somebody else help with? Can you talk about how that's changed over the last few years as you've started to reflect on preserving the things you want to do while passing off the things you don't want to do?

Yeah, I get a lot of people asking me, like, what do you want to do next? And I'm like, well, I like my job a lot.

I'm there. Like, I don't want to do anything different.

I made this job and I want to do.

Yeah.

So I. I want to be the content creator. I don't want to turn my job into managing other people because that's not what I enjoy most. So I keep the content development with me. And so I come up with what the recipe is going to be. I develop the recipe, I test the recipe, I make it when we're shooting it. And then I have sort of surrounded myself with, like, three people who do all of the other stuff. So I have my photographer and then I have an assistant who is behind the scenes doing, like. She makes sure my ebook site, ebook shop, is working properly. She formats my newsletters. She formats the blog posts. She does a lot of things. She's amazing. She, like, you know, she posts my reels to Pinterest. She posts them to YouTube shorts. So I sort of took myself out of, like, anything I could think of that was not about making the content. And then I also have a copy editor. And so I did work with someone to help me figure out, like, what I could take off of my own plate. And we, like, sort of. That was a very helpful process because I didn't really realize all the ways I could take myself out.

So you worked with somebody. What do you mean by that? So Emily, it was a coach or.

Yeah, like, I forget what she calls herself. Her name is Emily Perrin or Peron. She, like, helps people do, like, a job flow situation for business so you can see who you need to hire or who's doing what or, like, where you can streamline your own work.

That's great. Yeah. We interviewed Emily. I think maybe it's been on a couple times on the podcast. She's. She's a great resource and somebody who's. It's really helpful to have somebody like that. And let me know if this is what it felt like for you who can come in and look from the outside and. And kind of observe you as you work. I think about that with myself sometimes. Like, if I can, like, float outside of my body and then look down on myself as I'm working, I've had the thought multiple times, like, I bet there'd be somebody who would have some feedback for me. Much like if I was a tennis player or, you know, soccer player. The two sports I played growing up always had a coach being like, hey, just so you know, next time, here's how you can do that a little bit differently. But, like, the work that I do every day, I don't really have a coach like that sitting and, like, observing and. And saying, here's some things that you could do differently. Or I've done this with 30 other people, here's a change that they've made that's been really helpful. So I think that's really cool to go through that process and like you said, probably freeing in a lot of ways. What. What did you learn and what did you do in that process that was helpful?

So I think I. It was easier for me to identify what was more like administrative task and what was more like the stuff I actually needed to be doing. So, like, for example, in a blog post, I write the introduction, like two paragraphs at the top. I write the meta description. I write, like, the. The words that is going to sell someone on the recipe because I know it best. And then my assistant does the rest of it. So that was like, a very important distinction because that's a lot of time. The other thing that she did that was hugely helpful is she recommended a project manager who worked with me for maybe a month, and she set up a shared server and she organized all of the things that I use to run the business. So we have, like, shared folders. And it just. I didn't need her after that, but.

I couldn't visualize the system.

Yeah, yeah, it was like, I don't. But now I'm like, how did I live without all of this stuff this way?

And was it like, emailing files back and forth and, like, what was it before and what was it after?

It was like a mess of a Google Drive before that, and she just put everything in its proper place so that somebody else could easily find it.

Could you describe, like, for somebody who wants to try and get something organized on a server, what does that look like? It's hard on a podcast, but, yeah.

It'S like, there's a folder for reels, there's the folder for sponsored work, and then in the sponsored work, every campaign that I do is labeled in a certain way with the month, the year the name of the brand. Like, there's a folder for blog posts, and so every blog post is named with the recipe name. And then there are like the various formats of folder of photos. Each have their own folder. So if we need a vertical version of something, we know exactly where to go to find it. Yeah, it's really. It's very basic, but it is really helpful. Like, my ebook files are all in one place versus being like in my scattered around. Yeah, like on my documents folder.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So it's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about this as it relates to AI, but I think there are starting to be some of these tools and we're testing these. But like, the importance is essentially what it is, the importance of information retrieval. And what we can do right now is, like you said, have this really organized system where the folder's in a certain place. And this becomes increasingly more important as you start to work with other people. It's less important if you kind of have a, you know, for myself, if I have a chaotic desktop, chaotic documents folder, but I kind of know where everything is, where I can just like search it easily. But once you start to work with other people needing to have that central place where somebody can go and where they don't have to ask you, like, so you're working on something, they're like, hey, where's the ebook file? Like, they just know where it is. And setting up those types of systems, like you said, you can do it in a month, work with somebody who's organized and specializes in that, and then the system kind of is there. Yeah. And this is like a side note, but I'm excited about and have tested some of the tools to allow it to get even easier to do like, document querying. So like, so like, you know, for our team, when did we publish the recipe on? Da da da da da or like, even for like our internal team, what's the policy for PTO for somebody within the first year? Like, I think what we'll be able to do is start to get these, like, ingest all of these documents and then start to like, search through them anyways. That's like a nerding outside. But one of the biggest things that we did was we switched over to have all of our files hosted on. We use Google Workspace, which is like the premium version of Gmail. And then within there they have what's called a shared vault. And we have all of our files in this shared vault. So anytime somebody gets like an@foodbloggerpro.com handle. They get added to that vault. That vault has all the files the podcast, as an example, has. You know, for every podcast episode we do is kind of organized in the same way. What do you use for your kind of shared server?

The same. The same thing.

Yeah.

And the thing that. What you were saying about how everyone can find everything. I send my assistant one email a week on Mondays, and I don't have to tell her. She just knows. Like, I just send her the list of what she needs to work on, and she knows exactly where to go. Like, my photographer knows where to put his stuff. Like, it's. It's. I don't ever have to be on the phone. Like, it's really. It's really simplified.

That's great. In the email, are you essentially saying, here's what we need to do this week and here are the places? And you probably don't even need to say, here are the places we go. It's just like this recipe. Yeah.

Here are the blog posts to work on this week.

It's awesome.

If something is, like, unusual or, like, not what she would expect, I explain it. But usually it's just a list. And then we have a shared spreadsheet that we use for, like, newsletter tracking and stuff. So.

Yep, that's very straightforward. That's great. There's. So as knowledge workers, so much of our time is spent looking for stuff, and it's not value add. And I hear. I. What I hear you saying is you're trying to figure out, how do you get to the things that are kind of like two pronged. Number one, the things that you enjoy the most, and number two, the things that matter the most that you're doing them. And like, if you. If you. If the majority of your work is work that matters, if you do it and you enjoy doing it, that can be, like, a really enjoyable workday. That can be a really enjoyable job. And to your point, when people are like, so what's next? You're like, this is it. I love it. Like, you've kind of crafted a job that is a dream job, but you've had to be intentional to do that along the way. So for somebody who's on the other side wanting to get there, what do you feel like were the steps that you took to allow you to get to the point where you were spending the majority of your time on things that you enjoyed?

I think really thinking through what I wanted my role to be like, if so, a lot of people that I know who have similar websites manage People, and they love doing that. That's not what I. So I think, like, those are two very different paths. Like, working with Emily, she had me. That was, like, one of the main things that she had me do. She was like, what do you. Like, what are the areas that you wanted to be spending your time? And it was, like, very, very clear that it was the content creation, and it was not all of the surrounding stuff. Like, I do not ever want to touch a camera. I do not feel like that always feels like a foreign language to me. And I, you know, I made myself do it when I was the budget constraints, but I am not confident, and it's not fun for me. Like, I just. I would rather be making the food. So. So I think just thinking through, like, where are the areas that I want to spend my time? And what can somebody else do better than me? Or what can I give to someone with autonomy? Like, I think one of the reasons that my relationship with Madison, my assistant, works so well is she can do her work whenever she wants to. There's no. And she has, like, full autonomy to do it. She's never waiting, except for Mondays. She's never waiting for me to. To give her anything. Cause she always knows what it is.

Yeah, that's great. It's one of the things that I've been doing. It's not like this, like, rigid routine, but it almost kind of comes from this activity that we've had when we sit down for dinner. It's not like we do it every time. But now our oldest daughter recommends. She's like, can we do sunny and stormy? And what we do is like, what's a sunny part of your day? And what's a stormy part of your day? And we just reflect on, like, what was something that was really good and what was something that was really bad or bad? Like, you know, what was the worst part of your day? And for me, one of the things I've been doing, it's. Part of it is an effort to. Not to, like, stare at my phone as I'm going to bed. Like, I've been trying to, like, not have my phone in bed. So then I'm like, what do I do with my brain in this moment? And one of the things I've been thinking about is, like, in my work day, what was the sunny part of my day? And what was the stormy part of my day? And part of it is just, like, self reflection and self awareness to say, like, yesterday was a day where I had four different meetings. You know, I had this, like, car appointment that I had to drop off the car in the morning. And then I went home early because Lindsey was staying a little bit later. And I was just reflecting. I was like, gosh, that didn't feel great. Like, I wasn't able to get to any emails. I didn't really follow up on Slack, but it informs and make these. Makes these, like, micro adjustments, which for those of us who are kind of building our job description, I think sometimes we forget we can do that. Like, we can go through the process of building something that is a good fit for us and probably to some degree, like, even for anybody who's working in any job, to think, like, how do I shift and change this to be a good fit for me and communicate with somebody I'm working with to say, like, maybe this isn't a good fit. Maybe somebody else could take it on. I think we can all do a better job of reflecting on our work and how we can see if we can make micro adjustments to get it to a point where it overlaps well with, like, what. So. So we can have, like, majority sunny days and stormy days.

I was thinking about that. I was thinking about that lately because this is the time of year when I do a lot of sponsored work tied to lunches and I. So I work with a manager and I had. I emailed them like, three days ago and I was like, we have to do something different next year because this too much. This is making me hate everything. Like, yeah, it's just. And it's the. And I think it's like, demands of. I love working with brands, except when there's like 12 at the same time.

Yeah.

And then it's just. So I was like, what are the options that we could narrow the amount of things I'm doing? Like, and. And I think it's speaking up and just noticing when that happens so that you can make adjustments for the next time.

Totally. Just essentially kind of always monitoring and being like, okay. Oh, that. That didn't feel good. Why was that? That day felt like a drag. Why was it, you know, this was really a sunny day. This was a stormy day. Or a daughter, Lena, who. She just. Her default answer is to the stormy. She's all. Her stormy part of the day is always the storm. Like, there's a store. There was a storm once and it, like, really bummed her out. And so she's like, the stormy part of my day was the storm always. Which is like. I think for a lot of us, it's true. You have a storm in your day. And that's the, that's the low part of the day. One of the things that you talked about as we were connecting here and kind of thinking through the interview was growing your email list. And I know that you've had some success with that and you've kind of approached it maybe a little bit differently than people normally approach it. Um, can you talk about, number one, why your email list is important and then number two, some of the things that you've done to help increase the growth there?

Sure. So I try to think of my email as like a direct way to communicate with people where they can respond to me and I won't lose it. So versus like my Instagram DMs, I can't like, it's just, you will never find it. So if someone responds me on email, I will always see it and I will always be able to respond to it. So that connection is very important to me and it is a place where I share a little bit more longer form writing sometimes because that's my background and I like writing and sort of giving more context to the idea of feeding families.

Yep.

So I have a lot of friends who had moved to Substack and I know you've had some people on who have talked about this. So I've had a lot of friends who've moved to Substack and watching them build community there has been really inspiring. And the way that people can talk to each other.

Yeah.

Is totally different than a traditional email marketing service. So you can like post, you can comment, people see the comments and people can respond to each other. And I really wanted my newsletter to feel like a safe place that people would know that I was monitoring the comments because the Internet can be a little crazy and that if there was anything inappropriate like they knew it would be taken care of. And I can manage it better than I could manage some posts on Instagram. So I currently have Both Substack and ConvertKit running at the same time, which is not someone something I've ever heard anyone else do because so I use convertkit for opt ins and landing pages and all of the traditional email marketing. And then I'm using Substack to send my newsletters each week with the community element. So that does mean that I have to manually import new subscribers from ConvertKit over to Substack. But other than that it has been. I love it. My open rate has been trending upward as I've moved it and I feel like I have options for the future if I want to turn on a paid segment if I want to do a podcast, if there are all of these tools that have, that are in substack that I feel like are things I might want to explore. And then I worked with Matt Mullen, as most bloggers do at some point, to really commit to a strategy for sharing my newsletter on my social accounts. So once a week I do something free. So I either share like a guide or a free PDF or something that is enticing to people. And I've learned that. So he, you know, for a long time he was recommending doing like a five day series, like a mini guide. I have learned that one email, like literally one email with five to 10 links on one subject is really effective. So it's like I did one that was a summer, a kid's summer lunch guide. So it was like five links to posts with like camp lunches, cold lunches, like easy, really easy lunches, and my go to lunchboxes and ice packs and things. So everything was together. People really liked that they didn't have to go hunting around, they didn't have to wait for anything. And it's like a, just sort of a filtered way to get to the website content.

Yeah.

So then those convert. Like when I share those in my Instagram stories, it could be like 2 to 5,000 people are signing up from that. So that's like once a week. So that's like a huge way to grow the list. So it's been like kind of fun to see what's working really well there and just to play around.

And what do you think, like psychologically or. Because I think that's so much of it is like user behavior. What's the difference in the user behavior with something like that? What's happening that's different than like the normal path that people are taking to try and get email signups?

Well, I think it's, I think it feels faster because a lot of the signups are like, like I said, like you have to sort of wait for the content. And then I think there's something about doing it in Instagram stories versus doing it as a pop up because I am directly explaining why this thing is valuable. Like, I know that everyone is struggling to continue to come up with lunches this summer. Here are 27 no cook lunch ideas. I'm going to send you the PDF. You can save it to your phone screen and like open it like an app and like you don't have to do anything except put your email.

Yeah, it's keeping people in the place where they are, where they know they're comfortable. It's like it's not trying to like bend somebody's behavior to get somewhere else.

Right.

It's just a natural way to engage with people where they are.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. So on the. So you kind of view ConvertKit as the platform for opt ins, getting people on the list, bringing them over once they're on there. Your preference in terms of communicating is sub stack. So do you take the people off of ConvertKit and bring them on to substack and is that manual or is that automated?

So the only way to do it is manual.

Sure.

So every few days I just export. I try to keep track. It's not a clean process.

Sure.

So I try to like it works best if I just do it every morning. I just export the new subscribers and then put them in my substack list. I just, I'm leaving my convert kit list alone because I'm not sending to it, I'm just using it as like a collection spot and then I'm just moving them over so that they get the, the two emails a week.

And it, you know, I think it's an interesting observation and you kind of alluded to this like every platform, every place you're communicating is kind of like a party and every party has a different vibe or different things are okay, has a different, you know, feel for how people are communicating. And you know, we are the same everywhere. Like we as the creator, we as the person and so part of what we're trying to do is like figure out what party is best us to hang out at. And for some people it might be you know, a rave where you're up all night and you're partying and for other people it might be a book club and you know, for some people it might be hanging out with your best friend. And all of those kind of analogies could apply to different social media platforms or even like to your point, you know, a traditional one to many communication with a ConvertKit type interaction or mailchimp or whatever the email service provider is is different than a platform like substack substack where the like culture is different and it's neither good nor bad, it's just different. There's interaction in a different way. You can have, you know, comments like you said and it maybe what's different with a substack is the element of community in regards to some of the functionality of community built in to that email platform. And like you said, it opens up then the opportunity to have, you know, a paid subscription, like maybe you have a premium subscription that comes later on. And I was just do a quick reference here to interview that we had with Matt. This was years ago, 2019, but he talked about email marketing. So he's been on the podcast before. He has a site called Email Crush. Is that right? We're talking about the same Matt. Okay, great. And one of the things that I hear in your story and tell me if this is true, is you are intentional to know what you want to do, what you want to focus on, and then you're bringing in experts to kind of accelerate an area that you want to accelerate in email or outsourcing, working with a team. Does that feel true? And has that resulted in recognizable growth for you when you do take those steps to bring in kind of the outside expert to help?

I think so. There was a point, I think it was two years ago where I was doing like, regular sponsored work and it became clear to me that I didn't understand the contracts at all. So I, like, went out and found a management company because I was like, like, that income has significantly increased since I took myself out of the negotiation process. And also just to have someone pitching that I'm not involved in. So I would say it's true with that. It's true with email. I check in with Matt like once a year and just make sure that things are running properly and he'll just like, look over things and give me fresh perspective on stuff. Yeah, I think it's. I think it's very helpful, especially when if you primarily work alone, you can just lose perspective on what other people are doing or even like, how you can just make things easier.

Yep. Can you talk about what it was like to work with the management company? Like, what was the before, what did that look like? And then what did it look like after?

So the before was brands would email me asking, like, for my media kit that I put together on Canva. And I sort of, like, made up rates because nothing is standard in, like. And so now I've been with. So I'm with Cook IT Media. I've been with them for about two years and I've made the choice to stay with them because I feel like they know my brand really well and I'm very comfortable with them pitching me to people. But they. They're great at the only time I. I'm in communication with a brand is when I'm delivering ideas or I'm delivering actual content. And all of the back and forth about Things I don't understand, like whitelisting or exclusivity. Like, I am not the one who is dealing with that. And they've been able to pitch me to clients that I wouldn't have even, like, known were options for myself because they just have, like, they're in the industry seeing all of these things happen in a way that I just don't have access to.

And part of it is the difference between reactive, which, like, that would be true for us. Stuff comes in, we're like, hey, let's take a look at this. And proactive, like, actually reaching out and saying, hey, we know these brands. We're going to reach out to these brands. We're going to pitch you to work with these brands. And it sounds like would be brands that you maybe wouldn't normally look at and be like, oh, I, you know, this would be an ideal brand because you weren't even aware of them or didn't know that they worked with creators.

Or like, sometimes they'll just know that there is somebody who has, like, a campaign coming up. Like, they, they have, like, or with. Even with holidays coming up, they'll start pitching, like, four months ahead.

Yeah.

In a way that I just, like, would not have the bandwidth to do it by myself.

Whenever I have friends who, like, work at Target Corporate and they're like, yeah, we're putting together the Halloween stuff for next year. Like, it's like, wait, 20, 24 Halloween. Not that extreme, but it's just such a different way of operating. Even if you're planning ahead four weeks, eight weeks, like, it's just so different when you get into those big corporate budgets.

Yeah. The other thing I will say is it's been really great to have, like, backup when I want to say no to something or like, I, you know, I will regularly email them and remind them to tell me to not accept something if it's below a rate that I want to work at. Because my, like, inclination would be, like, to say yes to everything and initially.

And then once it comes around. Right. And then I'm like, curse my past self.

Exactly. So it's nice to have them be able to, like, take that and just remind me of what I want to do.

Yeah, that's great. So what do you feel like in this current state of things? It feels like for a lot of people who are looking at what you're doing, they'd say, that's awesome. Like, you've kind of created this dream job, have found success in a lot of, A lot of ways. If you were to distill down the kind of variables that existed for you in your story that allowed you to get to where you are. What were the most important ones? If somebody wants to, you know, look to your story as inspiration and try and not replicate it in like, the exact same way, but replicate it in terms of, like, areas of focus or things that were. That you did that were important, would you be able to distill that down to a few different variables or even one.

So this question is so hard because I don't think I could have done. I don't think I could have done it had I intentionally set out to do it. But I do think the. The covering the content in your niche is. Has been incredibly important for the foundation of my site online, as I don't remember who it was, but I read some book that was like. Or maybe it was on your podcast, I don't know. It was an expert was talking about make a website as if it is the book you want on this topic and continually add to it. And so I really did. Like, I had a spreadsheet where I was like, this is every single keyword I can find on baby and toddler food, and I am going to do all of them. And it sounds crazy, but it is. I think that is a huge, a hugely helpful thing as the starting point. And then I think I've done a good job of listening to my audience when if someone is. So after I did that, I then made a list of all of the questions that people ask me all the time and I made blog posts that corresponded with each of them so that someone dm's me. On Instagram, I have a saved autoresponder that I can start typing website and it fills it in and it sends someone to my website. So, like, listening to what people are asking for has been really helpful. And then I think the part about just like looking at my. What I was doing in my work week and taking out the parts that I didn't want to be doing or that I didn't have to be doing.

Yeah, that's great. When I just wrapped up an interview with Liam from Meal Pro app. Not sure when it's coming out, maybe before or after this interview. But one of the things we talked a lot about on that interview in that interview was the idea of product development or customer development. And in the context of the software world, it's like making sure you understand what the problem is so you're building the correct software. But in our world, it's making sure you understand what the problem is. So you're building the right content and it's cool to hear you reflect on that and how that's been impactful for you, having come out of that interview with him where he reflects on how important that is in the software world. It's kind of all of us like we're building partly for ourselves, but really we're building for an audience who has problems that we're trying to solve, we're trying to help with. And the more you can understand that, the more beneficial it's going to be for both you and your growth, but also for the audience.

So, yeah, people are always. Oh, I was just going to say, like, people are always asking, like, what are you going to do with your site now that your kids are getting older? And I'm like, well, the site's not about me anymore. Yeah, like, it's so.

Yep. Like, you can stay in that and be an expert in that in a pretty significant way, even if you're not in that. That stage still. So. But for those who are in that stage, want to follow along with what you're up to or maybe just keep in touch with you, what's the best way to get a hold of you or follow along with what you're up to?

So the website is yummy toddlerfood.com and it's at Yummy Toddlerfood on all of the social media, everything. And then the book is dinner time SOS and it's in all bookstores or online.

Awesome. When did that come out?

So it's coming out on the 22nd.

Okay. So it's coming down the line. So yeah, by the time the podcast comes out, it'll be out. So yes, people can check that out. Awesome. Amy, thanks so much for coming on.

You're welcome.

Hey there, Alexa here. And thanks for tuning into this episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. We hope you enjoyed it and we just so appreciate you being here. I actually wanted to give you a little bit of a sneak peek into what we have going on on Food Blogger Pro in September. So if you're unaware, the Food Blogger Pro podcast, the podcast that you're listening to right now is only one part of what foodblogger Pro is. The other part is a membership, so you can learn more about it by going to foodbloggerpro.com join. You can learn about all that's included within the membership. We add new content to the site for our members each and every month, and we'd like to say that your membership will look different at the end of each month because we're always adding new value to it. So on the 7th we have a coaching call going live between Naomi from alifedelicious.com and Bjork. In that call they talk about positioning yourself as a resource and incorporating your story into your blog. So they answer questions like how to deal with older content that doesn't currently match your niche, a good glaring issue with user experience, and more. It's a great call and all members will get access to it on September 7th. On the 14th we have our member only live Q and A and it is with Drumroll please Bjork and Lindsay. So they will be talking all about content that is such an important topic for food bloggers because it's the product quote unquote that we're selling as food bloggers. So in this Q and A all members will be able to ask any questions for Bjork and or Lindsay and it's just going to be a great, great. So that'll be on the 14th and then on the 21st we are re releasing a course that we have updated all about understanding recipe plugins. So we will talk about the ins and outs of using recipe plugins, which recipe plugins we recommend how to use those recipe plugins to set up a recipe on your site and more. It's a great course and we're really excited to release it to you all on the 21st. So that does it for us this week. Thanks again for being here. You'll see us next time next Tuesday. And until then make it a great week.