450: Planning for Extended Time Away from Your Food Blog with Jessica Hylton Leckie

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Hey there, this is Emily from the Food Blogger Pro team and you are listening to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. This week on the podcast, Bjork is interviewing Jessica Hilton Leckie from the food blog Jessica in the Kitchen. Jessica first started her blog 10 years ago when she was in school pursuing a law degree, and since that time she's continued to grow her business and now receives between 1 and 2 million page views each month, which is just incredible. In this interview, Jessica shares a lot more about how she grew her blog and what the early days of her site and brand were like, and she also chats about some recent life changes that have led to some business changes. She recently became a mom for the first time and she did an incredible job of planning ahead on her blog and social media accounts for a year long maternity leave. In this process, she learned how valuable it is to outsource certain tasks and how to plan ahead for such a long period. Whether or not you are about to become a parent. This is a super valuable interview. If you've ever just needed a break from your business, if you needed to step away for a little bit to support a family member or for an illness, this is just such a valuable skill to have in your back pocket and Jessica really walks you through, step by step how she did it. It's an awesome interview and I know you'll get a ton out of it, so I'm just going to let BJORK take it away.

Jessica, welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Bjork. Thank you so much for having me on.

Yeah. We're going to talk about your story, growing your site, your social accounts. You've had some great success with that over the past 10 years now, which is crazy. But, like, we do want to hear a little bit about your origin story, where you got started. And then what we're going to do is we're going to talk about this kind of recent big transition in your life with having a little one in maternity leave and how you strategically went about that. But you actually had a baking business before you had your blog, is that right?

Yeah, I did, yeah.

Yeah. And that was in college when you were doing that, is that right?

Yeah, yeah. So I had started doing my undergrad law degree and then I guess I somehow came upon this love of baking that started one night. I was like, I just feel like baking from scratch one night and tried it for the first time. I was like, oh, kind of in love with this, you know, that then I actually got better at it after that. And then it got to the point where I was like, I could actually start, you know, doing this at home, you know, selling this. And yeah, it was the very first site I ever had as well, because I shared.

Sure.

Process online as well.

Yeah, yeah. Shared the process. Like, hey, I'm making this. Here's what it looks like. Or like the process of. The process of creating the cakes or the process of starting the business or both. Maybe a little bit process of both.

You know, so there were like a couple of posts about this is how I did it. But mainly it was, you know, old school blogging of, here's this beautiful cake. No actual recipe, but, you know, this is also what I'm doing in life today, you know, so, yeah, that's kind of how it went.

Almost like a journal, like.

Yeah, yeah.

So what did you learn in that process? Because I feel like that's. Any time that we have these conversations, what's interesting to see is, like how people stack their experiences to get them to the point where they are. And for you, that's a really obvious experience where you had a business, you were running the day to day. It was in the world of food as well, obviously selling physical products. But what was it in that experience? Like, what were the things that you took with you into the process of building kind of a media business or publishing business, which we'll talk about a little bit, right?

Oh, that's a great question. I feel like a couple of things, customer service for sure. You know, like you're actually interacting with people in person. So I feel like I really got into like the deep side of how to help people, how to answer questions, you know, how to really cater to my audience. At the time, of course were in person customers, but you know, shifting that into online as well. And I think just in general, like just building a business, you know, what are the things needed? You know, a business plan, it doesn't matter if it's like physical, if it's online, you know, if it's both, there's a way that they kind of all overlap. So I think those skills really play. And of course it's a food blog, so actually baking and cooking as well, you know, transition very smoothly.

Skill of what you're doing, the product, in some ways the product is the same, even though it's so different, which is food. And you're just almost like the medium that you're selling is different, which is like you're selling exactly the outcome in one regard. Whereas you're, when you're publishing to a blog, you're selling kind of the process and like, here's how, here's how.

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What was the decision to wind that down? Like, yeah, what was that process like? And it's always interesting for me to hear about the start of a business, but it's also interesting to hear about the end of a business. What was that like?

Right, yeah. You know, to be honest with you, I. So in Jamaica you do undergrad law for a few years and then you do law school. Right. I think everywhere in the world is like that as well. And I started law school and I was just like, this is great, but I can't do both time wise, you know, because I would literally leave like undergrad and that was like a couple hours and then I would just for the rest of the day go into, you know, baking. And then when I started law school, it kind of took up a lot more time throughout the day. You're studying now and everything like that. And just time wise it just wasn't making sense. Basically. That was really the only reason because I love doing it, you know. But yeah, just time.

Yep. Yeah. And so you, the general kind of steps along the way. You had undergrad and your side hustle, the baking business and then you went into law school and at that point that's where you said, hey, it doesn't make sense to do this side hustle because I just need to focus on law school as my primary thing. And then where did your site fit into that mix? Like, at what point did you start to do your site and kind of think of that as, like, a potential business?

Yeah, so I think the site was kind of always there in the background, even when it wasn't like a food blog yet. So I started the site as. And this was when Blogspot was like, you know, the thing. So it started it as jessica bakes.blogspot.com and, you know, just sharing. And then from then, it was kind of like, oh, you know, I'm getting an interest into cooking as well, so I share a recipe here and there every now and then. And so it was kind of just like in the background, you know, kind of weaving in. And so when I stopped doing the actual, like, selling of the cakes, the cookies, etc. The blog was already there, you know, and then from there I was like, well, why? I can't necessarily do this physical aspect. I can always, you know, do this online. This is something I can actually do on the weekends and share here and there, you know, and then I really started to really fall in love with that aspect of it. So, you know, I mean, maybe I was in the background of the classroom on Pinterest. There's a potential that was happening.

Yeah, like, you were taking these law classes and then maybe listening in, listening in a little bit, but also, like, figuring out how to build this business. Build traffic.

Yeah, yeah.

And so you did law for a couple years after that and then decided to go full time into your site.

Yeah, so I did law for about a year afterwards. And around that time, it was kind of the realization of, okay, you know, I'm really enjoying this, and I'm starting to make some sort of an income from it as well, you know, so kind of made a plan at that point in time where I was like, all right, what does it look like if I wanted to kind of transition into this? So it wasn't an immediate thing, and I would never encourage anyone to just, you know, quit just like that. It was more like a plan of, like, whether it's six months or a year or whatever that looks like to say, this is what it would look like. Do I have X amount of savings? You know, can I make this plan and kind of move forward into this? Do I feel like there's a confidence or the trajectory? You know, is this a scalable business? And I felt like the answer was yes to all of those things. So at that point in time, I was like, okay, this is a leap I can take, basically.

Yep. And it's played out well. Like you have, you know, 1 to 2 million page views on your site, over a million followers across social media. And so you have this successful business, but in the moment, it's hard. Yeah, it's hard to make that decision because, oh yeah, you've invested a lot of time into this career and kind of going in a certain direction. And I think that's a hard thing for a lot of people to go through four, five, six years of education and then a couple years outside of that say, actually I'm going to do a little bit, or not a little bit like a significant career change. What was it like for you to let go of the work that you had done to kind of understand and get educated in the world of law and kind of get some momentum going there and then say, actually I'm okay letting that go in service of trying to build this new pursuit?

Yeah, you know, I mean, I love that you brought it up because it's a big commitment. Right. Like if you, for example, you know, you've decided to do law that's even years before university, you know that you've made that decision that it's coming in. So it's a huge change. Which is funny because I know a lot of food bloggers that were lawyers. Right. There's, there's a big group of us. But it looked a lot like, to be honest with you, getting a lot of like, support, whether it's from my partner, my parents, like people also encouraging me and saying, hey, I see this, you know, because yeah, there's, there's a worry aspect. There's also, you know, you want to make everyone proud of you as well. So you're like, I'm not sure what this looks like. There's also, I feel like trying not to think too much about other people's opinions because especially, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years ago, there's a mindset of you're doing what, you know, you're leaving all to do this online thing. I don't understand, you know, so unfortunately that I didn't get that reaction from my family or like my partner or anything like that. So I think that really helped me, like confidence wise as well. But it also just looked like trying to take a similar mindset. Like I think I've always been business minded and I think law also helped like as a background to kind of confidence as well, of, you know, okay, I know I can do this. How can I utilize this degree towards this? You know, so even like for Me, that looks a lot like being used to reading, you know, being used to research, you know, being used to, like, thinking outside of the box, because you have to do a lot of that in law as well, you know, so trying to say, okay, I already have this degree, what can I do with it? To use it in this way, basically.

Yeah, I love that. And it's not necessarily like all of the work that you had done, the education and, and kind of effort you'd had in the world of law suddenly is invaluable. It's just like, okay, some of it is maybe not valuable, but a lot of it could be. And how do you bring that over into this new pursuit? And I feel like we all have those things. Like, for Lindsay, it was being a teacher and. Exactly, yeah. Teach well in what she's doing and in, in creating content. And for other people, it might be their project manager. And like, how does that transfer over? And so we all have these skills that we can bring into our new areas of interest or our new pursuits. The other thing that you talked about is kind of that transition period where you talked about, hey, I know I want to do this. I want to figure out how to make it work. It sounds like you almost talked about kind of having some Runway. So, like, you knew, I'm going to try this for a year. I have some momentum and I can kind of see if I continue plotting this line out, I'll get to a point where it makes sense. But maybe you weren't at the point where it made a hundred percent sense in that moment, but you knew, like, you could potentially get there. Is that kind of what that season looked like as you were like, hey, I'm gonna dedicate all my time and energy. I'm gonna try and get to this point. If I get to that point, that means that I can continue to do this as a full time gig. Is that how you kind of processed it or what did that look like?

Yeah, definitely. Actually, I guess it's a full circle moment. So even like in my office at the time, I would have up like these quotes. I had a quote from you on the wall, you know, that you had said, yeah, 1% every day, you know, like for basically. And that actually was very helpful because you can't see it all in that moment, you know, and it's trying to just say, okay, this is what I can see right now. I know what I want it to be. I have my goals, you know, and kind of just like building on it from there. So, yeah, there Was definitely a lot of trusting oneself, you know, trusting the industry as well, you know, and saying, okay, I know the potential that this has and this is how I can grow from here, basically.

That's awesome. And for those who aren't familiar, we talk a lot about in the podcast this idea of 1% infinity. So we have a parent company. The parent company is actually called Tiny Bit, and it's based on this premise of getting a tiny bit better every day forever. And one of the things that we can do as creators to not get, like, crushed by the overwhelming amount of tasks and to dos is to show up and say, okay, my job today is to think about what is the. What is the small thing that I can improve? How do I get it a tiny bit better today? And you don't have to do everything. You don't have to do an expert, but if you stick with it for 10 years, like, as is the case for you, you can really make some incredible progress and build a really cool.

Thing, which you've done.

And it's cool to see that kind of played out. So what did that look like for you when you thought about making those small improvements, that 1% infinity mindset? Like, how did that actually play out in your day to day as you were, you know, in the early stages of building this thing?

Yeah, so I would definitely say in the beginning it was. It started off kind of like, okay, quite literally a book, a pen. These are my goals for, you know, this year. So when I first went full time, it was March, right. And beginning of March. And I would literally say, okay, this is what I want this year to look like, goals wise. This is what I want this month to look like. I kind of breaking it down from there, like, to this week or, you know, to the date. Right. So really just trying to have, like, goals, what smart goals, you know, actual achievable things. So not just saying, oh, I want to make X, you know, it was like, okay, scalable, you know, this is how much I'm making now. What do I feel like is a realistic, but also kind of shooting for the stars kind of amount, you know, and then just like day to day, like, learning about this business, learn about this industry, editorial calendar for blog posts, you know, this is what I want to do. This is how I'm gonna break down my photography, my videography, my blog post writing. You know, every day I try to learn something new because at the end of the day, I was still. Even though I wasn't brand new, like, I was brand new to doing it full time. Right. So, for example, like, moz.com was like a huge resource for me at the time. You know, like every day I'm gonna try and read four pages of this or something like that, you know, so that I kind of was always in that mindset or joining Facebook groups, you know, which I still find is helpful to this day of this is new in the industry and that kind of stuff, you know, subscribing to certain websites, um, that was helpful as well. But I think most importantly was just a consistency of it. Trying not to get overwhelmed and just having a realistic schedule. I feel like at the time, you know, I did do like. And it was Jessica, big suggestion kitchen. That's kind of like what I did mainly, you know, so I dedicated a lot of my life, a lot of my time to it. You know, I don't regret doing that. But I did say, okay, this is kind of what's going to look like all day, you know, in order to achieve these tasks, in order to achieve these goals, et cetera. And it just eventually got. I wouldn't even say the word easier, but just easier to, like, grasp, easier to continue, basically.

Yeah, you start to master the skills that you learn about. And it doesn't come from one day of cramming. It comes from a thousand days of reading.

Right, yeah.

Or articles on Moz.

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

Cumulative effort. After a while, you know, there's that. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Tipping Point. I think it was in Tipping Point where he talks about. Are you familiar? Like the 10,000 hours. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Tomosto. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then there's a.

So accurate.

Yeah, yeah. And. And the basic idea with it. And I think macmore, like, wrote a song about it as well, which is just this great song about dedic. Dedication to a craft and.

Right, right, right, right, right.

And a thousand hours. Like, if you think about that, it's like five years of a full time job of like.

Right. You know, Exactly.

Learning a thing and.

Exactly. Yeah.

I think sometimes as creators, a lot of times we think like, oh, this is all stuff that should be easy.

Instagram, that should be easy.

I know. Instagram, like, right, yeah, yeah, everybody.

Yeah, yeah.

But actually, like, all of these things take a really long time to get mastery of. And I love how you approached it, which is like, I'm gonna stick with this for a long period of time and I'm gonna break it down day by day, so over time I can make progress. And then like you said, eventually you Start to look at it and you're like, oh, actually I kind of understand this and probably better than most people in the world. Like you become an expert.

Yeah.

Because of the culmination of thousands of hours of not only educating yourself but also putting it into practice. Like those two things.

Yeah, no, definitely. Yeah.

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So it's funny that you brought up, you know, it changes your life because I'm like, I'm like here and I'm like also hearing my dots in the background. I'm like, yeah, totally not totally coming over the recording too much.

No, no, no.

It's life now, right? Yeah. But, you know, I think it's one of those things where it's such an individual experience. Right. So I have like a friend right now. She just gave birth and she knew from the get go. I want to start back work like as soon as possible. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, everyone is going to have their own experience, their own, like, wants. And I, I don't know, I just had this feeling of, man, I really want. I remember years ago, I'd first seen someone take like they just took six months. I was just like, oh, I didn't even. She was also an entrepreneur. I didn't even realize that that was possible. You know what I mean? And everyone's experience is different. And I said, I wonder what it would look like if, for as much as possible, for like Sammy's like, first year of life, if I could just be there, very, very present because I know the time is going to pass. And now she's like almost 13 months. I have no idea how that happened. Right. Yeah, it definitely just. I think after finding out I was pregnant and everything, and as I got closer, you know, to her due date, I just had this overwhelming feeling of I love my site, I love my blog. But man, I really want to be able to just like, really just focus on her, you know, that first year as much as possible. And like you said, I don't think there's 100% stepping away. I don't think I would want to step away 100% either, you know, But I do feel like I really got to step away a lot and I'm really grateful for that as well. And I think from there it just kind of. I started off trying to like, I didn't. I couldn't find like a Resource of how to take the first year for baby's life off as a food blogger. Right. I didn't exist, you know, so I was just like, okay, you know, maybe I can ask, like, other friends who maybe just did this or, like, checking, like, some of the Facebook groups, you know, to see and there are answers here or there. But I think I kind of realized, okay, I kind of have to, like, just build this for myself. You know what I mean? I think that looked just a lot like the same kind of approach to starting a business. Right. And, you know, it doesn't even have to be maternity leave. It could be. I want. I had a long year. I want to take the first month off or 1. Take the first two months off. You know, what does that, like, big planning look like, basically? You know, and, yeah, it's.

Part of it is. It can just be. What does it look like to step back within the context of maternity leave or mental health or a parent who's struggling with their health and you wanting to be there.

Yeah.

And so all of those. It's a skill to be able to build a thing that you can, in some ways, kind of have levers and control the amount that it requires of you.

Definitely, yeah.

When you went about building it, like, what did you look at in terms of, like, the different pieces that you needed to pay attention to? Or, you know, if there were those levers, what were those levers that you pulled? Like, did you scale way back on content and just kind of view it as maintenance? Or did you do a bunch of content ahead of time and work really hard leading up to it? What did. What did it actually look like? And what did you learn from it?

So I think the first thing I did was, like, what do I want the site to look like when I'm, like, away? Right. And I really wanted it to almost seem as if I had left, you know, like, this was content was still going out. You know, videos are still going out, stories were still going out, et cetera. And then kind of working backwards, you know, and it started with a plan again. Paper, pen. I have a lot of notes on my computer, but I feel like I'm just a paper and pen person. And so it kind of started from, okay, what can I do right now to kind of adjust myself mentally so I'm not overwhelming myself because, you know, pregnancy is such a big thing in your life. You know, you're changing so much at the same time. Right. And that looked, for example, we were doing, like, three reels a week, and so that looked like scaling it back to one a week, right? That was really scary. But it worked. And I was like, okay, this is already going to be easier, like going in. And like, full disclaimer. I do have an assistance. And that was like the biggest help, you know, that I could have gotten going in. Because here was someone who I've been working with for a while who I could say, hey, this is the plan. This is what I want to do. You know what I mean? And so it looked like making a plan, especially for the first. I knew I at least wanted the first three months as hands off as possible. And so kind of like drafting out that plan, doing content ahead of time, especially videos. I did a lot of like batching for videos, you know, for recipes. It looks a lot like, okay, I think we all have recipes, like randomly that's not actually on the site. So how do I actually make that, you know, something that can go on the site, you know, or even say.

Like, you had something in your back pocket kind of that was a go to so you didn't have to develop it in the same way that you would. It's just like, hey, let's document this thing. That's a go to for me.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I had so much more than I realized. That's the interesting part. I was like, whoa. Or like, maybe if I did like a sponsored video on social media years ago and that that recipe just never made it to the site, you know what I mean? So I had a lot of. Or if it was like a video I'd done before, it was kind of like, how can I rework this? One of the things I did were like these roundup videos, like these roundup reels of everything I cook this month or, you know, what I eat in a day. Those did really well because I found like I could put together old pieces of content to kind of make them a new as well. And we just did reposts as well, you know, for a lot of stuff. Maybe I changed the voiceover or change a font, you know, to kind of, you know, feed the algorithm and give it what it needed in terms of new content, you know. And then a lot of outsourcing happened, a lot of delegating as much as I could. So kind of like seeing, okay, how can I work with a team to help me manage even like the organize not a blog post, you know, making sure those went out on time or had this in there, etc. And then like my assistant did a lot of the actual, like hosting, you know, so like, we scheduled and we drafted this big schedule for months, basically. And then, like, while the first few months of Sami's life, my husband was the main point person as well. So if anything happened, if there are any explosions, you know, any questions, show to him, you know.

Yep. He's the first line of defense.

Yeah, yeah. And he did some recipe testing in the beginning as well, you know, so it was kind of just like a nice big plan that I'm so grateful actually worked, basically. But like you said, it was kind of just like a playbook of how to spend time away, basically.

Yeah, totally. And it sounds like the important pieces of that, like, if we look at those different levers, one of them was adjusting the amount of content. And that can always go up and down like you can. Just because you've always published three blog posts to your blog doesn't mean that you need to do that forever. So what does it look like potentially to scale that back or on social media or wherever it is? So that's one of the levers that you adjusted. Another was another level was how much of the work are you doing? And you can adjust that one up or down as well. We could do all the work or we could have people come in and help with that work. Do you have kind of a decision framework that you used for what you would hold on to or you didn't have somebody else do, for instance? My guess is you didn't have somebody else showing up on social media. It was always you, but somebody else was scheduling it. So anything that you kind of used as a line in the sand around, like, I'm not going to delegate this.

You know, I think there were, like, easy questions of what do I actually want to do? You know? So, like, I always knew I love doing blog comments. Right. So even though maybe that would have been easier for someone else to take on, that was something I always knew. I feel like it just gives me a pulse on, like, how readers are feeling about recipes and everything. But like you said, also, what would really help me time wise, if someone else was able to do this. You know what I mean? And if some. And is it possible for someone to do this? Because you're right, like, it was still me in the videos, you know, so that was a lot of. I mean, I remember just like batching videos and then like just changing shirts to do, like, the actual me part. Yeah. You know, but yeah, what does it look like if I can. Like, with my assistant, we did a lot more like video calls, you know, hey, so this is how we're gonna, you know, if this goes wrong, this is how you can fix this or this is how you upload this video to X, you know, so it was a lot of like looking at that. But yeah, just like, like you said, that basic thought process of what would help me the most in this time period, that I know someone can do this just as well as I would do this, basically.

Yeah. And I think the other piece with it that I think about is like, what are the things that wouldn't make a difference if I did them or not? Or like in your case, if you did them or not. And it would, it would probably make a difference if like somebody else suddenly started showing up on Instagram on a.

Right. Yeah, yeah.

But it wouldn't make a difference if you were the person who was in the reel and somebody else uploaded it, like as an example. And so, yeah, my guess is kind.

Of like what would keep the status quo, basically.

Yeah, for sure.

And I think for a lot of us, we're doing a lot of things that it doesn't matter if we're doing them or not. And then once you really get into it, you're like, wow, there's a lot of things that other people could help with. Now the big question then is like, has the business grown to a point where you can justify hiring somebody? Or if it hasn't, are you willing to invest in a way to maybe potentially grow it faster?

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Getting having gone through it, being a year out now, looking back, what are the things that you'd say, hey, if I, you know, had another maternity leave, I would for sure do this in the same way. And what are some of the things that you would do different?

You know, that's a great question. I do think as much as I love comments, I would give that Opal as well. You know, I feel like just like faq, you know, sharing, hey, someone asks this, you know, this if maybe there's an emergency, then reach out, you know. But I feel like that was the only thing that I felt like I held onto that I didn't need to. I would definitely continue or repeat, you know, the planning beforehand that helps so much. So I didn't ever feel like I'm there, you know, Sammy's just born and I'm no trying to like rush put on makeup or anything, you know. And definitely there was a lot of time like during maternity, during pregnancy, sorry, like third trimester, where I was just like, I'm tired. You know what I mean? And I tried to just balance that out. But yeah, I feel like also just the realization of your audience is here for you. They understand you. You know, they're not going to be like, how dare you? Like they know I'm pregnant, right? They're not going to be like, how dare you cut on content. So I think just maybe giving myself a little bit more peace and grace that if it doesn't go perfectly, that's also okay. But I think everything I did, I'm really happy I did and I would repeat again, you know, with regard to the delegating, I'd probably even do that even earlier, you know, even from like second trimester. Because I found that that was not only the most helpful thing. I'm still doing it now, you know, because you're right, it's like you kind of realize, oh, maybe this is being done slightly differently from how I would do. But that doesn't actually mean that it's a bad thing. You know, in a lot is it is a good thing because this person has a specific skill set you know, that they can really, like, focus on this, whereas you were maybe trying to do everything at once, you know, or even if it is not exactly the way you want it, it's still being done properly. You know what I mean? So kind of like that realizing that, kind of letting go.

Yeah, yeah. That was going to be the next question I was going to ask was like. Because I think a lot of times we have a forcing function like this. Like we have kids and we, you know, do maternity leave or paternity leave, and we step away. And then we realized, like, oh, the thing that I was doing that I thought was really important for me to do is still happening just the same or maybe even sometimes better. Yeah, let's just keep this going. So it sounds like some of the systems you implemented you continue to have as part of your business today. Is that true?

Yeah, definitely. In fact, I feel like, like, no, 20, 24, you know, a year after, you know, she's been born and everything, now I kind of feel like it's when I'm actually combing back into every day. So I kind of started very slowly coming back in. And at first it was just like, you know, maybe during nap times on my phone or something like that. And then, you know, as she was getting a little older, it was like, okay, I can get that over here and over there. I'm like, no, it's like, on these days, I can get stuff done. On these days, I'd rather, like, spend time with her. Let's go to the park or go on the road or something. But, yeah, it's realizing that, wow, this really worked. And there's a feeling of confusion because I feel like before I told myself I had to do all of this, you know, and so you kind of step back, slightly scratch your head, and you're like, oh, this is working. Okay, I guess I can just keep doing this, you know, monitor it, make sure it's continuing to scale with the business and, yeah, just go from there. Basically.

Yeah. There's this great book. Have you ever read the E. Myth? Or heard of E. Myth? It's an older book, but in it they talk about this idea of working on your business versus working in your business. And I don't. Yeah, yeah, there's. I don't think there's necessarily a right or a wrong. It's just an interesting way to think about it. And I think for a lot of creators, being the main creator, we are working in the business. Like, we are creating content, we're publishing that content. But There is this kind of sliding scale where you can adjust it and you can say now. And it sounds like this is a lot of what you did. Now I'm going to work on the business. And for you, it's looking at the processes, the systems, the tasks that need to get done and saying who can help out with that? Where you're not in the weeds actually doing it, but you're, you're kind of stepping outside of it and looking on it. And then it's almost like a lot of what we're doing is, you know, we have the products we're creating, the content that we're creating. We know that really well. But if you step outside of it, your business can also be that, like, it can be this Right. Kind of living thing that, that you treat as. There can be strategy around it and.

You know, kind of like the CEO system. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. Yeah.

And so having gone through that and having experienced it, do you feel like your relationship with your business, like, has changed at all? Like what. And what does that look like now?

Yeah, that's a great question. I feel like before Jessica and Kitchen was my baby, you know, and understandably, you know, literally late nights and everything, and now I do feel I still love my business, you know what I mean? But I am able to, like you said, step back a bit and see, okay, this thing that maybe I needed to work on for a while now. But like you said, I was so busy working in the business before, I wasn't able to like, you know, get to it. Now I feel like I can, or like I said, you know, kind of making those CEO decisions basically, you know, and saying, okay, one, if we need to do this or even just like all the changes happening to our industry, you know what I mean? Being able to actually focus on those a whole lot better now and to strategize for them, you know, looking at the scalability of the business in general. So I do feel like, I feel like I view it a lot more business wise now. Still love it. Still. Especially love, like, you know, Instagram, DMs, talking to readers, that's like my favorite thing. And comments, you know what I mean? But being able to step back and say, okay, how can I look at this business year over year. No, you know, I don't think I got to do that as much as I wanted to in the past to kind of look at those, you know, 20, 24 goals, you know, kind of thing.

Yeah, yep. That's great. So one of the, it reminds me one of the exercises Lindsay and I did years ago, we each created a list, and it's like, what I do and what I don't do. And it's so simple. Like, it's so simple. But it was such an interesting exercise to go through to say, like, in, in our job, here's what we do and here's what we don't do. And it was a little bit of, like, a light job description, but we're creating it for ourselves. And the great thing is, like, when you talk about Instagram DMs, like, that's a helpful thing, like, you're connecting with readers, but it also gives something to you. And so for us, I feel like entrepreneurs, one of the great opportunities is we can look at that and say, like, what are the things that we love doing that are valuable? What are the things that we don't love doing that aren't valuable? And just not do those. And then what are the things we don't love doing that are valuable? And then.

Right.

Bring somebody in.

Yeah, yeah.

Help and to delegate that. So for somebody who's interesting in starting the process of working with somebody, whether it be having an assistant or, you know, delegating to other people, what did.

What.

What advice would you give to them if they're kind of stepping into that for the first time?

Right. I mean, that list idea, I did do a version of that years ago. And I'm so happy you brought that up because it is, like, I'd say a perfect, perfect starting point. You know what I mean? And like you said, kind of. I think the biggest question, if you can start looking for help, you know, is what do I actually enjoy doing? And even so, there's stuff we can enjoy doing that we're still taking too much time on it, you know what I mean? Especially if it's taking away from other stuff, you know. So I think kind of being very realistic about your business goals, being realistic about, like you said, what are the things I have to do? Just business wise, what are the things I don't have to do? I love that list idea completely, you know, and yeah, starting from where can I find this help? You know, I'm really grateful. Like, my assistant connection was through another blogger friend, you know, but there are so many groups, you know, there's so many, like, resources, websites. I feel like the Facebook, like, blogger groups are a great place to start, you know what I mean? And, yeah, kind of just building out a plan from there and adjusting it, because I think one of the things when I first Started like, getting assistance was realizing it is actually okay if someone doesn't do things the exact way you do, because everyone has a different skill set. Everyone has a different way of approaching things, and you may learn something new in the process. You know, as long as it's being done the way that, you know, it should be do being done, then that's what's, like, more important versus, like, the very micromanaging. Because then I kind of feel like you're not actually benefiting from the help if you're doing too much micromanaging. You know what I mean? So kind of, yeah. Finding a way to say this is working, and it's let me allow everyone to be human in the process, basically.

Yeah, totally. Which is a hard thing to learn. And part of it, too, I think, is like, okay, what is the actual task that needs to get done or job that needs to get done? And then.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, there might be, like, a really specific way how you have to do it, but maybe not. And, like, as long as you are able to figure out, like, here's how this thing has to get done, like, allowing people autonomy and flexibility in doing that. It's one of the great joys of work, whether you're an entrepreneur or somebody on a team is, like, having that autonomy to figure out and to, like.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Idea of where to go.

Yeah. I feel like even just parenting in general has kind of taught me to be more flexible. Right. You know, So I think that helps a lot. Especially, like, looking over last year and just seeing, like. Like, okay, you know, maybe there's something that in any aspect, you know, realizing that there's a reason why you're delegating it. Let's start there. You know, and as, like you said, as long as the task is being done, like, another person's personality, like, doing it in a slightly different way is actually probably a good thing. You know, I've learned so much, you know, from even just seeing the way my system did something or someone else that, like, I delegated to doing something that I think was actually really good for me to say. Oh, never thought about it that way, but that's great. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yep. Yep. That's great. Jessica. It's great to hear your story. One of the things I love about it is, like, it applies to so many different people in so many situations. It's not just somebody who's going into maternity leave, although, you know, or paternity leave. It's like, all of us have these seasons of life where we can't be on in the same way that maybe we have historically. And at the same time we don't want to things to fall to the wayside and not be kept up. And so these skills and abilities and the ability for us to say, hey, we want to keep this thing going, but we don't necessarily want to be the only person shoveling coal into the engine of the train. When you have somebody else come in and help, it's like, oh, it's really great to have some support to keep the train going and so you're not the like, yeah, person keeping the fire hot. So if people want to connect with you, it sounds like one of the ways they can do that is Instagram sending you a dm. But if people want to follow along in other places, I know you've just been doing such great work. You have a cookbook, you have your site, you have social media, but you can do kind of a overview of where people can connect with you and follow along, of course.

So I mean, the website jessicainthekitchen.com you know, I'm actually in there answering comments. So, you know, that's a great place to connect. Instagram as well as well. Jessica in the kitchen TikTok Jessica in the kitchen Facebook is facebook.com Jessica in the kitchen blog and by email as well. You know, jessicaesica in the Kitchen is my personal email and I love answering emails from readers as well. So yeah, you know, shoot me an email, shoot me a DM and I'm there.

That's awesome. Jessica. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me. This was great.

Hello there, Emily. Here from the Food Blogger Pro team. We hope you enjoyed listening to this week's episode of the podcast. Before we sign off today, I wanted to mention one of the most valuable parts of the Food Blogger Pro member membership and that's our courses. In case you don't already know, as soon as you become a Food Blogger Pro member, you immediately get access to all of our courses. Here on Food Blogger Pro. We have hours and hours of courses available, including SEO for food blogs, food photography, Google Analytics, social media, and sponsored content. All of these courses have been recorded by the Food Blogger Pro team or some of our industry experts and they're truly a wealth of knowledge. We're always updating our courses so you can rest assured that you're getting most up to date information as you're working to grow your blog and your business. You can get access to all of our courses by joining Food Blogger Pro. Just head to foodbloggerpro.com join to learn more about the membership and join our community. Thanks again for tuning in and listening to the podcast. Make it a great week.

Sam.