How Mike Johnson Makes Money as a Full-Time Food Blogger | The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

Like if you were to look at the. All the different components of what you do the. As a, as a business and pie chart it out. I know there's a lot of different things you're doing. You're working with brands and sponsors you're doing. I think you work with mediavine. Do Air Subs. We interviewed the founder of Air Subs, which we'll link to that podcast in the show Notes. What does that look like in terms of the pie chart and curious kind of what your thoughts are as a business owner of how you want to adjust those. Like more sponsored content, less sponsored content, more around, like classes, less around classes. What are your thoughts around that?

So right now my focus has been trying to do less sponsored content and bring in more passive income with media buying through ads and SEO. So I have been. For the past, I will say part of this has been I lost like the first, like 25 recipes that I posted on my blog randomly. WordPress. We don't know what happened, but essentially my photos are gone. So the blog post is still there, but all of the photos are gone. So I've been using this as like a, you know, some, A lot of them I have the shoots for. So just like re editing the photos. But I've been like, reshooting old recipes, revamping old recipes, you know, reworking them and like really going through and like optimizing the post. Because before it was just like this. That's like really good. And here's, here's the recipe. So now I've been like going through and like, you know, actually, you know, you know, now that I know about SEO and everything, you know, optimizing this blog post. So my focus has been on getting, you know, my blog to a healthy, healthy position essentially to where I don't need to necessarily rely on sponsored posts or anything like that for an income. Cause I'd say that's primarily where most of my income is coming from. Right now. I should say it's sponsored posts and then a tie between, you know, the baking classes that I'm offering and ad income.

Yep.

So I'm trying to get that ad income a little bit larger on the pipeline so I can. I'm already picky with the brands I work with. But in a sense, I think having that increased traffic would allow me to, I guess I could say, be even more picky, which would be. Would be nice. And I could focus on putting out, you know, recipes that I, that I only want to do and not really have to think about, like, oh, how can I incorporate this product that I might. I'm probably already using anyways, but in a way that makes the product shine. Yeah.

And there's just additional considerations when it's not just you thinking of something you want to do, but it's you thinking of something you want to do that will also work for the goal of the brand.

Yeah.

Which might be different than what your goal would be, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just creates complexity and content creation.

Yes.

I see that you work with an agency. Can you tell me about what that has been like? And in knowing that, like, you technically can review contracts and a lot of times that's why somebody would work with the agency is like, review contracts, do negotiations, all things that you can do. What was your thinking with working with an agency and what has happened?

Like, yeah, so I am with Smith and Saint. I think I signed with them probably September of last year, maybe October, and it's been great. I was a little apprehensive at first, only because. Not, not because of them, but just I. I had the mindset and I had actually talked to. To a friend maybe a week before Smith and Saint reached out, and we were just like, oh, I don't think we'll ever get an agent. Like, I was like, I like the negotiation side. And like, you know, I can handle, you know, xyz. And then maybe literally a week later, both of us signed with the same agency. But it has been great, I will say. I. So it's primarily run. It's two sisters that started it. And I. Why I really liked them when I first, like, met them was because they're kind of the same size story as me. They are both attorneys that have now left kind of the practice of law. So, you know, same boat that I was in, I was still using what I learned in law school for, you know, contracts negotiations and stuff. But I was getting up when they had reached out. It was, you know, started, you know, quarter three, getting ready for quarter four. And I was starting to spend more time on the computer answering emails back and forth than I was, like, in the kitchen or getting to, like, do anything that I enjoyed doing. Like, I wasn't taking photos or anything like that. I just felt like I was, like, on the computer three out of the five days of the week. Yeah, working. So I was like, you know what? Let's. Let's try this out and see, you know, what happens. And it's been great. I wish I would have done it sooner. They handled all of that for Me. So now I, you know, I'd say traditionally, now brands are reaching out to them directly. Any brands that, like, I might have worked with in the past or that contact me directly, I just like, loop in my manager and we kind of like, you know, tag team and do everything together, but we're like, you know, in constant contact through text and everything. And she just kind of like handles literally everything dealing with, working with brands. So, like, she has, you know, she'll do all of the Google Calendar invites and the deadlines, all of the negotiations. She handles all the contract stuff. I basically don't get involved with a brand until the contract is signed. And I'm like, pitching recipe ideas and we're like going, going over that stuff. So it's given me a lot of time to like, focus on other things because as you running a business, there are many things to focus on. So it's truly freed up a lot of my time and I could not be happier.

Yeah, it's a. We've been using this kind of business framework called eos, and they have all of these different kind of tools, so to speak, but one of them is called gwc. And it's kind of a analysis that you do for any of the functions of your role. So, like, a function of your role in this example would be negotiation and brand relationship. And GWC stands for Gets, it, wants it. Capacity to do it. And so in that exercise, like you would get it right, you're an attorney, you can do negotiations. You know, it wants to do it. Maybe like, it sounds like you were like, yeah, this is kind of fun. I like doing it. It's something I enjoy. Capacity to do it. No, like, you just don't have the time to do it. So in the GWC test, you'd say, well, I just don't have the capacity to do this. So then what? Well, you delegate that to somebody else and find somebody who can do that really well. And it's such a freeing moment. I remember this feeling when I was processing all of the invoices that would come in. So any contractor, vendor that we would work with, they would just email me and then I'd go and I'd process that invoice. And I was like, it only takes like five minutes for me to do that. But I remember when we hired somebody and one of the roles that we assigned to them was like processing invoices. I trained her in on it. And it's a really freeing moment when you can get an inbox, a message in your inbox. An email in your inbox or message that's a dm and you can just forward that. It's like that's the amount of work that you need to do is like route it to the person who needs to see it. Yeah. And I think the. The more that your responsibilities increase, the more that you're having to figure out who you're going to route stuff to within your team. And it sounds like that was a big win for you. Do you have other thoughts on what those roles will be in the future? Are you thinking about working with other people? What's the next, you know, area that you're going to look to bring somebody in to help with, whether kind of an agency in. In like this or a team member? Any thoughts around that?

Yeah, so I. Two. Two positions immediately. Top of my head. One is I am going to eventually hire someone out to do everything relating to Facebook and Pinterest because I just hate spending time on those two platforms. And I just feel as though, especially with Pinterest, that it's just so viable for. For my business. And it does. Out of all of the social media platforms, I would say, at least for me, it is. Pinterest is the highest traffic driver. So it's. I know it's something that I should put more effort into it than I do and I just don't have the capacity to do it.

Yeah, yeah.

That is a big one. And then the other one. And this was a plan that I was wanting to do even while I was. Before I was taking Mike Bakes NYC full time. And then Covid hit and I could not. It was impossible at that point. But I do want to bring on a second person in person. So like someone that's in New York City to help when I have, you know, like heavy shoot days. So, like. Yeah, yeah. This week, for instance, I have, I think five deadlines this week. So I have five photo shoots or shoots that I have to do. And it's just like to have an extra set of hands. Whether it's like helping with hands in the video, helping with stuff in the kitchen, preparing stuff, things of that nature. Yeah, it's. I know it'll help me because I obviously my. I guess the photography side of things, it would make things, my process so much, so much easier.

And there's something to be said about really looking hard at like, what are the things that don't matter if I do them. And one of those is like scheduling stuff on Pinterest. Does it matter if you do the photography? Probably like People can probably get to know your style, your feel depends on. Does it matter if you do the writing? Probably like at this point, if it's you and it's a personal brand, does it matter if you know you are prepping the recipe and like measuring stuff out? Probably not. And it's interesting to think about what are the things that are most cost effective to hire and also least impactful for what you're doing in terms of like you being the one to do it, which is always kind of a fun game to play to kind of analyze that, which. It sounds like you've kind of pinpointed those two. Last thing I'm curious to hear you talk a little bit about is air subs. So we touched on that briefly. But what is that like to do an air subs class? How do you get people to sign up? Is it primarily your blog? Is it Instagram, is it email? And then what are just logistically, how do you pull it off?

Yeah, so I. Air subs has been, it's been very interesting. I am enjoying it. I was a little unsure of how it was going to go, but I. I've been offering three classes a month and they've traditionally been on weekends. I'm moving away from that starting next month because I've had people reach out asking for like, oh, can we do like a Friday night class? Or something like that. So I, yeah, I do three classes a month and. And it's varied between recipes that are on my blog, recipes that are not on my blog, that were in my first cookbook, or just recipes that like there's been, I think, two classes where it's a recipe that is like, it was only available for that class. It's not anywhere. And I've been promoting it on Instagram primarily, and then also my email list. I am ashamed to say that I've been offering classes for probably like five months now and still don't have any information about it on my website. There's a page in the works that's just interacted.

I just haven't published always something, always be doing more.

Yeah, I'm just like, people like DM me and I just, I'm like, I. I need to work on this page. So I could just send them a link that'll have all the information. Yeah, yeah, it's just one of those things that's just like, it's on the list. I just haven't finished or gotten to it. But yeah, so primarily my email list every time I. I offer every time next month's classes are open for registration. I will post on Instagram a carousel post with the three images of what we're making and then I'll send out to my email list as well with links to sign up for each class. But yeah, it's been, it's been great. Air Subs handles like everything essentially I just, on my end, I input, you know, the class information, the price of the class, the time, things like that. And then I upload a PDF that I create that has, you know, an equipment list, the ingredient list, and then the full recipe. And then when people sign up, Air Subs handles sending out, you know, all of that information, they send out the Zoom link. And so really all I have to do is once I pick the date and time on that date and time, just remember to start the zoom meeting on my laptop and everyone is there. And I have, I have it set up to where Air Subs will automatically upload the, the recording. So I record all the classes and save them to my cloud and Air Subs will automatically upload it to their website. So people, if they can't make it to class, can watch the replay. If you did make it to class, I can watch the replay as well. And then those classes are also available, like for on demand purchase. So all of the past classes that I've done, people could like, you know, purchase it and watch it right then and there. So they're not interacting in real time. They can't really ask the questions like you could if you were there, but they at least get, I guess, the, the nature of being in class and they hear the questions that other people ask and, you know, things of that nature. And I kind of walk through, you know, everything the recipe has to offer and the, the technical sides of baking and things like that.