The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 1. Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast!

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Welcome to the first episode of the Ultimate Blog Podcast! We are so excited you are here. This podcast is something we have wanted to do for a very long time and we have finally hit record. Our goal is to share helpful tips and tricks with women who are wanting to start a blog or who already have a blog that they want to improve.We are both bloggers and we want to have open and honest conversations with you about what it looks like to be a blogger and how you can grow and improve your blog.Today we want to chat with you about our story and how we got started, how we met, and how the company we own together got started and how we can help you.Check out the show notes for links and resources mentioned in this episode.Thanks for being here and a part of this community! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconcepts or share this episode with your friends!Interested in starting a blog? Join our waitlist for the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode1

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm, and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life, all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Hey there, welcome to the first episode of the Ultimate Blog Podcast. We are so excited to finally share this with you. The podcast is something that we have wanted to do for a really long time. And finally, we stepped out of our comfort zones and we've hit record. So our goal is to share helpful tips and tricks with women who are wanting to start a blog, or maybe they already have a blog that they'd like to improve. We are both bloggers and the topics that we are going to cover, we think are going to be helpful to those of you who are here because you want to start a blog, or maybe you already have a blog and you just want some tips

on how you can grow it or improve it. We are going to have an open and honest conversation with you about what it looks like to be a blogger and the new things that we are learning each and every day. Today, we just want to tell you a little bit about our story, how we got started, how we met, and how Spark Media Concepts, which is the company that we own together, got started and how that can help you. So Jennifer's going to start us off today by sharing a little bit more about how she became a blogger. Yeah, I'm going to have to start out going a little bit back in history, back to 2012. I had been an accountant for about 13 years doing corporate income tax, which is obviously very different than blogging. And I had left my job to take some time off to homeschool my son. And as life has a way of doing, things came about and we ended up adopting our daughter while I was away from work. And then my

son ended up going back to school. So life had a lot of changes in a short amount of time and I had some big decisions to make. I did not want to necessarily go back to the corporate grind while I loved working and I loved the challenge and I loved learning new things. Spending my days commuting and being away from my kids and answering to somebody else, you know, having to ask for a day off. Those things just didn't appeal to me anymore. So while I did want to continue to work and challenge myself and learn new things, I wanted something completely different than what I had done before. And kind of to make a long story short, over the years while I was working, I was an avid reader of different food blogs because I was always trying to figure out a way to get a healthy dinner on the table. food blogs because I was always trying to figure out a way to get a healthy dinner on the table.

And I started using my slow cooker a lot. And I started reading a lot of different blogs that shared different slow cooker recipes, or I would find other recipes and adapt them for my slow cooker. But I ended up feeling frustrated a lot of the times because the recipes weren't exactly what I was looking for. I wanted something healthier, something that used more wholesome ingredients. And so I honestly started adapting and making my own recipes throughout this time. And once I was looking around at this whole, like looking to other people's blogs, I came across a blogger who was sharing some information about how she made money with her blog. And the idea started to come together for me. I love to read blogs. I love to make recipes and I don't want to go back to my corporate job. So what if I became a blogger? So I brought this idea up to my husband and I think he probably thought I was a little bit crazy at first, but when I showed him the data and

I showed him how people were actually able to turn their blogs into a business, he was on board. And thankfully he was willing to be supportive and helpful and helped me get that first blog launched, which was in the fall of 2013. I launched my blog called Slow Cooker Gourmet, and it has certainly been quite a journey. I did approach this whole idea of blogging right away with the idea of it making an income and being a business. So I really had that perspective. And the first year I didn't really make any money. I probably lost a couple hundred bucks because I bought a camera and a few things that I needed. But by the second year, I started making a decent part-time income, which continued over the next couple of years. And I think about four to five

years in, I was able to actually replace the income that I had been making as an accountant with my blogging income, which was truly my goal. I just really wanted that for myself and for my family. And so along the way, I had to learn and learn a lot of hard lessons, I guess you would say. Blogging is kind of an interesting job. You have to be willing to learn new things, kind of venture out on your own. There's not really like a guidebook or a path that you can follow. And so I think if I would have had, you know, somebody to help me a little bit more, I probably would have been able to grow a little faster, but I wouldn't change the path that I took. I think I learned so many things. I made

a lot of mistakes along the way, but I figured out through like finally attending some conferences and making connections with other people that blogging really can be a community and that you can surround yourself with people who are also in this too, who can help you learn and grow. So speaking of surrounding yourself with people, I think it was in early 2016 when I finally realized that blogging on my own was not going to be sustainable, that I really did need to bring on some help. And I learned that people were hiring what they call virtual assistants. So somebody that could work from their own home and help you with some aspect of your blog.

So I had thought about some jobs that somebody could do. I wanted somebody to help me with some of my social media management and some of my Pinterest activities that I was doing to promote and share my blog. And I actually had a very certain person in mind when I was thinking of who I wanted to help me. I'm not sure why she came to mind, but it was just a really strong feeling that I had, but I was a little bit shy and a little bit scared to ask her. I thought she might think I was weird or crazy or like, what was I doing? But I decided instead to just post on my own personal Facebook page that I was looking for some help with my blog. And thankfully, Amy replied to me right away. She was the one I had in mind and we turned out to be a perfect match in terms of working together on the blog.

Yeah. So we were actually neighbors in case you're wondering how I was on Jennifer's personal Facebook page. That is how that all happened. And so when she had put that on Facebook, I think I jumped on it within just a few minutes. I happened to be on right at the time. So I think that was meant to be for sure. I had actually been starting sharing my own content just on Instagram in 2015. So I had been in the content creation space. I just wasn't sharing it on a blog. I'd had a blog years prior on Blogspot and I blogged for a couple of years. But ironically, when it got complicated, I quit.

So when I realized that people were actually making money and putting ads on or affiliate sales, that scared me and I quit, which looking back now, I'm like, ah, if I would have just kept going, that could have been awesome. But I didn't. That wasn't the journey I was supposed to be on. But something that has always remained true is that I love sharing and making connections with people all over. That was one of the things I loved when I had first blog back in 2010. And even some of those people that I connected to back then, I'm still connected to today. So when I was on

Instagram, obviously forming lots of connections there, and then Jennifer needing the VA, I was just interested because I hadn't really considered needing the VA. I was just interested because I hadn't really considered taking my content that I was sharing at the time and putting it on a blog because I was a mom of two back then. And I honestly probably didn't think I had enough time. Even though I was busying up my time, I've always been an entrepreneur at heart. So back then I was making burlap wreaths actually out of my home and selling books. So I've always loved to contribute financially to my family and the odds and ends ways that I've always found. So I jumped at the chance to be her VA and learn more of how bloggers actually make money. I was

kind of shocked when she offered the job and I did not understand how she was going to pay me. I didn't care how she was going to pay me because she was, but I just did not understand it. So I was just intrigued to learn more as we continued to work together. So we weren't close friends at the time, actually. We were literally next-door neighbors, and her youngest and my oldest are about the same age. So sometimes they'd be outside playing together, and it was a friendly hello or anything like that. But I was always intrigued with her blog. She was obviously thought that I'd be a good fit. And it's crazy the way that God works and just puts people in your life that you know you're meant to be with. So I started working for Jennifer as her VA,

and I loved the work. I loved that I could be home with my kids and be able to work during naptimes or at night sometimes, but then have kind of a part-time income. And I loved the creativity and freedom that I got being a virtual assistant. And I loved what I was doing on Instagram, but I was making no money. So I was spending probably hours a day making connections and creating content and helping people and answering DMs, but I wasn't making money. And as Jennifer and I got closer, as we continued to work together, she got brave enough to tell me, you really should start your own blog. You're working for free and it's okay to get paid.

But I was super resistant to be honest. And in spring of 2017, we went to some blog conferences and I actually went as her VA and I got to meet a lot of people at those conferences and hear stories and things like that. And we were sitting in a session and somebody from an ad network company was there and started talking about some of the money that people could be making on their blogs. And I was just mind blown. I looked at her at one point and I was like, that's how you make money. And that's how much you make. And she looked at

me and she is a very humble, kind person, And she looked at me and she is a very humble, kind person, but she looked at me and said, I actually make more than that. And my mind was blown because the amount that he said would have been enough for me to make it worth it. And so the wheels started turning for sure. And we left that conference in spring of 2017. And we were in the plane on the way home. And she said, well, what did you learn? And I said, I learned that I can't work for you anymore and that I need to have my own blog. And she looked at me like the kind friend and the kind friend that she is. And she said, I've been waiting for you to come to this realization. So I'm so thankful to have

her friendship in this because she realized that I had greater potential than I even saw in myself back then. And so I actually launched my blog in the fall of 2017. And we have been, I've been blogging ever since. And I'm so thankful that I kind of took that leap of faith. So I started my blog in August of 2017. And just a few months later, we started Spark Media Concepts. And it's kind of a funny story how that got started. Yeah. So, you know, even though Amy wasn't working for me as my VA anymore, we worked together

a lot. Like we collaborated, we helped each other. We got her blog off the ground. She was still helping me with some strategies on social media. And so it wasn't unusual for us to be sitting around either her or my dining room table in the evenings after our kids went to bed, kind of just talking and working out business plans and things like that. And as these things kind of do, we had a way of getting a little off topic and we started talking about dreams and goals. And I happened to share with her that I just had this feeling that like us, there was other people out there who wanted to do the same thing, but maybe they were scared or they didn't have anybody

who in their life who would support them. And they really would want to start a blog if they had the right help. And I thought, you know, we may not have everything figured out, but we know how to start a blog and we know how to support a friend. So is this something we could do? Could we help other women start their blogs? And I thought she was nuts. I really did. When she was telling me the story, I can vividly remember the day still. I can remember where she was sitting and looking at her and being like, okay, I don't think that anybody's ever going to pay you to do that. But that sounds like a great, great idea. And I don't think I said it to her that day, but I did say, okay, you know,

and just kind of shook it off. Well, this is how my brain works. This little story I'm about to tell you. Flash forward a few weeks, I was talking to a friend who was expressing a need for the exact business model that Jennifer had said. And so me being the helper that I am is like, oh, I can help you do that. Jennifer and I can help you do that. We're actually going to start a business and we're going to do that. And so I came home, called Jennifer and said, hey, you know that dream that you had about helping people start their blogs? She said, yeah. But guess what? I have our first client. And in turn, she thought I was nuts. I was like, no, that was supposed to be like two, three, four years in the future when we have everything 100%

figured out. Yep. And I do not wait to have everything figured out. This is why we work so well together. She's the researcher of our duo and I'm the one who kind of jumps in a little bit and I don't think as much. So she keeps me grounded and I guess I keep her chasing dreams. grounded and I guess I keep her chasing dreams. Absolutely. So by December of 2017, we began building blogs for women who either needed them for their business or had always dreamed of having their own. And some of the people that we've helped had blogs already, but they needed improving. And so we did that for about two and a half, three years. So we helped people one-on-one for about a little over two years. And what we found is that people were not feeling empowered with the blogs that they had. Jennifer and I were the ones doing all the work on the backend of it, and they didn't always know

how to use their blogs. And so we decided when the pandemic happened that we were going to shift our business model. Yeah, it just so happened. I was out for a walk one day listening to a podcast and I actually don't even remember which one it was, but I called Amy when I got home and I was like, I think we need to shift. I think people are going to be looking for something different. I think we need to find a way we can better empower these women to not only have a blog, but to really understand and know how to use it. I think we need to be able to bring more people in at one time and teach them how to start a blog. Again, I just had this idea, but I didn't really have the actionable steps that we needed to take. But I think by the end of what was probably an hour long phone call, we had come up with

this idea to launch our course called the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp to be able to not only teach women how to start their blog, but to support them every step of the way while they were doing everything from coming up with their idea to setting it up and then to how to run it in the future and how to basically know how to do everything that needed to be done and not struggle like the way that we did when we were setting up our own blogs. Yeah. We wanted to provide a source for people to be able to have this thing that they wanted to do so that they know they want to start a blog.

But then some people know that they want to start a blog and literally the technical side gets them stumped and they don't move forward. And we didn't want that to be the thing that prevented people from sharing their stories or their passions or their expertise, especially at a time where we all came home. We were all spending more time at home and people had the capacity to really think about what was important in life, I think. And for us, it was deciding that we really did have a heart for sharing and helping others. And so creating the course was honestly one of the best decisions

that we've ever made. And the people that we've met and the connections have truly, it's changed our business. It's changed our life. We are so blessed that people trust us all the time to help them with their blogs. We love it. So we wanted to be able, as we've shared with the bootcamp, we wanted to be able to still help and support other people who maybe want that same help. And so another way to do that is by sharing this podcast and hoping that we can connect with more people who are having that desire to start a blog or improve the blog that they have. Maybe you've built it on like Squarespace or Wix, but you know, you need to be on wordpress.org, but you have no idea how

to get started. Like that's who this is for. And so we truly believe there is room for everyone when it comes to blogging. And we just want to help all those people who are here and who want to be a voice in this community. We want to inspire those people to keep pressing on and keep learning, keep growing, and keep being willing to navigate blogging even when it gets tough. So every week we will have episodes that come out on Tuesday. So we hope you'll come back and listen. We plan on giving you tips, tricks, having interviews, and just sharing everything we can about blogging to help you to be able to learn and grow. So if you listen to an episode that you think someone you know would benefit from hearing, we'd sure love for you to share it. So feel free to tag us on social

media at spark media concepts, or just simply share the episode with your friend. We also would love for you to review the podcast because the more reviews that we can get, the more people that we can reach. And our goal is truly to help as many people as possible who want to start a blog. So thanks for being here and being part of this community. We appreciate you and we cannot wait to connect with you. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at spark media concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips

and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes for those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the wait list for the ultimate blog bootcamp. The link to join the wait list is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.