Ep. 28: Starting a blog (with Suzi Whitford of Start a Mom Blog)

Suzi Whitford is a former Industrial Engineer turned work at home mom blogger. She has helped over 50,000 moms start and grow their blogs and many of her students are making $2,000 – $20,000 per month with their own blogs. Over the past five years, along with the help of her amazing husband, they have grown their family by three, paid off all of their debt before the age of 30, and retired from corporate jobs.

Where to find Suzi

• Website: startamomblog.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/startamomblog
• Twitter: @startamomblog
• Pinterest: pinterest.com/startamomblog

Read the full transcript below.

This transcript is created by a helpful but imperfect transcription bot. Please forgive any typos or errors.

Suzi Whitford 0:00

I wanted to find something where I could just have my computer. And that would be like, what I can use to grow my business. And when I realized that people actually just use their computer and build things online like online products and courses and so on, I’m like, wow, I want to see if I could do that.

Melissa Guller 0:19

Meet Suzi Whitford. When Suzi became a new mom, she still wanted an outlet to explore her creative and tech passions, and when she found blogging, it was an instant click. She’s now started multiple profitable blogs notably Start a Mom Blog, where she helps other moms follow her exact blogging blueprint to turn their passions into money making blogs. So in this episode, Suzi explains why she loves inexpensive ebooks and courses so much and how her $18 ebook has been a huge revenue driver for her online business. She also talks about the importance of building email relationships, and why she prefers to email people one on one instead of having a large Facebook community. Lastly, and perhaps Most importantly, Susy explains how you can engage with new blog readers and build long lasting relationships with them over time. So if you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, I’m almost positive Suzi will convince you to go for it by the end. Whether you’re a mom or not. Let’s say hello.

Announcer 1:18

Welcome to “Everything is Teachable,” the podcast that takes you behind-the-scenes to learn how everyday creators have transformed their skills and passions into online courses and businesses. To introduce this week’s guest, here’s your host, Melissa Guller.

Melissa Guller 1:37

Hey everyone, I’m Melissa from Team Teachable, and today I’m here with Suzi Whitford from Start a Mom Blog.

Suzi Whitford is a former Industrial Engineer turned work at home mom blogger. She has helped over 50,000 moms start and grow their blogs and many of her students are making $2,000 – $20,000 per month with their own blogs. Over the past five years, along with the help of her amazing husband, they have grown their family by three, paid off all of their debt before the age of 30, and retired from corporate jobs. So, Suzi, welcome to the podcast.

Suzi Whitford 2:12

Thank you so much, Melissa, for having me.

Melissa Guller 2:14

I can’t wait to share more about your story because I think a lot of our listeners will really see a lot of themselves in your business. So before we really get into your current blogging business, I’d love to have listeners learn more about your background. So can you tell us about your very early professional career even before you started blogging?

Suzi Whitford 2:32

Wow, yeah. So um, I was born and raised in South Africa. I moved here when I was 11. And went to college studied industrial engineering. So I just wanted to follow my dad’s footsteps of being an engineer, he civil, and that’s where I met my husband. I loved industrial engineering. I loved all the math and had some classes in coding. So I had some kind of tech background and designing websites and all that and it actually was Teaching Assistant in that class, and I was a teaching assistant for my husband, john. And we kind of fell in love and code it together. It was cute anyway, went to work for GE Healthcare, and he worked for Toyota. And when I had my first baby, I wanted to be able to juggle working and having the baby and doing it all and it was, it was just too much. It was overwhelming. I quit my job and I became a stay at home mom. But I still had that passion and that drive to do something to use the skills that I learned productively and to help other people. But I just don’t know how to do that from being at home. And if anybody hears listening has kids or have had a newborn at home, kind of know you’re stuck at home and you’re there taking care of this new sweet little baby. But you still have that that drive in you have like, how can I still express myself and connect with other people? Any mom understands that we love our kids fiercely, but we also have a side of ourselves that still You still need to be the person you were before you became a mom. And your kids still need to see that person too. And your husband needs to see that person and, and you to like you’re not that part of you is not dead and gone. It’s still there. So I started blogging. Well, first before that I started all kinds of different little ways of how can I help my husband out a little bit. So he’s not the only one carrying all the finances on his shoulders, and our family is starting to grow. So I started investing in stocks, which I was horrible at. I watched Jim Cramer every morning and, and it didn’t work at all, like I’m horrible at stock picking and just that wasn’t good. Then I started trying some MLM businesses. I started doing some crafting things, and I just didn’t find my groove until I saw blogging.

Melissa Guller 4:50

And I’m like, wow,

Suzi Whitford 4:51

this is pretty cool. JOHN, actually, my husband introduced me to it and he’s like, Well, why don’t you blog because you can do work on a computer. You don’t need to have all this inventory or something. stuff around you. The house can kind of stay clean ish. But you can use those coding skills and that tech skills that you learn in college and kind of apply that again, I’m like, Okay, great. So I started blogging.

Melissa Guller 5:12

Before we keep talking about blogging, I think that’s such a good point about having no inventory and stuff. That’s such a huge perk to online businesses. And not something that I think we’ve even talked much about on the podcast so far in almost 30 episodes.

Suzi Whitford 5:27

Yeah, it’s a huge deal, because we were actually living in a two bedroom townhome with our new baby. We had a one car garage, so we can barely put anything in there. And that little driveway we were sharing with everybody else in the townhomes. And it was just the debacle of like, finding a parking spot was so so hard. Anyway, small problems. So yeah, I couldn’t have any inventory in the house because there was no space for it. So I wanted to find something where I could just have my computer and that would be like, what I can use to grow my business. And when I’m Realize that people actually just use their computer and build things online like online products and courses and so on. I’m like, wow, I want to see if I could do that.

Melissa Guller 6:10

Mm hmm. so powerful. So you had your blog at first, but you started blogs before Start a Mom Blog, right?

Suzi Whitford 6:16

Yeah, yeah, I had a Catholic parenting blog. So I shared kind of like, how we got our babies to sleep through the night at that time, we only had one baby, but I was becoming pregnant with my second baby. And like any like parenting tips I had for her. We shared a lot about our faith and like how we grew in our faith and had struggles and so on, as we were a young married couple. So that blog started making some affiliate income and I’m like, Wow, that is pretty cool. I don’t have my own product. But I can recommend things that I really use and love and what other people go through my link and make a purchase. I get a kickback, a commission. So that’s like the basics of affiliate marketing. So I started blogging and making some money that way and that was awesome. And then my friends started Seeing that, hey Suzi is talking about different things. She’s like a little bit more positive. Now she’s not so. So like, sad anymore. Like she has this little jumping in her step. So they started asking me what I’m doing. And I told him like, Hey, I started a blog, can I help you start yours. And they would come over and we have like playdates and there’ll be mommies with their laptops. And we would start building websites together. And then eventually, it started becoming more of me teaching other moms to do the same thing, because I saw moms struggle with that, like, that big lack of confidence that happens when you become a mom, you become this new person and you like, for me, at least, like a ton of your confidence just goes out the door because you’re like, how do I do this? How do I be a mom? And like, now I have a baby and how do I still juggle all the issues that I’m facing right now. So blogging allows me still to connect with other moms while being in my PJs all day.

Melissa Guller 7:57

That’s the ultimate dream to be in your PJs, but to say They’ll be working and still find things that you’re passionate about. And I think it’s really important that you mentioned the lack of competence that maybe new moms are feeling about other parts of their life. Because even though we’ll talk about how you teach people to start blogs, it’s so much more than that. It’s fulfillment. It’s sharing something it’s providing for your family. And so I think for anybody asking themselves, what can I teach? or How can I help? There’s always something much deeper than just the name of the course or the topic you teach on?

Suzi Whitford 8:28

Definitely, definitely, like, when my mom signed up for the course and they, they’re able to launch their website and they can see it and they show it off to their friends and family and it’s something that they’re proud of. Like, they send me this amazing testimonials and they’re like I did it. My husband couldn’t believe that I could create a website but look at me I did or if they make their they have their first like 100 subscribers to their email list. They’re super ecstatic. And so my like when I had my first comment on a blog post, we went out for dinner because I couldn’t Believe that somebody would come to my little website and take the time to write a comment or actually read my article and then comment on it. I was so excited. So we went out for dinner to like tacos or something. And it was just such a confidence boost. So I wanted those little bits of confidence boost for my moms too, or when they make their first sale. Oh my goodness. That’s just that’s just awesome when that happens. Mm hmm.

Melissa Guller 9:23

And kind of thinking back to your first year in business with Start a Mom Blog. I know you started I think it was January right before your second daughter was born. And then can you just tell us what that full first year in business look like for you?

Suzi Whitford 9:39

kindly nobody took me seriously.

Not to like throw my family under the bus. They’re amazing. My family’s awesome, but they did not really see what was going on here. They’re like you’re writing an E book. You’re blogging. What is this? What does this all mean? Like they it’s hard to share with people because it’s still kind of vague. have what is a blog? And like, what are these online courses? So that’s I’m so glad you guys have this podcast to make this more familiar to people so that they know that this is possible. And as time goes on, people will be more like understanding of it. But the first year of starting on blog was kind of kind of tough. It was a lot of testing, it was testing kind of who my audience is who I’m talking to, what do they like? Do they like these types of blog posts really like these freebies? It was a lot of going back and forth and testing new ideas. And it was kind of fun, because my audience was still small, so I could still experiment a lot. And I know a lot of times we think like, right when I start off Oh, man, I wish I had a million followers on Instagram. I wish I had 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. But really, if you think about that, if you had those numbers, what would you do with it? Like, would you be able to handle all that traffic? Would your blog be able would you know what to say to them? So I think it’s wonderful that we kind of start slow and we start with a small audience and then you grow with your audience on what they need, and can offer the right things to them.

Melissa Guller 11:07

I absolutely love that perspective, because I do think it’s easy to look and see what everyone else is doing and see their huge audiences and assume that they came out in this like perfectly baked and product. But the fact is this small audience, like you’re saying, gives you a lot of freedom to test to see what works for you, where people maybe see if you try something, and it doesn’t work. Yeah, totally fine. That’s what will make you a great businesswoman later, but I really appreciate that you shared all of that and even that your family didn’t take you seriously. At first, I think that’s probably something that a lot of new online business owners have in common because it’s so much harder to point to to say, Oh, do you see my website? This is my business, because I do think and maybe you can tell me if this is wrong. I think there’s still an impression that blogs are just places that we write our feelings on the internet.

Suzi Whitford 11:54

Mm hmm. Very true. So that’s what when I have new readers come to my website, and They email me and they’re like, well, I don’t really just want to blog about my life. I’m like, well, you don’t have to like, it’s nice when you can incorporate your life into your blog and kind of show some examples. But honestly, what your blog is, is for your audience, it’s a resource for them. And if you can show that your experiences have helped you, and that can be a testimonial of how you can help them. That’s fantastic. But the whole notion of what a blog is, it’s, it’s a helpful guide for your audience. It’s not all about you.

Melissa Guller 12:29

And I really like thinking of it that way as a resource, not necessarily a journal. Yeah, exactly. So you have your blog, and I know that your ebook right was maybe the first product of your own that launched Is that correct?

Suzi Whitford 12:43

Yes. So I had the blog, and it was starting to do well and I test it out freebie after freebie. So if you don’t know what a freebie is, it’s something you offer on your website in exchange for somebody’s email address so that they’re not just one time visitor, you can actually email them and build a relationship and start talking to them. And I think that’s one of the little pieces of the success that I’ve had is I try to email every single person that emails me, I have a VA. She does what she can. But any emails that I can do, I try to do them all. And it takes me hours sometimes to get to all my emails, but I feel like that’s a big part of my success. So regardless, you start your website or you start your business, and you want to get your visitors more engaged with you, through comments through engaging on social media, or the best way that I found is through emails because it’s one on one relationships. So I’m building these relationships with my readers. And they’re starting to ask for more because then once you start talking to your readers, you start understanding what they need. And they’re giving you ideas of what you can blog about or what you can create products on. So I started Okay, well, I’m going to start with a small product. Because not only do I need to warm up my audience to buying something from me, but I also need to build my confidence. So if I’m going to come out of the gates and be like, Hey, here’s my $900 course, it’s gonna be hard for me to sell it because I don’t have the confidence yet. So I created a small ebook sold for $18, which you, when you pricing something, I suggest you ended up with a seven or a nine, because it’s psychological, those numbers are better when you end your price for your product in that way. But regardless, I ended my ebook and $18 I don’t even know where I got that number. So I sold my first product, small ebook, and I think I sold the first one on a Sunday morning when I woke up, I was so excited. So happy I stood or sat on the bed and like, Oh, I made a sale, I created something. And I made a sale, and it’s gonna help somebody. And this is awesome. And I think that first month I made $1,000 and I’m like, wow, this can actually become something big

Melissa Guller 14:52

from an $18 ebook. Yeah, that’s amazing. Thank you. It’s great to hear you talk about how a small All ebook small not in value, but in even your level of effort to create it compared to that huge like flagship $900 course. I think that it’s really important to talk about that because in the world of online courses even today in 2020, it feels like a lot of people are going big ticket item, or nothing. But there’s so much power in doing a lower price point item, you can reach more of your audience that way, like you said, it’s not something that you have to spend a ton of time on. And maybe you don’t have the confidence yet. So I think that’s such a great suggestion for new creators is to start with something small because it will add up.

Suzi Whitford 15:35

Yeah, exactly. So the way I’ve done that kind of my pricing strategy, and before this call, I just did a YouTube video about this. So it’s all fresh in my mind, so I don’t mind sharing this information again. But starting with in your case of Teachable starting with a small course maybe like a mini course maybe like a three lecture or 10 video a small thing that you can charge for $17 For $27, start with something small, you’re warming up your audience, they’re starting to get used to like trusting you with their wallets. And not just their time with reading your content or watching your YouTube videos. So you warm up your audience with a small product, and you’re also building your confidence. And then in time, when you see, okay, this thing is doing well, this is kind of what they’re resonating with. This is what they’re asking more for, then you launch that $97 course, or that 597 or the bigger course, but then the small products that you create along the way that kind of warm up your audience and lead them into your more flagship tier products, they can become bonuses in your bigger courses. So if somebody doesn’t want to go through the small products, you can have this beautiful sales page of like, here’s my course. And by the way, you get all these bonuses included as well. So it’s just a different way of like building your portfolio when you’re thinking about online products. And maybe to give us an example, can you share What is your ebook? Your mini course? And what is something that’s a larger course for you? Yeah, so I have the block one number ebook that sells for $18 then they can get the block number course for 97 I have the bundle of all my courses because my courses like they have around $97 or less I actually like my audience are moms there with busy have kids, we spend most of our money and our time on our children. So it’s hard for us as moms to be like, Okay, I’m gonna buy something for myself and when you do you always like do hand me downs or you look for sales or coupon so I understand the mom mentality is like my most expensive course averages around 97. And then if they want to, they can bundle all of my courses together for the VIP price but it’s it’s nice to have the different tiers of products, because Teachable also allows you to kind of like bundle them together as a different offering. So depending on what the reader wants or what their price point is, you can offer But the right thing for them

Melissa Guller 18:01

so much helpful advice. And I also think it’s so important that you mentioned really understanding the like the mob mentality or who your audience is. Obviously, you’re a mom yourself. And I’m sure for a lot of creators, their audience is similar to them in some ways, although not necessarily. But you know, that probably $1,000 course is not going to work for you. Yeah, in the way that maybe in a different industry, it could. But I think that’s really helpful to think about, who am I selling to? What do they care about? Not even just price point, but how much time do they have if they’re busy? a six month intensive, maybe it’s not right. Maybe they need like a 30 day outcome?

Suzi Whitford 18:38

Exactly, exactly. So like you said, there are audiences if you understand your audience, they would be glad to spend $1,000 because they have the money but they don’t have the time. And they want to learn this strategy and apply to their business and that’s already growing. And that’s awesome when we’ve spent money on thousand dollar plus courses and offerings and they’ve helped but understanding who you are audiences and who you’re talking to is really helpful to know, how much should I put in the course? How in depth should I go? And then what should I price it as?

Melissa Guller 19:08

And when you were creating your courses, if you can remember, maybe back to the early days, do you remember what were some of the challenges that you faced when you were creating your own course?

Suzi Whitford 19:19

Oh, golly, trying to record with kids around.

The heart is so

I, golly, what would I do first, would I create a course I would first make the outline so I can do that. When I’m busy out about I have kids around me. So I create the outline on a piece of paper or my bullet journal or phone or whatnot. Then I start working on the text in all the lectures. So I’ll start typing out like what’s in every single lecture, what’s the transformation that I want my reader to go through? So the outline kind of like okay, where are they starting and where do I want them to be? So like, Okay, this is a transformation. Then I go through and I do all the texts in the lectures. Then I create the worksheets or any guides that go with the course. And then lastly, I’ll create the videos. Because now I have all my tax, I have my worksheets, I can reference back to them in the videos. And I already know everything I’m going to cover now where which lessons really neat video lectures in them, and then I’ll go and create the videos. And how I do that is at the time when john was still working corporate, so I didn’t have anybody at home to help me. I would take a Saturday like a Saturday morning, he would take the kids and I would have the day and I would do all my recordings on that one day. And that’s how I had to grow the business until he finally quit his job.

Melissa Guller 20:42

I think that’s a really strong piece of advice about doing the outline, then the text Prop, then the worksheets, and only after you’ve done all of that, then creating the videos because I think if you rush to the video, or I think maybe people assume that that should be the first step but you risk you know, maybe making videos That you have to change later or videos that you don’t really need or videos that don’t move your course forward in the right direction. So I think this is a really good tip for anybody listening that, you know, starting with online and doing the videos thinking of it as the last piece. I think that’s really strong advice. Thank you. And I also maybe this was implied, but you said then you would ask yourself which videos need to be created? So does every lesson have to be a video?

Suzi Whitford 21:27

I used to think that every single lesson needed a video until my audience told me Hey, I really like the text videos or the text lessons because I can just skim through them sometimes I can’t listen to all the videos. So I now require that all my lessons have text. So even if there’s a video I’ll have a little synopsis of what’s in the video. At least have some chapter markers so they can skip through to different sections in the video. But some lessons do not require a video because listened to my audience and they’re like, I like it. But I don’t need it for every single lesson. I actually like the text more. So I’m like, wow, okay, only if that lesson really truly needs a video, am I going to create a video for it to show my readers how to do this step? And what’s also been helpful is those chapter markers because some of the videos can get a little long. So they can go quickly through the little like timestamps at the bottom and they like oh, admitted three, that’s the question that I had or a minute, five and a half. And then additionally, on top of that, I try to keep my videos, golly, no more than like 20 to 30 minutes per video, because it kind of gets a little long. I want them to keep feeling like they have momentum as they go through the course. And having like a two hour one video in one lesson, might slow them down a little bit. Like some people do that and it’s great. And sometimes it works, but just my style. I’ve like the shorter videos to give them more traction.

Melissa Guller 22:56

Totally and I think with shorter videos, there are a ton of Great upsides, one of them is that it makes it easier to find what you want in the course, because you can see more tangible things broken out in the outline. But also, if I saw a two hour video, mentally I’m like, oh God, when do I have two hours to sit down and watch this? But if you tell me there’s a 15 minute video, I’m like, Alright, I got 15 minutes. Yeah, exactly. The other thing that I think just to give an example, maybe where people don’t need a video is I’m sure with blogging, there are a lot of tools that you recommend, where like a bullet list with links, maybe even affiliate links to earn money could be a perfect solution. And you don’t need to have a video and a full tutorial of all these different tools so people can edit and think about the reader or the watcher, I guess, in this case, but I think it’s maybe freeing to know it doesn’t have to always be a video.

Unknown Speaker 23:49

Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Melissa Guller 23:51

Now, obviously your audience is moms. And I would love to ask you just why do you think moms can make such great bloggers and business women.

Suzi Whitford 24:01

Oh man, we have so much advice and we’d love to share it with everybody.

Even unsolicited.

Right, so I’m like, instead of like spoon spewing all this advice from your friends and family who’ve heard it, just put it in a blog, and then I’m sure people are gonna be searching for the advice and the knowledge that you have. And like, I don’t know, it’s just it’s a great way to connect with other people to build an authentic audience to really be yourself. And even now, like people are gravitating more to people who are real, like you don’t have to look perfect on camera. You don’t have to have the perfect voice. You can stutter and make mistakes like I just did. Like your house can be messy in the background and the audience that people online actually like it more because you’re not all staged up. You’re not Instagram perfect. So I kind of find that very freeing is that the more real I am, the more my audience relates to me. So So the question was like, Why are moms good at this because because we’re looking for for friends online, we’re looking for camaraderie where we’ve been kind of pulled out of a lot of us were corporate now we’re at home, or trying to juggle corporate and mom life. And it’s just this whole new transition that you’re going to in life as you become a mother. And I love connecting with that audience and helping each other build up their confidence again.

Melissa Guller 25:28

And I think because we mentioned advice before, if you have a skill, maybe a lot of people keep asking you for certain recipes or how you get your kids to sleep, whatever we were talking about earlier, or doesn’t have to be related to being a mom, maybe it’s a professional skill. The more people start asking you about something, the more maybe you should think about charging for that skill. And that’s how a blog can be maybe a little stepping stone in that direction.

Suzi Whitford 25:53

Definitely one of my mom’s she blogs about mom fitness, so how to recover after pregnancies and how to do it naturally.

Melissa Guller 26:02

The other mom that I have,

Suzi Whitford 26:04

she does nothing with motherhood, she teaches people how to speak Finnish. So she has a course on teaching the Finnish language. And she just made $20,000 from her course. And I’m so proud of her. She’s an awesome student. Another mom teaches people like how to do videos on YouTube. Another one of my mom’s does kids crafts, like kids activities and things you can do at home with them, which is fantastic right now. Because everybody’s thinking like, what do I do with my child at home all summer and during things that are going on? And then homeschooling that’s another big one that’s coming up and doing really well. So there’s a lot of different niches that you can go into to help people with your with your knowledge online.

Melissa Guller 26:45

Mm hmm. That’s incredible. And I’m glad you mentioned niches because that’s something else I wanted to talk about. So when it comes to starting any blog or any online business, of course, the big first question is, what am I going to talk about and something that’s obviously worked for you is that you don’t Just talk about blogging. You also specifically talk to moms. And that’s in a great way a really specific audience. But I wonder if listeners are worried about niching down too much into an audience that feels quote too small. So what advice can you share based on your experience talking to I think what people would call a very specific audience, like would you recommend it?

Suzi Whitford 27:24

Yeah, definitely. Because just talking about the, you can look at like general blogs that are successful, so like budgeting, fitness, beauty, like anywhere where somebody is, or people are spending money. Think about that as a good niche because obviously, it’s already being monetized. People are okay spending money on that specific topic or niche, but then to make it more unique niche down to a specific audience, so budgeting for college students, or beauty for I don’t know African American woman have a very like specific niche so that you know who you’re talking to. And those people could relate to you. Because they can go to like the big websites and the big blogs and so on and get general advice. But they want the specific advice like, Hey, I’m a mom of only boys. How do I take care of teaching them to be good men, when they grow up, like, have a specific audience is just makes you more valuable, makes you stand out more. And don’t be afraid of building a small audience because you have no idea how many people that could be in that niche. So I’m a big proponent of taking an already successful niche where people are spending money and then niching down or just saying niche all the time, and then funneling down to like a specific audience to talk to.

Melissa Guller 28:50

Yeah, really good advice. I think that framework you mentioned blank for blank is something that listeners can take away. So maybe ask yourself who’s Not just the topic, but Who is it for? Now, when it comes to your business, I know you have a free guide. And we’ll include it in the show notes at Teachable comm slash podcast. And on your website, we’ll get all the links at the end of the episode. But it’s called how you can go from zero dollars to $9,000 per month in less than a year. So I don’t need you to give away all the specifics. I want people to go grab the guide. But I know for most listeners, that would be a life changing dream amount of money. And I’m curious, can you give us maybe the big picture of what does that year look like for people? What does it take?

Suzi Whitford 29:34

Sure, yeah, that was it. It just explained exactly what I did in my first year after I found like, who I really wanted to serve, and what I wanted to serve them with. So I understood that I wanted to help moms, and I want to help them do something from home and grow that. So that first year I was the whole guide goes through what I did every single month regarding what I did on my blog, what I did for my email list will how I monetize And how I got traffic. So it’s month by month on each one of those categories what I did to grow my blog from zero to $9,000. And the biggest thing, the biggest overall thing was creating my own online product. Because that was a game changer. You can do really well with affiliate marketing, you could do well with ads, you could do well of sponsor posts and service work. But you can do really, really well with having your own online product. And when I did that first year was doing that ebook, and then the course and then that was phenomenal. And that’s the gist of the guide. But if you want the details, you can go to the guide and get the rest of it.

Melissa Guller 30:38

Yeah. And maybe on the other hand, what do new bloggers think is important but actually isn’t or in other words, what could wait until later or for busy moms what isn’t worth their time that you still see a lot of new bloggers or businesses trying to do?

Suzi Whitford 30:53

Sure. So people really get stuck on the like the fonts and the branding and the logo. And the colors. And those are nice, it’s nice to kind of have a cohesive brand and everything looks good, but you don’t have to spend $500 on a nice logo, you can create something on PicMonkey or Canva. And that will be fine. I don’t even think I have a logo right now. I just have like the curly script of my blog name, but that’s pretty much it. And initially, when I started, I wanted my blog to be all black and white. And like, I’m not gonna have any color. This is gonna be like a manual like an engineer’s manual to blogging for moms. And that was initially what I wanted to do. But then over like, over time, I added some more colors, but it wasn’t perfect. In the beginning. The most important thing that I focused on in the beginning, was creating that amazing freebie to get people on my email list. Because once you get them on your email list, you can start building relationships. And those people that sign up to your email list, are you going to become your future customers. So you want to start building really awesome relationships, giving them awesome freebies, and some freebies that work really well. If you’re thinking about like the Teachable platform, you can offer a free course. And like the intrinsic value of a course getting that for free, is pretty awesome. So that could make a great freebie when you’re just starting out, add like three videos in it, add a nice welcome video so people get to know you. And then once you have a paid for product, you can have a call to action at the last video of your free course. You can have an upsell, you can do all kinds of things. But if you’re just starting out focusing on an amazing freebie would be gold when you’re just starting out your blog or your website.

Melissa Guller 32:41

Mm hmm. Great advice. Obviously at Teachable, we love courses but I think in a world of kind of blah PDFs where there’s a promise about the freebie and then you download it and it’s one page and you’re kind of like is this it? If you go above and beyond to make even a couple of videos like you’re suggesting Get in front of people and give them something valuable. They’re going to be so impressed and valuable doesn’t have to mean like big studio production, it just means that they see your face. And you gave them advice that really clicked for them. Yeah,

Suzi Whitford 33:11

exactly like having that connection, that video connection helps establish that relationship that you have with your reader. So I highly recommend having videos in your freebie. Like if you can do that that would help set you up for a stronger relationship with your reader as it goes forward.

Melissa Guller 33:29

I also want to talk about what your business looks like today. So can you share a little bit about like, what are you working on now? Are you still focusing on the ebook and courser? what’s what’s going on today for you?

Suzi Whitford 33:42

Yeah, so thanks for asking. Since I started a couple years after I grew the blog, end of 2018 john and i had a discussion and we were like going back and forth the whole entire 2018 like, should he quit his job? Should I not should he so finally, we decided, hey, life is short. The blog is doing awesome. Let’s do it, you can always go back and get a good job hopefully. So he quit his job end of 2018. So for the last year and a half, we’ve both been working at home. He has his website and his strategies and what he does, and it’s way more technical way more advanced than I do, because he serves a different audience. But we both do digital marketing and kind of the the blogging the online stuff. And it’s been doing really well, like, obviously, the first year is kind of like, Okay, how do we find the groove of like, who’s working, who’s not working? Who’s with the kids? How are we dividing duties, but I found something that really, really works well for us, where we split our our weeks, where I work Monday, Tuesday, Fridays, and he works Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and then Sunday’s we have family day and work, rest rest at home. So it’s worked really well to be able to like divide and conquer, like who’s working and who’s with the kids. But before that before john was home, I would just work during like early mornings during the kids nap times or super late at night that was pretty much like my working time is late, late at night. But now we have an awesome schedule now that I’ve been able to grow the business to this. It’s doing really well. like things are amazing. It’s a huge blessing. And what I focus on now is just creating amazing freebies. Like I’m back to the first couple months that I did on my blog, I’m back to that step of what amazing freebies can I create to get people into the courses that I have because now I have like, like 10 core courses and tons of smaller products, I have a big portfolio of things and resources that people can invest in. So now my big goal is to get amazing freebies to get people trusting me and liking me and build up that relationship to then get them into the products themselves.

Melissa Guller 35:57

And depending on where our listeners are and their online course journeys. Maybe the one freebie that would evolve into the one paid course is helpful to think about. But I also appreciate this bigger business view of where you are now where it’s not one freebie that goes into your 10 courses. It’s how do I imagine each of these courses as maybe the end goal of what somebody would need? And what would it take to get them there?

Suzi Whitford 36:20

Yeah, exactly. Like it’s evolved into different pillars into the business. It’s not just the, the one that freebie to the one product. It’s like this freebie goes to this product. And this one goes to this, which kind of gets overwhelming after a while because it’s just me and john and my VA. And I have one person helping me of Pinterest. But so it’s a lot to manage, but I love it. I love creating small products. I know it’s, it’s what I’m passionate about. I know like there are different strategies to create the perfect funnel that has the levels up to like thousand dollar course that goes into the $10,000 mastermind and all that but Like, I love what I do. I love the smaller things, we’re doing fantastically with this strategy. So I like doing this for my audience because this is what they can afford.

Melissa Guller 37:10

I think that’s great to hear. I don’t think that maybe listeners have thought too much necessarily about pricing, or maybe they have, but I think it’s refreshing to hear that, like we’ve been talking about all episodes, like an $18 product really does have a lot of growth potential. Also, like you’re saying, they’re kind of fun to do. It’s enjoyable to make little bite sized lessons. And for you, the creator, it’s enjoyable. And for the student. It’s nice too, because they can take the course quickly and find a result. And that’s so satisfying. Yeah,

Suzi Whitford 37:39

yeah, exactly. It’s what I’m passionate about. And as the business has grown, and it’s successful, and it’s sustaining us, we can now focus on what brings us energy instead of what like depletes us and makes us like burnout. So the more I’m passionate about what I’m doing the More than helping my audience the more the business grows, even if it’s not the perfect strategy, it’s the perfect strategy for me and for my audience. Hmm. Well said, I’m curious to to hear. How do you interact with students? I think in the world of online business, there’s, you know, this question, I’m behind my computer there behind the computer, how do we interact? So what does student interaction look like for you and your business? Sure. So, again, I’m against the grain here. A lot of people have big Facebook groups. For me, Facebook brings me tons of anxiety if people tagged me and I can’t get to a common quick enough, like I stress out and then I snap at my kids and I snapped my husband. So I just understand kind of like, what works and what doesn’t work. So my students email me directly. And again, not the smartest business advice, but it’s worked really well when it’s build really good relationships. And I’d rather not saying numbers, but like, this month has been our biggest month so far. So it’s doing really well. So I like interacting with my students one on one through emails, we do a lot of loom videos where they can send me a video through email, and I can reply back through video. And then I also interview some of my students on my YouTube channel so that I can see them, we can chat, and then we share advice and strategies to anybody who’s watching the video as well.

Melissa Guller 39:21

I think that even though you mentioned, you know, all this against the grain advice, I think it’s important to talk about because I am not the biggest personal fan of Facebook groups, I’m sure a lot of people maybe love them or hate them. But I think in online business, what matters most is that what you like, will be different from what somebody else likes, and what works for them won’t necessarily work for you. And even though the email strategy, maybe some people are listening and cringing and thinking, oh god, I would hate having my inbox that full. But for other people, maybe the thought of just building one to one relationships that way actually sounds like a better fit for them than a Facebook group could. So I think it’s really healthy and encouraging to hear your approach because I bet at least one or two listeners are now thinking, Oh, you know what, That actually sounds a lot more like me.

Suzi Whitford 40:08

Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s more for the introverts, that, like even a Facebook group, you’re not you’re not there yet. You’re not in a crowd, but you feel like you’re in a crowd, because anything you say in that group, everybody can see. But if you’re one to one an email, you can chat with one person, it feels in a way safer, especially if you’re an introvert. And I appear to be an extrovert, online and on my videos, but I’m actually a big introvert. I like to have one on one, like hangouts with other moms, like big crowds kind of stressed me out. So maybe that’s just why the emails work well for me.

Melissa Guller 40:42

Hmm, I think that’s a really good perspective. I’m curious to hear as we kind of start to wrap up shortly. Are there maybe misconceptions that you think people have about either your business or about blogging in general?

Suzi Whitford 40:56

Yeah, like a lot of people think blogging is dead. It’s not It’s it’s just a blogging about your own personal life exclusively is in a way in the past.

But blogging with the focus on helping others that is a super alive, like having written word that’s been around for thousands of years where people want to read, they want to be able to connect with others, they want to get advice. So doing it through blogging through YouTube videos, through Instagram posts through podcasting, it’s a way to reach people. And in a busy life that we have right now, like a lot of people gravitate to reading blog posts, because you can glance and get the information that you need quickly. So still really works. It’s a very inexpensive hobby to start, and it can grow into something really beautiful.

Melissa Guller 41:52

And I think that was really helpful that you mentioned. You know, it’s more about the reader than it is about the writer. I hadn’t thought about it in that way before. Yeah, thanks. So I asked this of most guests, we’ve covered it a little bit. But if you were starting your own online business today, what would you do in the first month or two? And maybe what would you save until later?

Suzi Whitford 42:13

Oh, man, the first month I would

cash out if I was starting blogging again, because I would probably pick that because I do like it, I would write five of really, really good blog posts that would help people with like, a good transformation. So lots of good tips really superduper helpful. Then for each one of those five blog posts, I would have an awesome freebie and that would help me test to see which blog post is doing the best and then which freebie is doing the best. And then from that, I would decide okay, which freebie Am I going to promote on my home page? Which one is going to be everywhere? What channel Do I have to like, dive deeper in or what can I leave behind a little bit so I will Start off just writing a couple pieces of good content and creating those freebies to get people on your email list. And as soon as they’re on your email list, start engaging with them. So you can start building relationships. And then from there, they’ll be feeding you ideas, and that will help you generate future content.

Melissa Guller 43:16

Mm hmm. Great advice. And where can people connect with you or learn more since there’s so much more we can’t possibly cover in just this podcast episode. So where can they learn more about you and your business?

Suzi Whitford 43:27

Alright, they can just go to Start a Mom Blog calm and find me there. There’s a big old picture of me and my kiddos. And there’s if they do want the guide that we talked about earlier, right on my homepage, they can get the guide and sign up for it completely free.

Melissa Guller 43:41

Perfect. Now as we wrap up just any final words of wisdom or inspiration for our listeners today?

Suzi Whitford 43:49

Oh, golly, don’t so many of my new bloggers and my new readers are so scared of just starting they’re so scared of everything having to be like to be perfect. As you guys probably be heard, I’ve started multiple times through this podcast. And that is okay. Like, you do not need to be completely perfect for others to, like get advice from you, you don’t have to be perfect to help them. It is okay. If your content has to be like, you can always go back and add to it, you can always go back and update it. You can. You can do so much online because everything is digital. So if there’s something that didn’t work, then you take it off or you delete it. If there’s something that really worked, you go add more to it. So don’t be afraid to start to put yourself out there. In the beginning, it’s more to build your own confidence. And then as your audience builds, then you’ll know what to create, and they’ll help you like build this beautiful successful business. Mm hmm. Two great pieces of advice there really be real and nothing is permanent. It can always change. Yeah, yeah, especially. It’s awesome.

Melissa Guller 44:52

Well, Suzi, thank you again for joining us. It was such a pleasure to learn more about you and I’m excited for hopefully people to check out yourself. And to maybe start blogs have their own.

Suzi Whitford 45:02

Alright, thank you so much for having me, Melissa. I appreciate it.

Melissa Guller 45:08

Thanks so much for joining us this week! You can learn more about Suzi Whitford, Start a Mom Blog, Teachable in the show notes at teachable.com/eit28. That’s teachable.com slash E I T 2 8. Before you go, make sure you subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they’re released. You can either subscribe right in your favorite podcast app or you can sign up for email alerts at teachable.com/podcast. On behalf of Team Teachable, we hope you enjoyed this episode about blogging with Suzi Whitford. We’ll see you in the next episode of Everything is Teachable.