Episode 583: 5 Ways to Accelerate Business Growth (Mindset & Self-care)

EBT583 – 5 Ways to Accelerate Business Growth

Intro  00:01

Hey food bloggers. Thank you so much for joining me in this mindset and self-care focused episode here on Eat Blog Talk. One of the reasons I started a blog talk was to hold a space to talk about the importance of mindset and self-care. Being an entrepreneur can be a lot. If we are not taking care of ourselves, then getting actionable information about SEO Pinterest or whatever else is all moot. I will meet you back here every Wednesday to discuss various mindset and self-care topics. So you have the energy and space to tackle the rest.

Sponsor (Chelsea Plummer) 00:36

Hi. My name is Chelsea Plummer. I blog at maesmenu.com and I also run a boutique content creation agency, Maes Media. At Maes Media, we are a small team of experienced cooks and bakers who love to write, and we’d love to help you create new blog posts, whether you’re looking for help with writing new blogs or optimizing existing let’s partner together to grow your blog. We have an in-house SEO specialist, and pride ourselves in writing high quality content that your readers will enjoy reading as much as the search engines will enjoy ranking it. Everything is written 100% by humans and an in-house editor copy edits and finalizes all posts, making it a full service offering for you. Take blog post creation off your plate and let us handle it for you. Email me at [email protected] to schedule a free content maximizing strategy call today. That’s Chelsea, C, H, E, L, S, E, A at Maes Media, M, A, E, S media.co Thanks so much, and I look forward to talking with you soon.

Megan Porta  01:42

Food bloggers, hello. How is your day going? I hope you’re having a wonderful day. Welcome to this mindset and self care episode of Eat Blog Talk. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about five ways to accelerate business growth. I don’t know about you, but my business just feels stagnant at times. Sometimes it feels like my entire business needs an overhaul or a boost, and other times, it just feels like certain parts of my business feel really stagnant. One of my goals this summer has been to increase my Instagram followers on my Eat Blog Talk account. It is almost comical how things are panning out with this, and really, all I can do is laugh. I started the summer with just under 3000 followers, and I have been posting reels five to seven days a week since early June. It is now almost mid August, I’m still under 3000 followers. I got to 3000 for a day. Then it went back down to 2998, 2997. I mean, it’s like the most comical thing. What the heck? So maybe you’re feeling the same frustration with a goal that you’re striving to achieve. Or maybe you feel like your wheels are spinning and your entire business just needs to get some traction and grow already. First of all, I just want to say this is completely normal. Our businesses cannot be optimally growing all the time. This isn’t how entrepreneurship works. It is not how life works. There are cycles to everything. We know this, which means when things are humming along and growing and everything seems to be falling into place, eventually, there has to be a downswing. When things are up, they’ll always go down at some point. When things are down, they’ll always go up at some point too. So wherever you are on the spectrum of wanting to accelerate your business growth, let’s talk through some good ways to make that happen. Here are five ways to accelerate business growth. 

Megan Porta  03:52

Number one, prioritize relationships. Once I started Eat Blog Talk, I began prioritizing relationships a lot, lot more than I had been previously, honestly, because I kind of had to. Talking to people on a regular basis is essential when you’re hosting an interview style podcast. It didn’t take me long to learn that my prioritizing of relationships was making my business grow exponentially. Since then, I have doubled down on relationships. I try to connect with people as much as possible, because I know this can lead to business growth that I cannot even anticipate. At the moment in time I’m doing the connecting. I heard this line on a podcast the other day, and this time I actually remember the podcast in the episode. It was on Win the Day podcast with James Whittaker. He’s one of my awesome mentors. It was episode number 196, Think Big with Mark Victor. In the episode, Mark says your network determines your net worth. My jaw literally dropped to the floor of my car when I heard this. Wow, it is so true you guys. 

Megan Porta  05:10

For more years than I would like to admit, I was a food blogger, trudging along on my own, thinking I could do absolutely everything myself and find that wild success that I wanted all by myself. I think because food blogging is such a solo endeavor, because really, we can do all of the work if we want by ourselves, we tend to stay solo for a while, especially if you are an introvert like I am. Then at some point we either get lonely enough, or we get nudged, either internally or by others, to branch out and explore the scary world of networking with other humans, interacting with them, connecting with them and forming relationships. And then we see how powerful it really is. This is one of those things that is really hard to understand until you experience it, the power of networking and prioritizing relationships will have the biggest impact on your business growth. If you don’t know where to start with this, commit to putting yourself where people are, who you admire. Maybe that means attending a conference or joining a zoom call or an accountability group, maybe it means hosting a local blogger dinner or entrepreneurial dinner, or joining an entrepreneurial meetup or an event for photographers. It can be scary. I get it, but it is so essential to your business growth for you to put yourself out there with this, prioritize relationships, and I promise your business will blossom in ways that you never thought possible. It’s like scattering random flower seeds into a big field and watching them bloom into the most amazing, colorful, beautiful flowers, and you didn’t know what they would look like when you scattered those seeds. I wish I could convey the level of fear I carried into my first ever blogging conference, just so you know that I understand how scary this is. I also carried a huge level of fear into my second blogging conference and my third and so on. You have to train yourself to prioritize people and relationships despite the fear and you will accelerate your business growth, I promise. 

Megan Porta  07:25

Number two, join or form a quality mastermind group. I mentioned how starting Eat Blog Talk prompted me to prioritize relationships and the positive impact this had on my business. After this, I sought out other ways to get myself in rooms with people who are high quality, uplifting, encouraging, smart and kind humans. I was super lucky to find a mastermind group that checked all of those boxes. This group was filled with awesomeness, pure awesomeness. I loved these people. I loved this group. And again, it was scary. The investment in itself was scary for me, and showing up to zoom calls, feeling like I was definitely the least knowledgeable person in the room, was super scary, but I freaking did it anyway, and it paid off in dividends. From that group I got the idea for the format that is now the Eat Blog Talk mastermind program, which has been a wild success. It has been a supportive, valuable space for so many food bloggers, and has just rounded out Eat Blog Talk so nicely. Also from that group, I found my podcast producer and friend, Catharina, who I literally could not imagine my life without. Also from that group, I landed guest spots on podcasts that have expanded the reach of my entire business. Also from that group, I was able to get a front row seat to some serious bold successes, and I believe I’m a bolder, more successful entrepreneur because of that. I literally could go on and on. The trickle down benefits of being involved in a really high quality mastermind group are something you can’t even quantify, because the positive effects in projects and connections just keep exponentially building over time. A year from now, I’m sure something else huge will have come into my business because I was a part of that group. Back to that quote I mentioned earlier, your network determines your net worth, the higher quality the humans in your network, the more money you are going to make, and the more successful your business will be. If you are looking for a blogging specific mastermind group, apply for the Eat Blog Talk mastermind groups for 2025 go to eatblogtalk.com/mastermind. 

Megan Porta  09:38

If you’re not ready for that investment, Google other options or just start one yourself. This is as easy as putting a feeler out on social media or to your network of peers and just seeing who bites. I do recommend charging at least something for a group if you form something like this on your own, people take paid groups much more seriously than unpaid groups I have found. I’ll say this too, I found that there’s a ton of value in going outside the food blogging space for high quality mastermind groups, different niches can provide unique perspectives on our businesses that we literally haven’t even thought about the group I talked about earlier that I loved so much that was not a blogging specific group, and I so appreciated the perspectives of people in all areas of the entrepreneurial space. It was invaluable. There are so many big thinkers, big dreamers and big doers out there, so go find those people. Put yourself where they are and watch your business grow. 

Megan Porta  10:38

Number three, hire a business and or mindset coach along the same lines as the previous point, finding a business and or mindset coach who is a big dreamer and big doer and who can guide you along in your business decisions, and most importantly, who can guide you with your mindset, is essential for big growth. This was also a big and scary investment for me. When I decided to take the leap, I remember stressing about the money I was investing. I didn’t know whether or not it was going to pay off, and all of the other worries that come along with making a big investment were there too. You guys, within one to two months of investing in a high quality business coach. All of the money I’d invested came back to me, plus some true story a really good coach is going to help you immediately recognize the things that are holding you back, as well as how to rewrite old stories so you are free to earn more money or have more success, or feel worthy of the freedom that you desire, or whatever it is that has been holding you back. I get the hang up with the investment here, because quality coaches are not cheap, and they shouldn’t be hiring a good business and mindset coach will be one of the best investments you can possibly make in your business. And I’m sure this goes without saying, but you can’t go in salty and pessimistic and skeptical of it working. You have to go in with an open mind and optimism, ready to put in the work, ready to dig deep inside yourself and figure out what’s been holding you back and overcoming those things. I can honestly say that hiring my coach changed the entire trajectory of my business in a very short period of time. 

Megan Porta  12:28

Number four, be consistent. Consistency is one of my staple moves for accelerating business growth. When in a rut, I lean on consistency first I get in touch with my goals and my dreams and what I truly want in my life, in the future. Also, why do I want those things? This is a key point, because it keeps me moving forward, even when I don’t feel like moving forward. With these things in mind, I can figure out what it is that I need to be consistent with. If a goal of yours is to monetize your blog through ads because you want to make $2,000 extra per month to travel with your family, you are likely emotionally tied to the outcome, making it easier to stay on the path to pursuing this goal. Having a clear goal with an emotional tie makes it easy to see what you need to do to get there, to get into an ad network and make $2,000 a month, you need pageviews, right? Which probably means you need an SEO strategy, and maybe a Pinterest strategy and or a Facebook strategy, which also means you need to create content that people crave, which prompts you to put a plan in place for all of this, including how much content to make, what content to make. This could involve a lot of keyword research, etc. If you make a solid plan and stay consistent with it, goals achieved. There are days when I just don’t have the energy to do everything I wish I could do. This is just a fact for the current stage of life I’m in. On those days, I still do something to stay consistent with taking action. 

Megan Porta  14:05

Here’s an example. I’m currently working on a new sales page for the Eat Blog Talk mastermind groups for 2025 and I have a goal of having this page done by next Wednesday, a week from today, and sharing the new page with everyone on Monday, I spent over an hour on this page, which was great yesterday, after recording four podcast interviews, I did not have the energy left over to give the sales page a ton of my time, but I still wanted to make a dent. I still wanted to do something, so I committed to spending 10 minutes on it. I didn’t get a ton done, but it was something, and I’m okay with that. I moved forward a little bit. Do something every single day, or at least every day of your work week, to move yourself towards your goals and your business growth will be accelerated. 

Megan Porta  14:53

Number five, evaluate monthly what is and isn’t working. Set aside four hours toward the end of every month to do a little evaluation during that time, sit down in a quiet spot, don’t have any distractions, no other work can happen during that time. Ask yourself these questions, what worked this month and what didn’t work this month? Do some journaling about these questions and just see what insights come out of it. Now use this information to plan the coming month. Maybe you invested a ton of time in creating reels on Instagram in hopes that you’d gain followers like I have. If that didn’t work, then you may need to ask yourself, if it’s worth continuing these efforts also, why do you want to increase your follower count and does it align with your business goals? Maybe there is a better use of your time. Writing these questions out is going to bring you so much clarity that just thinking through them will not bring one of my goals in August, at the time I’m recording this is to increase the number of blog updates that I do. I have so much content on my blog, and I think it’s going to be worthwhile to go back to some of my older content and just give them updates. I’ve never done this amount of updates before that I have planned. I just felt a really strong pull to try it as we approach q4 so I followed that nudge, and I’m doing it. I know it’s going to be a lot of work, but I don’t know how I’m going to feel at the end of the month, and I don’t know what my analytics are going to say. So it’ll be good to sit down and evaluate the time investment and whether I felt like it was a smart use of my time or not. If we never evaluate what is and isn’t working, we don’t force ourselves to make changes when we need to, we kind of gloss over that really important piece of our business. This is one of those things that sounds good. Like, yeah, I can sit down at the end of the month and think about these two simple questions, but when it comes down to it, it’s really hard to actually make time for it. So I’m encouraging you to just make a commitment, commit to doing this at the end of this month, evaluate what you’ve been working on this month for mental clarity, which is going to result in accelerated growth in your business. Hopefully, once you see how impactful this exercise can be, that you’ll continue doing it from month to month. It’s like an end of the month business cleanse. Think of it that way. 

Megan Porta  17:22

That is all I have for you five ways to accelerate your business growth. Number one, prioritize relationships. Number two, join or form a quality mastermind group. Three, hire a business and or mindset coach. Four, be consistent and five, evaluate monthly what is and isn’t working. I hope these tips help you. If you’re feeling stagnant in your business or maybe just with a few projects, a little intentionality and a willingness to invest money in your business will really go a long way with accelerating your business growth and quickly. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. I will see you next week. 

Megan Porta  18:04

Thank you so much for listening to this mindset and self care episode here on Eat Blog Talk, if you are a food blogger providing a service for other food bloggers, and you want to spread the word about the value that you offer, I would love to offer you a free way to do just this. Send me a 60 second audio clip to be featured in a mindset and self care episode here on Eat Blog Talk in 2024. Go to eatblogtalk.com/audioclip to learn more.