Episode 577: 5 Questions Food Bloggers Get from Friends & Family (+ How to Respond to Them) (Mindset & Self-Care)

EBT577 – 5 Questions Food Bloggers Get from Friends & Family

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 (Jennifer Farley)  00:36

Hey, food bloggers if you’re looking to get more blog posts out into the world this year, I can help. I am Jen and I work behind the scenes as a ghostwriter for food bloggers, so you’re able to put all of your beautiful recipes out into the world. I optimize all posts in Rank IQ. And you’ll get great, helpful, SEO optimized content without any useless filler. And that’s written for humans to read. Whether you need to update old posts or create new ones, I’m your person. If you’re interested in more information, you can go to foodblogwriting.com and see a list of packages frequently asked questions and a link to get started. Again, that’s foodblogwriting.com. That will direct you to a landing page with all the information I hope to hear from you soon.

Megan Porta  01:17

Hello food bloggers, welcome to another self care and mindset focused episode here on Eat Blog Talk. Thank you for joining me today. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about five questions food bloggers get asked from friends and family and how to respond to them. This topic is such a hot one because it can really get in our heads, and therefore in our way. I believe it’s no secret that people outside our industry so our friends and family usually do not understand what goes on inside our businesses and inside our industry, which is fine and understandable. Honestly, it’s like me trying to understand what a physicist does. I might have a general idea what a physicist does, but I definitely could not tell you details about what they do. And if someone were to tell me they were a physicist, I’d be asking a lot of questions, probably very stupid questions, from their standpoint, that is step one. We need to have tons of grace for people who ask those, quote, stupid questions, and honestly, they’re not stupid. They’re just in the dark because they’re not food bloggers. Of course, they don’t get it. Of course, they don’t have the visions or dreams that we so clearly see for our businesses. So before we even get to the points for this episode, frame this topic with gobs of grace and patience, extend that to everyone in your life, and I promise everything will get easier after that. For the longest time, I found myself getting offended by certain things people would ask me and say to me about being a food blogger or just an entrepreneur in general. This was silly, and I’m so grateful to have a new perspective on this, because now I don’t feel the need to make others understand what I do or why I do it. I absolutely love what I do. I’m at peace with what I put out into the world and how I do that, and that is all that matters. Whether you feel the same peace or not, it’s still good to be armed with answers to a few common questions that do come our way. So let’s talk through the five questions food bloggers get from time to time, from friends and family and how to respond to them. 

Megan Porta  03:32

Number one, you’re a what or what exactly do you do? This is probably the most common question I have personally fielded over the years, due to the high volume of times this question has come my way, I’ve been able to refine it pretty well, and I feel really good about my current response. In the first few years, I would answer with, I’m a food blogger, and the reply I typically get was, oh, like a restaurant critic, which led to frustration and ridiculous, long drawn out explanations of what food bloggers actually do, which led to glazed over, confused eyeballs. My succinct answer to this question now is this, I run a recipe website, and I run a membership teaching others how to monetize their recipe sites. It is very rare that a person doesn’t understand what all of that means, but if I still sense confusion, I follow up with if you’re searching for a chili recipe on Google, and type in chili recipe, you will see a bunch of search results that come up. Most of these results are food blogs, also known as recipe websites. This can lead to some good follow up questions like, Oh, do you write your own recipes? Do you take your own photos? How do you teach people to grow their businesses? People usually have a really good grasp on what my business is about by this point, if you’re listening and you’re not food blogger, but you have an entrepreneurial business that serves people in other ways. Break down what you do into the simplest form that a 13 year old would understand, preferably in a single sentence, and honestly refine as you go. That’s what I’ve done. When a part of something I’ve said seems to be confusing for people, I tweak the wording until it lands, also relating to this point, don’t ever diminish what you do when someone doesn’t get what you’re trying to explain. It’s so easy to feel less than and to start diminishing the work we do. Speak about your job with respect and confidence, you serve and really help people in such a unique and profound way own that even if it isn’t received well. 

Megan Porta  05:43

This question and resulting conversation can often lead to number two, do you make money? Or how do you make money? Or for the really bold, how much money do you make? It’s rare that people ask how much money I make, but it has been asked much more commonly, people will just ask, how I make money. My current response to this question is this, on the blogging side of my business, most of the money I make comes from advertising on my site, on the teaching side of my business, I make money through podcast sponsorships and membership sales. Sometimes people have questions about how advertising equates to money earned for food bloggers. So I use this example. If you wanted to advertise a product or a service you were selling, you might contact a newspaper or a radio station or a magazine in order to purchase an ad spot. It’s the same thing for food blogs. Advertisers want their products to be seen by people browsing through recipe sites, so they get their ads put there through an advertising network that manages the ads, we as the content creators get paid for those ads being seen. So the more they’re viewed, the more revenue we get. And I think it’s important to address how not to answer this question, because depending on the person asking or the way it’s asked, we may not always feel comfortable diving into an explanation about how we make money. If it feels weird, just change the subject. If the other person persists, they probably don’t deserve an explanation, so just walk away. It’s okay to do that. Or you could try brushing off the question with humor. Something like this might make them stop, I’m not sure, but money keeps flowing into my bank account haha. When people are bold enough to ask you how much money you make, if you’re comfortable sharing this with people, then go for it. If not, I would personally ignore it or change the subject. I’ve not yet said this, but I have been tempted to say it, how much money do you make answering a question with a question? It’s amazing to me that it can feel appropriate to ask an entrepreneur how much money they make when it’s so inappropriate to ask like a doctor or a nurse or a teacher the same question perhaps a simple I don’t feel comfortable answering that question is all you need to say, along with a gentle change of subject. 

Megan Porta  08:04

About a year ago, I was at the bank depositing a bigish check. It wasn’t an astronomical check, but it was definitely bigger than the average check, at least for me, the bank teller looked at the check, then looked at me and said, Where did you get this? This totally threw me off. I said something like I earned it in my business. He kind of shrugged and then carried on. We finished the transaction and I left. After I left, I was so mad at myself for not responding differently. What a completely inappropriate thing to say to me. I wish I would have said something like, do you ask everyone who deposits a check that question, does the businessman coming in to deposit a check wearing a suit and tie get asked where he got his money? So yeah, this topic can lead to heightened emotions, even when we feel armed with appropriate responses. Comments and questions can come from places that we are not expecting and make us really upset. The more you answer it, though, the more confident you will feel talking about it every time I go into the bank now, I am armed and ready. Nobody has ever said that to me again, but I’m ready if they do. 

Megan Porta  09:16

Number three, how is your business doing? This question is a loaded one, but I’ve gotten really good at responding to it, and I actually love answering it. Last summer, we had a bunch of work done to our yard. This has been a dream of ours for so many years. We were so happy about it, and we just happened to have family in town during construction, there was a big crew at our house for a few solid days. A lot of equipment was needed coming in and out of the yard. We had these huge boulders being put in our backyard to form a wall and landscaping, and there was just a lot going on. It was very clear that this had been a large investment for us. So instead of saying, Wow, how much did this cost, which would be an incredibly rude thing to say, it. Seemed like a better option for one person to ask me, How is your business doing? I also got this question from a different family member after we bought our hot tub and from other various people in our lives after big vacations we’ve taken, et cetera. I used to trip over my words, not knowing how to reply to this, but now I love when people ask me, How is your business doing? I take their words at face value and I just answer them. My business is doing well, and I’m enjoying my work so much that is a direct and truthful answer to the actual question they asked, and it lets them know how genuinely I love my job. I pretend to take their words at total face value and just completely ignore the intention behind what they’re saying. Somehow it just feels fun to act clueless and to answer positively. 

Megan Porta  10:47

Number four, how is your little blog doing? There are only a few little words that differentiate this sentence from the previous one, but there’s a huge difference in the meaning. The last question was code for how much money are you making? And this question is code for Aww, what a cute little hobby you have, and how adorable that you think it’s going to pan out. I have fielded this question so many times over the years I’ve lost count. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard this. I remember one time very early on in my business, and before I’d gone full time, I was sitting on my front porch with a friend. She asked some version of this question, and I launched into full detail about all the work I was putting toward each post, including photography, recipe, development, writing, testing, etc. She asked me how much time I spent on each post, from start to finish, and I said something like, I think it’s somewhere around four hours, I remember so clearly the look on her face just being total shock. Her jaw dropped to the ground, and she stared at me for what seemed like forever. I feel like I read her mind in that moment, which was, Why in the world would you spend so much time on this little project? Here’s the thing about this question and the sentiments behind it, nobody has the vision for your business that you have, and we have to pull out a lot of grace for that. Of course, they don’t see it. It’s not their vision and it’s not their business. They’ve probably never seen anyone turn food photography and recipes into a legit business success before. So their hesitation to believe that we’re going to make it is fairly justifiable. You know that saying you’re delusional till it works, then you’re brilliant. Own that, because there will be people who interpret the vision you have for your business as being delusional. You’ve likely already experienced this a bunch, depending on how long you’ve been food blogging. But when you do make it work, they will see or not. It really doesn’t matter. The only thing that really matters is that you have a passion for what you do, and that you will see your vision through. 

Megan Porta  12:54

Number five. What do you do all day? Or can you watch my kids? Or you must have so much time on your hands? A lot of people assume that, since I work from home, I have all the time in the world to watch their children or go on frequent lunch dates or coffee dates or shopping excursions or whatever. Basically, the consensus is that I’m generally not working during the day, granted during the summer, this can often be the case, but I take my business very seriously, and I work hard most of the year, and I know you do too. I love answering this question with facts, so I’ll say something like, typically, I’m downstairs in my office working from 9am to 2pm at that point, I do school pickups, and sometimes I go back to work for a few hours beyond that, there’s really not much more that needs to be said when answering any version of what do you do all day? Let’s address the questions that involve being asked to be a daycare provider or run errands for people. A few years ago, a friend started relying on me to watch her pretty small children when she had appointments. I didn’t mind doing this for her the first few times, but then I was like, wait a minute, does she think I don’t have work to do? So I had to set some boundaries, not just with her, but with everyone, because a lot of people assume that I can and will do whatever, whenever. 

Megan Porta  14:13

I say no, a lot summer is excluded to lunch dates, coffee dates, watching people’s kids, etc. My best advice for this one is to have strict boundaries. Hold those boundaries and state your hours of business when people inquire about the mysterious goings on in your home during daytime weekday hours, doing those couple of small things took so much off my mental plate.

Megan Porta  14:39

Let’s recap the five questions food bloggers get from friends and family and how to respond to them. Number one, you’re a what or what exactly do you do? Number two, do you make money? Or how do you make money? Or how much money do you make? Number three, how’s your business doing? Number four, how’s your little blog doing? And number five, what do you do? All. Day. Or can you watch my kids? Or you must have so much time on your hands? Arming yourself with answers to these common questions we get from people outside of our world can take such a mental load off. I used to panic about being in a new group of people because I knew someone was going to ask me what I did for work, leading to stumbling over my words and sounding like an idiot with a little refining and time and patience and grace, I’ve gotten to a point where I feel confident talking about what I do and answering these questions with confidence. Thank you for listening. I hope this helps you. I will see you next week food bloggers. Have a good one. 

Outro  15:37

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.