BONUS Episode: Pull Yourself Out of a Business Rut and Maximize Your Potential – How to Invest in Your Business Today

EBT – Bonus Episode

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

Megan Porta  00:37

Welcome it to this bonus episode of Eat Blog Talk. I’ve only done a handful of bonus episodes in the whole history of this podcast. So kind of a big deal.

Megan Porta  00:49

Melissa Erdelac from Mama Gourmand joins me and she is also my business partner for Flavor Media Summit. Inside of this bonus material, we talk about how to pull yourself out of a business rut. I think if you’ve been a food blogger for even a little bit of time, you’ve probably experienced that business rut that we tend to get in from time to time, we also talk about how investing in your business can help pull you out of a rut, and we discuss what things you can do to invest. We also talk about other reasons why investing in your business is good. And we touch on ways to invest. And one of the big ways we talk about to invest in your business is to attend in person or virtual retreats, conferences, groups, that sort of thing, because that connection with people is so invaluable. With that said Flavor Media Summit is coming up. It’s coming up in less than two months now. And we have just a few spots left. Listen to the episode to get all the details about it and see if it sounds like a great fit for you. And don’t forget to listen it through to the end because we do have a special offer for people who claim those last few spots. Whether you join us in Denver or not this year, I truly hope that you will pull out some value from this episode. It was so fun to record. 

Megan Porta  02:12

Hello, Melissa.

Melissa Erdelac  02:14

Hello, Megan.

Megan Porta  02:15

how’s it going today?

Melissa Erdelac  02:16

It’s good.

Megan Porta  02:19

I know shining here too. We’re going to talk about pulling yourself out of a business right today and why and how to invest in your business to help with that. And we’re also going to highlight a few details about Flavor Media Summit, which is approaching quickly. We also want to put out there that we have a special offer for Eat Blog Talk listeners who want to grab one of the last tickets we have available for the conference. So definitely listen through to the end of this episode, if you want to hear that special offer. Yeah,

Melissa Erdelac  02:54

It’s a good one.

Megan Porta  02:55

It is it’s super exciting. So yeah, let’s just talk first about like, what is a business rut? And how to pull out of it? I guess. So do you have any examples of times when you’ve been in a business rut?

Melissa Erdelac  03:11

Well, I was actually I was just thinking of this yesterday, I’ve been doing this for eight years, which is the longest that I’ve held any jobs? No. So it’s gone through a lot of ebbs and flows. And yes, when you are doing the same thing, especially as many things as we do for eight years, like you find yourself in just times of being uninspired and just kind of sick of it all. So I would say the ruts that I get into is starting in a system and continuing on that system without asking myself, is the system still working for me? So even if it’s how I publish a blog post, if it’s the jobs that I give my VAs I noticed I do that a lot. I will have my VAs do certain things. And then I’ll take that off my plate and I’ll never revisit is that actually what am I getting the biggest bang for my buck? Of having other people do these jobs for me? Social media, because I’m not really into social media. I mean, it’s kind of a necessary evil the way I see it. So I come up with a system for that. And I find okay, it works for me, it’s the least painful for me. And I don’t often reexamine to see if it’s actually benefiting my business when it’s such a huge part of it.

Megan Porta  04:44

Yeah. And also just for me, it’s been like when I realized I’ve been leaving people out of my business, maybe I’m not networking enough or collaborating or working on projects with other people. I can get really stagnant with my revenue and with my traffic, with growth really on any platform. And for me, that’s been a huge signal, just to let me know that I’m not on a good path that I am in a rut, and then I maybe need to pull myself out. 

Melissa Erdelac  05:16

Yeah, when you put your head down for too long without seeing out for sure. 

Megan Porta  05:22

So I thought it would be cool to talk through just a few examples of times, because I’ve been in a lot of ruts in my business. I’ve been doing this for 13 and a half years, you have been at it for eight years. That’s a lot of opportunity for ruts. So do you have an example to talk us through?

Melissa Erdelac  05:39

Yes, I would say for the longest time, especially the first half of my career, I, I’m more of an introverted person. So I felt like I could just do it by myself, or I felt like I want to just do it by myself, I want to learn through classes online, or kind of stalking Facebook groups, things like that, and try to figure out how I could use that in my own business. And I also felt, I had this fear that I didn’t have enough to offer other people. So it held me back from connecting with others, because I thought I hadn’t earned that spot yet. And I’ll always remember the first conference I went to, it was so scary, because I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know. Like, I just felt that I hadn’t earned my stripes yet. And after that conference, I was so mad at myself. I’m like, Why haven’t I been doing this? All along? I mean, it was a game changer, for sure. And also, from that point forward, I continually reach out to others, because I know how valuable it is to kind of glean information from other people that are experiencing the same things. 

Megan Porta  07:06

Yeah, I know it is. I was so scared, going to my first few conferences as well. And then looking back, I’m like, why I remember calling my husband the night before. And I was like, I can’t do this. I’m gonna fly home. It’s like, whatever you flew all the way out there. You are going to the conference. And it was not a big deal. It was…

Melissa Erdelac  07:26

Yes. And you’ve been blogging for a while before your first one, too, right?

Megan Porta  07:32

Yeah, for a long time. And I think that was my biggest business rut prior to the first conference I went to, I was so stagnant with everything. Traffic, I felt like there was this invisible block holding me back. And I didn’t know what it was, I would stare at my analytics and just wonder, like, why, like, what is it what is holding me back? I have no idea. But I wasn’t talking to people. I definitely wasn’t connected. I was not networking, I really wasn’t even learning. So I just had this knowing that I needed to change something, and start connecting and start learning. And that is what propelled me to go to that first conference. That was so scary. But it literally changed the trajectory of my entire business.

Melissa Erdelac  08:20

I started to, at that point, look at myself as a business, not just like, I want to earn extra money, because that was the point all along of why I started this, but it was this is going to be a bonafide business. Yeah, I mean… 

Megan Porta  08:37

Same, it changed my viewpoint of myself, too. So we’ve mentioned in conferences, they’re not as scary as they seem, but we promise. What are some other ways that you have pulled yourself out of ruts

Melissa Erdelac  08:50

won’t good. Another good tactic for introverts is a lot of business books, focusing especially on mindset, and mental blocks, some game changing ones The gap in the Gain.

Megan Porta  09:04

Atomic Habits was a game changer for me just establishing new habits in your life. That changed my business as well. I mean, I have I could go on and on about books, but yeah, just finding some really solid mindset books can literally change your business. Can I share this? So I just heard this this morning, my husband was like, let’s do a meditation. So we sat down and did like a five minute meditation. And one of the things that this person I don’t know who was shared, he said, the quality of your mind determines the quality of your life. And I wrote it down because I’m like, that is so perfect for just the message we want to share with the summit and this podcast. Yeah, you can’t ignore it. If you don’t have a high quality mind and thoughts, then you’re not going to have a high quality business. It’s so important to pay attention to that. 

Melissa Erdelac  09:55

Yeah, and I would another thing that I thought of is actually I’ve been very specific about your goals and writing them down. I think back of goals that I’ve journaled, like just wrote down that seemed insurmountable at that time. And now I look back, and I’m like, Oh, my gosh, that was like, not that long ago. And I’ve added and surpassed it. So, I mean, visualization and feel is huge. Yeah,

Megan Porta  10:27

intentionality, writing things down, keeping in touch with them. And also, we didn’t touch on blog retreats. So that kind of plays goes hand in hand with conferences, but they’re smaller scale. It’s a really great way to pull yourself out of a business rut. It’s not as intimidating not as daunting. Yeah, but also very powerful.

Melissa Erdelac  10:46

Yeah, and I would see hanging out with other bloggers is like, one of my favorite things to do, because we have our friends, we have our families, no one else in the world gets what we spend the majority of our time on, like another blogger. I mean, you just have this instant connection with them. I feel like we’re all kind of just cut from the same cloth. Yeah. And the blog retreats, or networking in person is just I’ve met so many people that I’ve been like, oh, my gosh, you’re my new favorite person.

Megan Porta  11:24

I know. Yeah. Blog retreats are amazing. Okay, anything else that pulls you out of ruts, we’ve covered some really good options there just to think through because if you’re listening, you probably either have been in a blog rut or maybe you’ve you feel like you’re in one now rewind to happen eventually.

Melissa Erdelac  11:42

Yeah, something I do. Also was looking at my calendar, and kind of shake that up, like not scheduling everything the same way every week, like picking a new focus, every quarter, whether it’s a social media platform, or updating posts, or kind of reworking your focus from time to time helps you pick out just the mundaneness. 

Megan Porta  12:09

Yeah, I like that. So I think a lot of what we’re talking about involves investing in your business. So if you’re going to a conference, if you’re going to a retreat, you know, business books, even a lot of those things require you to invest. So I think it’s really important to cover why investing is such an important part of running a food blogging business. Yeah. So it like, obviously, it pulls you out of the rut that you’re in. But what are some additional ways that investing can change your business do you think?

Melissa Erdelac  12:44

Well, first of all, I think it’s such an obstacle, like a mental obstacle to invest, because it’s not something that has a clear ROI. And it could it’s a lot of money. I mean, it’s not only a lot of money, but it’s kind of a pain, like you have to arrange to leave your everyday responsibilities and stuff. So it’s a hard hurdle to get over. But I can honestly say, I have never stepped away from my business and done a retreat or conference or anything like that, and felt like that didn’t change my business for the positive in some way. And how can you measure it? I mean, an upward trajectory is an upward trajectory. I mean, it’s, it’s a new launching pad that you take your business and you just go up from there. So it’s kind of getting over that blockage of I don’t need to spend this money, like I can just continue doing what I’m doing, and put in the work, and I will eventually get there. But then you are not, you’re losing the creativity piece and the inspiration piece, which is like doing the things the way you’re doing, you’re going to get the same results, like we all need to be continually inspired.

Megan Porta  14:04

Yeah, I know, bloggers who have a block to this, they refuse to invest because their goal is just I’m gonna save money. I don’t want to spend money. But I feel like those people I can see it like, I can see that they’re holding themselves back from success, and they’re doing fine. Some of them, it’s like, they’re, they’re doing okay. But from my perspective, I feel like they could be doing so much better if they just let down that guard and invested a little bit in their business. And like you said, it’s not a direct ROI. Like if you invest in this blog retreat, you are going to get blah, blah, blah. It’s not like that. It doesn’t work that way. But just investing knowing that you are going to get so much back in dividends. And it’s not something that you can necessarily measure, but it’s going to be impactful for your business.

Melissa Erdelac  14:58

Yeah, I think also some people that we know use life coaches or business coaches or something like that, that’s something that takes you out of the equation and kind of makes you stand back and look at it from a different lens. I don’t think I could have grown as much unless I have done that. We’re our worst coach. 

Megan Porta  15:20

Oh, that is so true. And we all work alone. We’re solopreneurs a lot of us and we don’t have another perspective. So it’s just like, What do I think about my business today, so it is good to have another perspective. And for me, investing too, has just brought like passion back into my business, that feeling after you go to a conference, or you get together with retreat bloggers, you feel so much more passionate about what you’re doing and reinvigorated. That’s…

Melissa Erdelac  15:50

Like excited to get back to work. Or just ready to dive back in. I mean, it is it’s, it’s like kind of like Christmas morning when you.

Megan Porta  16:02

It feels stale before you go in. And then when you emerge, do you just feel like, oh, where does all this passion been sitting all this time and motivation to write like you have specific projects that you’ve talked about, and things that have worked for other people, and you’re just so ready, and motivated to get going? And new strategies as well? Do you remember that retreat where we talked about web stories a few years ago, and how we were all like, and during the retreat, I published a web story that got like 3000, or 4000 clicks within the walls of the retreat. We were also excited. Everyone else is like, quick, do a web story.

Melissa Erdelac  16:43

I’m still riding that wave and say yes, I that would have never just coming together with other bloggers and hearing those very specific, I’m doing this, and this is working for me. And for some reason, that translates more than like, reading about it in a Facebook group or you know, or ripple about it or, but sitting down with people and really talking through their methods. And with your computers open and show me how you do it what you know, having questions about it, it works so much more.

Megan Porta  17:20

Yeah, and having that one on one time with people really condenses the learning time too. If I see something in a Facebook group, and I watch a video, I’m like I don’t, it doesn’t really sink in as much as it does when you’re one on one face to face with somebody. And the learning curve is so much better. So yeah. And then also, we kind of touched on mindset. I think like investing in yourself can really change your mindset, which is going to change your business too. And I can tell you that. Like my when I work on my mindset and invest in, like mindset coaching, I have a mindset business coach, everything changes. So my income has gone up, my traffic has gone up, my opportunities have opened up, I make more connections, I’m more confident to I’m honestly like braver because I have somebody who’s telling me like you can do this. So I do things that I normally wouldn’t do, which leads to results. The motivation goes up because you’re holding yourself accountable to somebody else. And even if it’s just a network of friends, not necessarily a business coach, but if you have a network and you say I’m going to work on this, then you actually follow through. So yeah, mindset and accountability are really huge, too. Okay, so we’ve talked about some ways to invest as far as like connecting, and, you know, attending retreats, attending conferences, or summits, you can also join a mastermind group, an accountability group. Eat Blog Talk has a lot of different offerings there. But as far as investing in your business and other ways, so maybe like, you know, tools we should have on our minds to invest in that sort of thing. Let’s talk through some of those options for investing.

Melissa Erdelac  19:20

So this kind of goes back first of all, to meeting with people, but when I’ve met with people, and they kind of walk through their systems for the day or what they get done in a week, a lot of the times my mind is blown about like how do you do all this, you know, just the logistics of it all. And at that point, I will look at my calendar and examine my own time sucks and see what I’m spending the majority of my time on and if it’s worth it, and outsourcing those things that are just time sucks for me. So VAs have been huge taking tasks that I can hand off to someone else and giving in paying someone to do that has been a great another great way to invest for me.

Megan Porta  20:14

Yeah, outsourcing is so huge I and I think so looking at your calendar is a great way to determine that. But also, something I do all the time is time tracking. I used to do this very sporadically, just when I was like, I don’t know really busy, like what the heck is going on with my life. But now I just do it all the time. So I have it open right now it’s recording that I’m doing a podcast interview. And then I examined that to see what I’m doing too much of that I don’t want to be doing. So recently, I noticed a couple of months ago, I was like I am so tired at the end of the week, what is going on. And I looked and saw that I was doing all kinds of admin work and organization calendar, updates, inviting email, it was all stuff that I that wasn’t lighting me up that I didn’t want to be doing. So that was my signal to start outsourcing that. So I found somebody to help me. She’s started taking over and my life feels so much lighter. It is a game changer. So just examining what you’re doing what’s exhausting you. And then investing and getting that help to give you back your time and energy. Yeah.

Melissa Erdelac  21:24

And that’s something that Megan Porter does not have to be doing. I mean, you have to do the podcast interview, but you don’t need to be… 

Megan Porta  21:32

Exactly, right. 

Melissa Erdelac  21:34

But things that are you have to do, because you are the brand of the business, but you don’t have to do everything. 

Megan Porta  21:41

Exactly, yeah. And we all have those things. So just looking at that, what about like, tools, plugins, I also know people who really try hard not to invest in any tools or plugins, they do all the free stuff. But there are some things that I believe you should probably invest in in order to just help your business along. So do you have any ideas about those?

Melissa Erdelac  22:06

I mean, I’m still a Tailwind user. I use that for scheduling my Pinterest. I know some people are on the fence about that. But that not having to go physically in to the Pinterest app or not having to physically go into the Pinterest scheduler, scheduling them out one at a time. Has you know that? That’s just a time set for me. So I use tailwind. I don’t know what held me back from not getting Canva Pro for so long. But I got that a couple years ago. And that was a game changer. And it’s not really that expensive. I think it’s like $120 a year.

Megan Porta  22:43

Yeah. I think every food blogger should invest in Canva. Pro it is it’s amazing. And Canva Pro also offers social media scheduling. If you don’t do Tailwind, do you don’t want to invest in that you can use Canva Pro, it’s a great scheduler, I use it for a while and I loved it. 

Melissa Erdelac  23:02

Yeah. And then having people in place on my team to when things come up, that I could just send a quick email and be like, can you deal with this, whether it’s a great web developer, or like my host, my web host, he’s always so helpful, just people that you’re not sitting down and having to figure out things on the back end of your site. And just never outsourcing that.

Megan Porta  23:32

Or worry about them like hosting I’ve had really bad hosts in the past that caused just energy drains time lost traffic and money lost and it’s not worth it. So investing upfront in really quality hosting, I found is super helpful, too. 

Melissa Erdelac  23:50

Yeah, something else that I use from time to time too is like templates for like lead magnets or sales, things like that, that you’re not having to figure out on your own any way that you can shorten your learning curve, or just paying someone to have them do it too. But sometimes that’s not always an option. But that’s been a great way to invest for my business as well. 

Megan Porta  24:14

And it will save you literally like a day or two of work, right? Because sometimes those sales pages can take so long to tweak. So the templates are really valuable. If you do a lot of calls, or if you have calendar invites to send out a lot. I think Calendly and Zoom are worth investing in. I know I’ve been on calls where people host Zoom calls and there’s like a 40 minute limit to your free account. And it’s like why don’t you just invest in that because they’re always like, Okay, we have two minutes left and you see the timer and like that is so silly. It’s like 100 and something dollars or wait, maybe it’s more than that. It’s not. It’s not that much money every year if you do host a lot of calls so it’s worthwhile. Also having some tool like Calendly, just to take care of your calendar. So you don’t have to go back and forth like, okay, it does Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday work, it just takes care of all of that for you, and streamlines your life. And yeah, I think that covers a lot of tools and plugins to invest in outsourcing. There are so many ways to invest, I would say, just be smart about what you’re investing in, get opinions from people that you trust. So if you’re in a group of trusted peers, just talk to them about what they invest in.

Melissa Erdelac  25:34

Our classes comes up a lot, but that never really works for me. In theory, I think it’s going to work. But then it’s still a time investment because you have to go through the class. And then you have to implement it as well, too. So like I would say, look at yourself and think if I put this money into it, am I actually going to get anything out of it? What are you willing to put into it in the first place?

Megan Porta  26:01

If all of this sounds amazing, and you want to invest in more of an in person learning experience, where you can also network and collaborate and have some new friends and have a really fun time, Melissa and I wanted to talk about Flavor Media Summit, which is coming up in May 2nd and 3rd of 2024. We’re finalizing details, it’s getting so exciting.

Melissa Erdelac  26:22

Oh are we finalizing details,

Megan Porta  26:24

Details that I didn’t even know could exist or existing. But yeah, we do have a few spots left, we don’t have many. So we just wanted to put it out there and share about the you know all the details that are coming together. And we do have a special offer for you guys. But just to reiterate where it’s at, and when it is, it’s in Denver, Colorado May 2nd and 3rd this year, we have some amazing speaker lineups and topics ready for attendees. So we can talk through maybe just kind of a loose schedule. If you want to touch on a few of your favorite topics or speakers, you’re excited to hear about 

Melissa Erdelac  27:07

Well, in correlation of what we were just talking about Natalia from Mom’s Dish will be speaking about managing a team. So she knows a lot about outsourcing. I’m really excited about that. We’ve sent out a survey recently to the people that are signed up so far, and a lot of people really want to know about email marketing. So we have an amazing panel for that where people are going to not only hear what works for them, but also be able to ask questions and see how it can work in your own business. We just had a call with Ty Kilgore, and he kind of gave his outline of his presentation. And some of the things he said it was almost I told him I’m like, I feel stupid that I’ve never thinks that never occurred to me. 

Megan Porta  27:58

Like, but it’s mind blowing. It was so good.

Melissa Erdelac  28:02

approach to not only SEO, but like how you look at certain posts and how you should value certain posts. I mean, I don’t, I’m really excited for for that talk. 

Megan Porta  28:16

Yeah, me too. We also added taxes recently. So financials, blogging, financials can get really tricky, especially when you’re in that more advanced stage of blogging and you have more income and expenses. So Annesley from Peach Perfect Financials is going to talk about how to manage all of that. What we can have on our radar as far as taxes go. It’s kind of it’s unnecessary topic to talk about, even though like the word taxes doesn’t necessarily spark passion. It’s very important.

Megan Porta  28:50

Yeah, for sure. And then we

Megan Porta  28:52

I’m also really excited about Cara Meyers from Sweetly Splendid, she’s going to talk about systems and organization and all of that stuff. Also another topic that isn’t necessarily passionate inducing, but very important, and she is so smart and skilled in this area. Her organization is next level. So

Melissa Erdelac  29:16

I’m just here. Yeah, Cara is amazing. I’ve been in a mastermind with her in not only in this aspect of blogging, but she is so inspiring in so many other ways. And she’s so generous with information too. So that’s Megan, and I’ve been meeting with speakers recently and kind of walking through their presentations and all of them have been, they’re all going to be bringing to the table very specific systems that they’re using. So the information that you will be getting there isn’t generalized, but you’ll be walking away with templates, but it’ll be workshops that you can actually use this in your business. So we under stands that this is time away from your business. So we want to make it as valuable as possible. So you’re actually learning the systems and figuring out how they’re going to work in your business at the same time, that is huge for us. We don’t want people to walk away and just be like, Oh, my gosh, I have all the information. Now, what do I do with it? We want that to happen there. 

Megan Porta  30:24

And to round that out, so we do know how overwhelming it can be to have information overload and social interactions can be super overwhelming as well. So we’re bringing in kind of a mindset expert, he does a lot of just like breath work and teaching you how to ground yourself so that you are able to take in the information and be more creative and walk away from the event, not just deer in the headlights, I don’t even know what to do. This list is so overwhelming, I’m just going to throw it in the garbage, he’s going to talk us through a lot of tactics so that we can retain and actually follow through with the stuff that we’re going to learn there

Melissa Erdelac  31:08

A lot about what we spoke about earlier, manifesting, and making sure that you visualize what you want in your business and going towards that. And he’s going to be, if that’s something that interests you, definitely not mandatory, but he will pull small groups of people and walk people through those exercises. So I’m pretty excited about that.

Megan Porta  31:31

I am super excited about that. We do have a few surprises planned to that we’re not going to give away but some really cool stuff, just little details that we thought would make the event just way more cool and fun and awesome. So kind of..

Melissa Erdelac  31:48

Like a swanky boutiquey vibe. That time, we want all the attendees to feel very pampered as well. So Megan and I are excited about some of these surprises, but we can’t tell you about.

Megan Porta  32:01

Now, we can’t tell you about those. But we will tell you about the special offer for you. If you’re listening and you’re like, Wow, this sounds amazing. I definitely want to level up and invest in my business and get out of a rut that I might be in and come to Flavor Media Summit, I would say go fill out an application. So first of all, go to flavormediasummit.net. And there is a link at the top for applications. And if you are filling out your application, mention the special offer and you will be included in it. So do you want to tell people what that offer is Melissa?

Melissa Erdelac  32:38

Yeah, so we know when you come home from conferences that it is like this surge of inspiration, and you want to do this and trying to figure out how you’re going to do that in your business. So Megan and I will be hosting one week after the conference, an exclusive 90 minute mastermind will we will dig into very specifically what we talked about at the conference and how that is going to work in your businesses. So it’s a great way to kind of

Megan Porta  33:12

solidify what you’ve learned and maybe offer strategy to people. And the collaboration piece of a master of small group mastermind, is incredibly powerful too. 

Melissa Erdelac  33:25

Kind of hone in on those relationships that you met there. And to further solidify those connections and keep building off of that. So you have like a group of people that you can go to when inevitably things come up. 

Megan Porta  33:43

Yeah, we want to keep the small. So definitely apply sooner rather than later. And don’t forget to mention this offer your application. All right. Well, we hope to see some of you there were so excited and hope that this episode gave you some inspiration about just getting out of some of those ruts you might find yourself in, why to invest in your business, a few ways to invest in your business. And maybe you are interested in joining us in Denver. But thanks for joining me, Melissa, and this was super fun. 

Outro  34:18

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you posted it to your social media feed and stories. I will see you next time.