Episode 593: 3 Simple Ways to Successfully Blog Part-Time While Working Full-time with Kimberlee Ho

EBT593 – Kimberlee Ho

Supercut  00:00

Hey, food bloggers, check out our new SEO supercut, a bonus 15 minute episode capturing highlights from SEO episodes we have recorded recently. Go to eatblogtalk.com/SEOsupercut to get access today. 

Intro 00:10

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  00:53

The whole topic of this episode is to find ways to successfully blog part time while working at a separate job, full time, but this episode is so relevant for anyone. The tips that Kim from Kick Ass Baker brings to the table here in this episode can apply to anyone, whether you’re a part time blogger or a full time blogger. Kim works full time outside of the house, and she blogs part time, but she’s super passionate about her blog. She has goals that she wants to keep reaching. In regards to her blogging business, she has gotten to a point where she’s been really efficient and really intentional about how she works on the blog. She talks through three main points in the episode that help her to stay sane, juggling all the things in life and her two jobs, things like focusing on the one to two things that really drive the most growth for your business, testing different ways of working. What works best for you? Are you a morning person? Do you work best at night? Do you work best on weekends? Do you work better when you’re batching tasks? Figure that out and allow it to be a journey from there. And then we talk a lot about to do lists. Are you a to do list person? This might help you tremendously to lay a project on paper and not have it in your head anymore. It’s such a great conversation. I really hope you enjoy this episode, whether you’re a full time blogger or a part time blogger. It’s episode number 593 sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  02:22

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Megan Porta  03:51

Kim is a home baker from NJ, who loves to share approachable baking recipes and tips with busy families like her own on her blog, kickassbaker.com. Kim works full-time during the day and bakes, recipe tests, and photographs at night and on the weekends in between acting as an Uber driver for her two teenage daughters. Her goal is to inspire home bakers to kick ass in the kitchen! Kim, finally, you are on the podcast. Yay. I’m so glad you’re here. How are you today?

Kimberlee Ho  04:17

I’m good. Megan, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited. 

Megan Porta  04:21

Me too. I miss you. I miss talking to you regularly. So it’s always good to get a little dose of Kim.

Kimberlee Ho  04:28

You’re so sweet. I think about you often, and your magic, your magical comments, yes. 

Megan Porta  04:34

Ditto. I think about you all the time. Well, I’m excited about this topic because it’s something that I don’t feel like food bloggers talk about enough. I think it’s always like, let’s get to full time blogging. And it’s never the conversation of, maybe you don’t want to get to full time blogging, maybe you want to continue working full time, and, you know, just blog part time. So this is a great, relevant topic before we get into it, though. So we are dying to know if you have a fun fact to share. 

Kimberlee Ho  05:02

Sure, I always feel like I share the same fun fact about me, but I figure this audience has probably hasn’t heard it before. I have three sisters, which is really nice and special, and one of my sisters is my identical twin sister, so you’ll share that as my fun fact. And I always get a ton of questions about, you know, do you guys look alike? And what’s the difference between fraternal and identical twins? Yes, we do look a lot alike, although everybody sees something different. And just as part of that, my parents had my two older sisters, and they were trying for a boy, and they ended up with twin girls. 

Megan Porta  05:39

I don’t think I’ve heard that part. 

Kimberlee Ho  05:41

Yeah, so my dad says, or he used to say, this is why I never play cards or gamble, because I always come up crap being kidding around. Of course, he loves having four daughters, but he was like, Oh my gosh, we wanted a boy and we got two more girls. That’s it. 

Megan Porta  05:57

Not even just a girl, but a double dose of girls. Oh, that’s what you get for wanting one gender, I guess. Oh, so cool. I love, I love twin stories, because they’re just so unique. Yeah, actually, identical twins. It’s always like, Yeah, I’m sure you do get all the questions, because those of us, most of us, aren’t identical twins, and we have all the burning questions to ask.

Kimberlee Ho  06:22

Yes, well, that’s really fun. I enjoy having her. I feel really lucky. 

Megan Porta  06:27

Yes, I bet yes, those close connections with your twin, from what I hear, right? 

Kimberlee Ho  06:33

Yes, absolutely. 

Megan Porta  06:34

Well, I would love if you shared a little bit about your amazing blog with us to just frame our conversation today? 

Kimberlee Ho  06:41

Sure. So I started kick ass Baker in May of 2018 which seems like forever ago at this point, even though it also seems like just yesterday, I was actually I’ve always worked in corporate jobs full time since I came out of college, and I found myself in the end of 2017 I had taken a package from the company that I was working for at the time, and I thought it was going to be really easy to find another job, and it wasn’t. And so I really started to feel, after like four or five months, that I was it was it was really hard. It was hard mentally. It was hard emotionally. So while I was looking for another full time job. I said, this is a great time for me to start something new and something that will get me focused on being productive outside of being a mom and a wife. And I started Kick Ass Baker May 6, 2018 and so at the time, I was not working. Shortly thereafter, though I did start working again full time, and I kept at it. It’s really took off. And I am just it provides a great satisfaction to me to be able to do it part time. On the side, my blog is, as you can probably tell from the name, it’s focused on baking. I don’t necessarily have a niche within baking. I focus on anything and everything baking, but I’m very focused on providing approachable recipes for home bakers. So people like myself who work full time or work or just busy with their families and are looking for recipes that they can bake at home and so that they can kick ass in the kitchen too.

Megan Porta  08:20

Yay. I love it. I love that you said it provides you with satisfaction. So it’s like a passion and kind of hobby slash part time job, right? But it’s not something that you feel like an obligation for. It’s not like you’re dependent on it or just feel that pressure, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I

Kimberlee Ho 08:39

mean, there’s, I have to have this mental conversation with myself all the time about, you know, I have goals. I have big goals with that for the blog, just like, you know, it’s a business, and I do make an income from it, but it’s not my livelihood. I do have a full time job that I do 40 hours during the week, and so I’m lucky in that way that I don’t have to have the mindset to just keep going, going, going all the time, because it’s what pays the bills. But I also, in some way, you know, feel like I should have that mindset, because then I that’s how I’m going to reach my goals. So I have to sort of balance that a lot. And I also have two kids, two teenage girls. I have a husband, a dog. I have, you know, my all my sisters and my mom, and so I have to balance all of that with finding enough time to spend on the blog and keep it going and keep it growing. And so I just focus as much as possible on how I can keep growing, like being myself sane and not having to rely on it 100% for my my income.

Megan Porta  09:44

Yeah, you have a lot. I mean, that’s a lot of stuff to juggle life and kids and teenage girls, you know, husband, house, and then full time job, and then part time blogging. That’s a lot. So I imagine you have to be extremely efficient. And just really intentional about your time. Yeah,

Kimberlee Ho 10:03

yeah, for sure. I mean, I feel really lucky. I say that a lot because I do, I do really feel lucky that we I have a lot of flexibility in my full time job, in terms of, mostly where I work, since the pandemic we have, I go to to the office two days a week, and I’m at home the rest of the time. I also switched my schedule to work 4 10,hour days instead of five, eight hour days. And so that has really helped give me some focus time Friday, Saturday and Sunday to work on the blog. And it I do, I feel like I need to really be efficient with how I use my time and where I spend my time. I still struggle with, you know, where to focus and, you know, get distracted by the shiny new objects a lot, but I feel at this point, you know, I’ve been doing this for six years, which is crazy, that, and I’m growing, which is good, and I am doing some deeper dives into, you know, what is really working for me and just trying to remain really focused on those things.

Megan Porta  11:07

So you have three main ways to kind of points to successfully do this without going crazy, and just keeping your sanity and not feeling overworked or any of those icky things, right? So do you want to start talking through those?

11:22

Yeah, sure. So I just started with that one a little bit, which was the first one, is to really focus on just the one or two things that will really drive success. And I know saying one or two things seems like not a lot at all, but for me, that’s really what I’ve had to do, is, is just, I don’t have a lot of time. I mean it, even if I was blogging full time, I still wouldn’t have a ton of time, because I have all those extra things, just like everybody else does. We all have life. And so for me, it’s been just figuring out what’s working for me and what’s driving the growth that I want to see and and what does that growth and success look like? Because it could look different for everybody. For me, obviously, income is important. It even though I don’t rely on it as my full time income, it’s still obviously really nice to to make that money and to have goals and to sustain my business and and at some point in the future, you know, just keep growing and making this bigger. So income is important, but the focus for me has been on just growing my page views and growing my sessions, and growing my page views per session, so that the people who are coming to my site are spending more and more time rooting around and finding the recipes that they really want and having my audience come back. So focusing on that, focusing on how I can make that growth, has been really important. 

Kimberlee Ho  12:48

So I’m really fortunate to work with Foodie Digital, with Leanne from Foodie Digital, and she and I spend a lot of time, as she does with her other clients, you know, talking through what’s going to drive that growth for me. So SEO has been really important. We work on updating old recipe posts, but we also strategically plan out my content based on where I’m already sort of an expert in Google’s eyes in certain areas. So we’ve really honed in on my focus to just a few key areas to start with that will help drive my or grow my expertise in certain areas. So a good example would be bread. So I, I have a bunch of bread recipes on my site that do really well, and so Leanne and I talk about, let’s build out your your bread content more. Because what that’ll do is build on your already established expertise. I’m using air quotes in Google’s eyes for bread, and it’ll also enable you to do some strategic internal linking within your posts, so that when people are looking at one of your bread posts and they see a link to something else that they may be really interested in, because they’re a bread baker like you, you know, they can click on that and lead to more and more bread recipes. So that type of stuff is, are the things that I’m really focusing on? You know, SEO, driving those views per session. And just focused really on the blog itself, as opposed to social media, as opposed to things that come up all the time, the new things like Flipboard or MSN roundups or, you know, these are things that I see a lot of bloggers focusing on. And I’m very, very tempted to say, Oh, let me dive into that and see how it goes. But I’m reminded time and again that my biggest growth right now, at least, is going to come from focusing on my blog and optimizing the recipes and expertise on it, and that even things like social media and Instagram that were successful for me in the past are not what’s going to drive my goals, which is growth of the blog and page views.

Megan Porta  14:56

And for some people, it might be different, right? So for some people, for. Focusing on Instagram might get them tons of sponsorship work or something. So it doesn’t have to be necessarily SEO or blog focus necessarily. 

Kimberlee Ho  15:10

Yes, exactly, right? And so even for me, it changes over time, or has changed over time. So in the very beginning, in 2018 when I started, I grew really fast on Instagram, and I put a lot of eggs in that basket, and it was really rewarding to see those numbers go up a lot and get past at that time, you know, the 10,000 mark, so you can put links in your stories, or whatever it was, and to just have that success that your friends and family saw on on social media, but what… And I was also getting a lot of sponsorships at that time, which was giving me some fast income and some ways to start making a name for myself. The sponsorships over time have dwindled, but I’m also not necessarily focusing on them, because I’ve, you know, really decided to put focus on developing recipes for my blog that I live on, and my blog not necessarily for somebody else or for somebody else’s brand, and not to say there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just that’s what I’ve decided to do for myself and what’s working the best for me. 

Megan Porta  16:14

So you mentioned shiny object syndrome. I think this is something we all struggle with, because we hear like, oh my gosh, this blogger just made $1,000 on MSN roundups, and it’s so tempting to go over and just dig into it, but it could be like this massive time investment. So how do you recommend that not just people with full time jobs, but anyone handle this? Because we could all be distracted every day if we wanted to be.

Kimberlee Ho 16:40

Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. I wish hard. I wish I had the answer. 

Megan Porta  16:45

Where’s the magic answer Kim?

Kimberlee Ho  16:46

 I think what I found for myself is I have the Facebook groups that I rely on that are trusted sources of information in the blogging community. I have friends and colleagues in the blogging world, like you and others that I’ve met through the ebog talk mastermind and flame rubenia summit, you know, the the groups that I’ve been a part of for some time, that I’ve developed some good relationships with, with people that I know and trust. And so I’ll ask them, you know, we’ll talk about it. Well, you know, I’ll send a text to somebody and say, What do you think about this? Or what’s your been your success with it? I also talk to Leanne from Foodie Digital about stuff, and just try to understand, like, what sort of just the flash in the pan type of quick success and might be worth exploring more, or what is not worth it because it’s it’s not going to to help me with my goals. And I think, you know, I have friends that are doing the MSN roundups, and I have friends that are doing the web stories. You know, we talk about web stories all the time. We have friends that are doing Instagram, because there’s reels bonuses and Pinterest and whatever else is coming up. And that’s all great. I think for me, I just need to, like, sift out what is really going to help drive that biggest traffic on my blog, and if it’s not going to do that, then I have to just sort of put blinders on, which is really, really hard, but I’ve seen the growth on my blog, in my page views, in my income from ads, and I, you know, that is what keeps me going and keeps the blinders on to say, you know, that’s not going to be worth your time. It’s not going to be the best investment of time right now..

Megan Porta  18:26

And from what you’re saying, and from what I know to be true for me as well, is that the value of networking and connecting with peers who you trust over time that is really valuable. And that’s where you’re like, Okay, are you doing roundups? Why are you doing them? What’s what kind of revenue are you seeing? What page you know, like, just being able to talk firsthand to people who you trust and see what’s happening in their worlds is a really good. 

Kimberlee Ho  18:51

And it’s also, you know, they don’t all have the same opinions. 

Megan Porta  18:54

Yeah, that’s true. 

Kimberlee Ho  18:56

Which I value so much, because everybody’s at a different place. Everybody’s at a different point in their lives and their blogging journeys. And I, you know, it’s really useful to hear the different points of view to say, you know, oh, that’s working for you. Okay, great. And so how are you using that, and what are you doing with it? And then somebody else to say, Oh, that’s a waste of time. That’s not gonna get you anywhere. Well, why? Like, what? What are you hearing what are you seeing, and just kind of exploring that a little bit more. I really appreciate that so much. And the transparency that exists within the blogging network that I feel like I’ve been able to be a part of has been so appreciated, you know, to have those friends, or to have those people that you trust, that will be willing to share what exactly they’ve done and what’s been successful for them. You know, without fear of somebody stealing their ideas or being more successful than them, but we’re really all supporting each other. It’s been been hugely helpful.

Megan Porta  19:52

Yeah, I like that. You said that the variety of opinions is really valuable. I find that too. I talked to a lot of food bloggers. In my different groups, and, of course, not everyone’s going to have the same opinions on platforms and tools. And it’s really, I don’t know. It’s kind of interesting to see how, like, in my mind, I weed out, like, I don’t know, just kind of sort through my own interpretation based on what is working for me and my business. But you take it all in, right? It’s good to hear it all, but then you have to ultimately decide what is right for you, like you’re doing, Kim.

20:27

Yeah, totally. And I don’t always get it right, but it’s like.

Megan Porta  20:31

Right, no, no. Me neither. 

Kimberlee Ho  20:32

Test and learn, test and learn and then experiment. 

Megan Porta  20:35

Yeah, constant, experiment and progress. Yeah, yeah, okay, that was a great one. Love that. And what is your second way to do? What you do efficiently?

Kimberlee Ho 20:48

So I’m always testing new ways of working. So I’m always thinking about like, you know, with the time that I do have, what’s the best use of it? Because there’s so much to do when it comes to being a food blogger, like some of you. I think when people ask you to tell them, like, what goes into it, they don’t realize, like, all of the stuff. I even have a friend who’s a travel blogger. She’s very successful, and she’s like, gosh, I don’t know how you do it. She’s like, to have to, you know, research recipes, to come up with a recipe, to test all the recipes. Then finally, get it, and have to shoot it, you know, photograph it and video it. And then you have to write the post, and you have to name all your image files, and you have to do the Pinterest pins and all of it, it’s just a lot. And so for me, I talked about this a little bit earlier, where I have changed my works, my full time work schedule. That is, it wasn’t necessarily to accommodate my blogging schedule, but it has significantly helped I had probably I changed my schedule probably February of 23 we went from five days a week to four days, 4, 10 hour days. And so I used to do, I would do a little bit of work every night after dinner, and after everything was cleaned up, I would do probably like an hour. Sometimes it would turn into three hours. Sometimes it would be no hours. And then I would do more work on the weekends, on Saturdays and Sundays. Now that I’ve shifted to 4, 10 hour days. I don’t do any blog work, or probably very minimal blog work Monday through Thursday, which is actually, like, it’s a relief, to be honest. Like it helps me really relax in the evenings and not know that I have to, like, Oh, get back on my computer and do more work, and get into a different mindset than my corporate job. And then when it comes to Friday, have most of the time, I should say some of the time, like, full day Friday, sometimes full day Saturday, sometimes full day Sunday, depending on what’s happening within our family, to really focus on the blog. And so that has really helped me, you know, test and learn what works best for me. 

Kimberlee Ho  23:01

I’m not very good at, like, switching between my corporate job and my blogging job in terms of mindset, because, you know, you just kind of get in the zone and you’re you’re too focused, or you can’t just switch it on and off. And we also know, like, food blogging takes a lot of effort, takes a lot of steps, and so when I have the time, you know, like a whole day on Friday to just focus on that. I am able to get much more done and be much more efficient. So that’s been a big thing for me that has helped. And I’m also, you know, thinking through, always thinking about, like, the best way to divide up my work. So I’m also not good, just like, I’m not good at switching from my corporate job to my blogging job. I’m also not good at switching from being in the kitchen and photographing to sitting at my computer and doing, like the writing and doing the, you know, the photo editing and things like that. So I sort of like chunk out my work where, if I know it’s going to be a day in the kitchen, maybe I have time to test two recipes in one day, and and, or shoot, you know, one or two recipes in one day instead of doing like, one recipe start to finish before I move on to the next thing, because I just can’t switch that focus. So I know that about myself, and so that really helps dictate how I can be most efficient with my time.

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Megan Porta  25:54

And you have like, we all have limited energy. We can’t run like robots forever, so you have to learn how to like, maximize your energy, I think, and it sounds like that has been a process for you, and I think it’s a process for all of us. It’s a journey where we just like learn, we start somewhere, and then we learn, learn along the way that that didn’t work, so maybe tweak it the next week, and then start batching this, and start batching that, and eventually come to a situation that works best. But yeah, it’s like a constant journey for Yes, not just for people who work full time, but for all of us, for me, even who this is my full time job, and it has been for a long time I’m always tweaking how I batch and how I when I sit down to work and when I don’t work. So, yeah, this is a really good point. And to not also to never feel like you have to fit a mold, right? Because sometimes we can get to the point where, like we hear from somebody like this works for most of us, and then we feel like we have to fit into that. Do you know what I mean?

Kimberlee Ho 26:58

Yeah, yeah. And I will say that that mindset took me a really long time to get to, and I still struggle at times. And I think, you know, a big trigger for me is social media. So what I mean by that is like seeing following other bloggers, or following other people who I see doing it all, or seemingly doing it all and having a lot of success. So I like, literally, have I stopped following a lot of people, and not because I don’t love them and adore them and think that they’re doing amazing things. It’s because it’s a trigger for me. 

Megan Porta  27:30

That’s a great point. 

Kimberlee Ho  27:32

Yeah, that I am not doing enough, and I feel like it’s back to the days when I first had my babies, and I was like, you’re caught in the sort of Mommy Wars, like you work full time, or do you be a mom full time? And there was that, you know, that’s still a thing, I think, and it seems like there’s this divide between stay at home moms and working moms. And why? Why does it have to be that way? Like it doesn’t, you know, there’s no right solution for everybody is different. Everybody’s situation is different. Everybody’s mentality is different. Everybody’s you know, whatever it is, your situation is just different than mine. And we’re all doing what’s right, or what’s right now, or what’s right in the moment for us, or what we think is right and or what we need to do. And so I just feel like even between full time blogging and part time blogging like, there’s no right answer. You know, I’m not here to say that part time blogging is better than full time like, no, that’s this is just my situation, and what works well for me. And to be honest, I people ask me all the time, are you thinking about quitting your full time job so you can blog full time? If you had asked me in 2018 it would or 2019 when I got my full time job again, I would set 100% because I did not like my job. I did not like my boss. I wasn’t happy, and I was doing everything that I could to try to build a blog so that I could quit and work full time. But now I love my job. I love the people I work with. I have so much flexibility. I have so much I have a lot of responsibility, but not too much responsibility. I make really good money. I have really good benefits, really, you know, 401 k, a bonus, like all of that stuff that comes along with being a corporate employee and to leave that would, I would be hard pressed right now to think about leaving that although, you know, I still have a goal and a dream to continue growing the blog, and we’ll see where it leads. But it’s this is the situation that works really well for us and for me right now, yeah, and just to have great so much grace with ourselves and with each other. 

Megan Porta  29:40

I love what you said earlier about like what you are doing in this moment is right for you right now, like something like that, because it might be different tomorrow for you, and of course, it’s different for someone else. And just to remember that and to have so much grace with each other and with ourselves.

Kimberlee Ho  29:59

Yes, you see. It. You always say, it’s so beautiful.

Megan Porta  30:03

I love that point. I could talk forever about that, but I yeah, this is such a good conversation. Like I said, even if you are not a full time employee somewhere else, this is just good to keep in mind for all of us, what is your last way to successfully blog part time while working full time. 

Kimberlee Ho  30:21

So this is a very tactical piece of advice, but it works for me, which is to keep a to do list. And I will say that I am not the best at keeping just one to do list, probably like three or four, one on my phone, one in my notebook. I have one for my full time job that sometimes creeps into my blogging to do list, but what it does is allows me to when I think of something that I need to do, no matter how big, no matter how small, I write it down, whether or type it out, and it just helps me so much to have it out of my head and onto paper, whether physical or not, and I do reference them a lot, because it keeps me from feeling anxious. It keeps it me from thinking about all the things I have to do before I can write it down and capture it somewhere. It just helps keep me organized and on point and focused. So it kind of leads back to my first point, which is, you know, really focusing. So it’s everything to do with the blog that I just write down, you know, test this recipe, or if I see a keyword along the way that looks like it could be really good, I write it down. If there’s a recipe that I have to go back to and fix up, you know, a typo or a fix something, I write it down. I just It keeps me really on track, and, like I said, takes it out of my head and puts it down somewhere that I can go back to later. 

Megan Porta  31:52

I like that. You said it minimizes anxiety, because when it’s when it’s in your head, at least I do. I tend to think like, oh my gosh, I’m gonna forget this, I can’t, and then I start ruminating about it and overthinking it, and then that leads into something else. But if you can, like, think of a just like a box or something, you’re putting it into your to do list as your box, you can kind of set it and forget it, and then know that you’re going to come back to it. There’s, I know there’s so many people who are opposed to two to do lists, I think because it’s, I don’t actually know why, but I know, like, anti to do listers, I’m like, I don’t get that because I am the same as you, Kim, I like to just deposit it on the paper and then go back to it when I need to

Kimberlee Ho  32:35

Yeah. And if i This goes back to what we were just talking about before, like, this works for me, yeah? And there may be other ways of doing it that work better for somebody else, like I can think of our friend Kara, who, you know, has detailed systems and processes. Oh my gosh, she’s everything. It is amazing. It’s a very admirable, and I know for myself that it’s just unrealistic, right now. It might be realistic at some point. You know, my kids are in college or, you know, I don’t have a million other activities and things to drive them to or take them to or or go see, and it’s just not, I know for myself. I’m not going to stick with it, and I’m not going to it’s not going to be stick, it’s going to be too overwhelming for me to even get started. So I’m at the point I feel really proud of myself, because seriously, like it takes, it took a while to get that point. You’re like, oh, I should be doing that in the beginning, or I should be doing this, or I should be doing what other people are doing, and I would go down that road and something stuck, and some things didn’t. But I’m at a point now, and maybe it’s my age, too, where I’m like, I just know that’s not going to work for me, and I really want to get to a point where I do find a good system or a better system that could potentially help me be more effective and more organized than I even am now. But for right now, this works really well for me, and I’m going to stick with it. And I don’t even have like, just to be really realistic. I don’t have, like, a content calendar on paper planned out for months in advance. I just don’t. I would love to get to a point where I have that, but it’s just not realistic for me. I plan out probably a few recipes at a time that I know I’m gonna do. I do some research with Leanne from Foodie Digital, or I do some deep dives into Keywords when I have a chance, and I jot them down and what I’m going to do, I also leave room for things that recipes that I just want to do because they’re fun and not because they’re related to any kind of content strategy, which I think is really important, because it kind of keeps me inspired and keeps me going, and keeps my husband happy, because he’ll be like, you should make this. And if I say to him, Oh, it’s not on my content calendar right? 

Megan Porta  34:50

Like, what? 

Kimberlee Ho  34:51

So sometimes you just do things because they’re fun, and there’s something that I want to make, and have the recipe available, but I know it’s not necessarily a keyword that I’m chasing or anything like that, but that keeps me inspired, and it keeps me happy to be baking in the kitchen. So it’s important for me to do that. So I, you know, I think it’s important for people to know like even though I say, keep it to do list, it doesn’t mean that I’m like, have this full blown out calendar and everything’s planned. That actually makes me more anxious, and makes me feel like locked in, in a way. 

Megan Porta  35:24

If you miss something, you’re just throwing everything off. Yeah. 

Megan Porta  35:27

And it sort of takes the creativity and the fun out of it. And again, I go back to like, I am fortunate that I don’t have to rely on this to be my full time income, but I do have big goals, and I’m definitely working towards them, so it doesn’t take anything away from that. But for me, this is what’s worked just planning it out a couple of recipes at a time, and then coming back and thinking through what’s next and what’s going to work well for me and and help me continue to grow.

Megan Porta  35:52

It’s like the theme of our chat, do what works for you in this moment. And that is the same with content creation and Content Scheduling that has been a journey for me as well. I remember when I used to be, like, super diligent about being three to four weeks scheduled out. I can’t believe I kept up with that for so long. But now I’m just like, fly by the seat of my pants. I don’t plan anything. Kim, I mean, I maybe a few weeks just in my head, like, Okay, here’s what I want to make, here’s what I want to update. But I agree with you. I think at this point in time for me, it just, it just doesn’t work to be super rigid and scheduled out. But there was a time when it really worked well. So, yeah. 

Kimberlee Ho  36:38

Right, right. And I think, like, that’s the, you know what I go into, like, the test ways of working. Number two that I talked about, like, if that works for you, for now, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work in the future, and you should be open to considering and changing that. And you know, our industry changes so much every single day, and we have to sort of be adaptable to that change anyway. So when I find something that works, I’m like, okay, great. This is really working for me now, and I’m not like, you know, getting so fixated and so stuck on this way of working or this method that I I’m not going to be flexible to change in the future.

Megan Porta  37:16

This is so good. If you had to give one piece of advice to someone who is working full time and they’re just frazzled trying to blog part time. What would you tell them?

Kimberlee Ho  37:27

I would say, really think about what your goals are. I so my my background in corporate. I used to be in HR. I was in human resources for 20 years. I don’t do that anymore. I do employee communications now, but in HR, we used to always, you know, say it’s important to have goals. It’s important to have them written. And I, you know, I hear myself talk and I roll my eyes, but it is so important to have goals and to, even if it’s just one, you know, grow your page views, or grow, you know, achieve enough to qualify for an ad network, or, you know, establish a blog, you know, whatever it is, just to have a goal and, you know, think through what’s going to be the the one thing that you can do now that’s going to help you get there. So in the beginning, I remember thinking to myself that it was very overwhelming to just get started with the blog, but also to build and to get to a point where I would earn income and make this something that met my goals. So I remember giving, giving this advice to myself, but also giving this advice to a friend who was starting a new venture at the same time was to just do write down, you know, what, all the steps that you had to take to get to then, you know, your goal, but then break it down into like little pieces. And I didn’t physically write this down all the time, but I would think about, okay, you know, I want to start posting on Instagram. I want to start getting traffic that way. So what’s the one thing I have to do? Okay, have to establish, you know, make sure my username is available that I want for Kickass Baker. So I would break it down into, like, just one step at a time, type of pieces, and just do one step at a time. 

Kimberlee Ho  39:19

And it sounds so simple, but that’s my biggest advice, and I still do that all the time, which is, you know, it can seem really overwhelming to have to do all the things, or to have to do so many things to reach the goals that you want, but just break it down into simple steps, and what’s the one thing that you can do today, or what’s the one thing you can do tomorrow that’s just going to move you a little bit closer to where you want to be. And that’s not so overwhelming, you know. It just helps to make it more manageable and and eventually, you know, you get to where you want to get, and you start on the next thing. So I have a goal in mind, of page views that I want to get to and income that I want to get to. And so, how am I going to get there? I’m going to, you know, update a blog post that needs to be updated that’s going to help drive traffic. Okay, what? Figure out what that blog post is that needs to be updated because it’s doing performing well, but could be performing, what better? And then what’s the how do I need to update it? So, you know, do I need to update the title? Do I need to update like so? And then break that all down into manageable steps, and it just really helps to create things that are tangible and that are going to move the needle. So that would be my advice. 

Megan Porta  40:31

That is the best advice for everyone listening, whether you’re doing a full time job on the on the side of food blogging or not. I think that is fantastic advice. So thank you, Kim, this was such a great conversation. I so appreciated having you here and all the value you shared. 

Kimberlee Ho  40:47

Thanks, Megan. 

Megan Porta  40:48

This was so fun. Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to leave us with?

Kimberlee Ho  40:53

You’re gonna really laugh at me for this one, the one thing that always comes to my head when I’m thinking about all the stuff I have to do, or the all the things that I have going on, is something that my sister told me a long time ago, and that she told me she’s gonna make as like a little poster for my my house. It’s not, didn’t come from her, but it’s something that I’m always reminded of. It’s you’re gonna laugh, but I’m gonna explain it. It’s a clean house is a sign of a wasted life. And so it’s very symbolic for me, because a I don’t necessarily love to clean, and my house can be and not that it’s dirty, it’s just kind of cluttered. I get it, yeah, and when I think about, oh my gosh, I should clean this, or I should put that stack of stuff away, or I should really organize this, I’m like, you know, my time could be so much better used or and I could feel so much more content and fulfilled by focusing on something that is not just gonna, you know, make my house clean for a moment, but is gonna do something to help me achieve my goals, or do something with my family, or do something or just relax, because it’s going to make me feel so much better than would be, you know, wasting my time. I say waste by putting something away that is just going to be temporary, because I know in 10 minutes it’s going to be back, yeah. So I always think about that as, not necessarily literally, as, like, you know, it’s a waste of life, because there are people I know, who you know, are clean freaks, and they would think the opposite, yes, and that’s great for them, but for me, it’s like it just reminds me to focus on the thing that’s going to make me happy and make me feel content and fulfilled. And it’s not cleaning and it’s not probably doing something else, you know, fill in the blank. It’s, you know, doing something that is going to, you know, help me feel better about whatever it is that I’m in. And so I think about that often, like, you know, nobody’s going to judge me based on how, you know, clean my house was at the end of the day. Or maybe they will. They’re going to really look at like, they’re really gonna look at like, oh, wow, she really lived a full life. 

Megan Porta  43:04

If they’re judging you on the cleanliness of your house, then you probably, I mean, that’s silly, but I’m actually on the same page with you, as you with this Kim, and I don’t you said I was gonna laugh. I’m like, I’m all about that, because I’m the same. I’m super intentional with how I spend my time, and I think we all should be just like, if cleaning your house makes you feel fulfilled and awesome, then do it. But if there are things that you’d rather be doing, then I say, do that. I’m so with you on that. Yes, this is a great, great way to end, and kind of fits in with our theme of our show too. So perfect. We’ll put together show notes for you. Kim, if you want to go look at those head to eatblogtalk.com/kickassbaker, Tell everyone where they can find you, Kim. 

Kimberlee Ho  43:51

So you can find me first and foremost on my blog. Kickassbaker.com, and you can read a little bit in my very first blog post about the history of the name of my blog. It is very catchy. Some people have have opinions about it, but it has a story, and I love it. I am also on Instagram and Facebook, men Tiktok at kickassbaker. And I also have YouTube, which my daughter, who’s a teenager, has been helping me work on my Youtube videos this summer, yes, and I was very inspired by at the Flavor Media Summit with larisha and Andrew, who and their YouTube channel, I had just as quick aside I had talked to them about, you know, big barrier for me to putting myself on camera more as opposed to just doing hands and hands videos is I don’t want to stop and have to take a shower and get ready and put on makeup and have to get, like, dressed up. And they’re like, just show up as you are. And to be honest, I did that like my daughter published a video yesterday with me on it without any makeup on, and I’m not really rehearsed. And I was like, you know what? It’s done. It’s not perfect. You know, done is but. They’re the perfect and I feel really good about it, and I’m just getting content out there. And you know, it helps that my daughter’s home for the summer and help been able to help me. But you know, I just feel really good that I’m able to get stuff out there and not have it to be so polished and pretty and, you know, shiny. It’s better than not getting the content out.

Megan Porta  45:20

So that’s so inspiring. I love it when people do that, because that’s not real to get like every time you’re in front of camera to be polished and looking perfect. It’s just not real life.

Kimberlee Ho  45:31

Definitely not my real life, not my real life, either. 

Megan Porta  45:33

You should see how I look right now. Oh, I keep resisting doing video for my podcast episodes, because I love just showing up. And maybe I should just show up on video looking like this. Maybe that’s my next step. Okay, well, thank you for inspiring us. Kim. That was awesome. I loved this episode. I think this is gonna help so many people. Everyone go check out Kim’s channels and blog and thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Outro  46:03

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Please share this episode with a friend who would benefit from tuning in. I will see you next time.