Episode 267: Series (Part 5): From Many Mistakes to Big Wins with Megan Porta

Food bloggers! Welcome to Eat Blog Talk, THE podcast for food bloggers looking for the value and confidence that will move the needle forward in their businesses. I’m your host, Megan Porta, and you are listening to episode 267. 

This episode is the fifth and final episode in a series called From Many Mistakes to Big Wins where I will talk through specific mistakes I’ve made in my own blogging journey and how YOU can learn from my struggles. 

Before we dive into that, I’d love to take some time here to share about all of the resources available here at EBT that give you a chance to connect, gain confidence, dig into food blogging in a new way and just LEVEL UP in your business growth and with your networking.

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Just to do a quick recap of the previous mistakes I talked about in the first 3 episodes in this series..

Episode 244 – Thinking I could do everything on my own

Episode 249 – Overcomplicating everything

Episode 254 – No boundaries

Episode 262 – Investing in the wrong things and at times avoiding investments

Before I dig into this episode, I will reiterate that I will not refer to my mistakes as “failures” because I don’t believe in failure. I embrace mistakes as a part of my business and a part of my journey because they are what help me to learn and grow.

Mistake #5: Starting well and ending poorly (or not at all) 

I feel like this is a very common mistake for food bloggers because there are just so many things to manage and so many opportunities to get distracted.. So I have a feeling that some of you may be able to relate strongly to this one.

I could give you SO. MANY. examples of projects I have started really well in my 11-year blogging journey but that I never finished. I’ll tell you about my most shining examples in this episode and then we can talk about how to ensure you END WELL.

• Blog content: Believe it or not, there was once a time when it didn’t really matter WHAT you said inside a recipe post. That might sound really foreign to a lot of you, but it’s true. In that era, quantity was more important than quality, so a lot of us “old” bloggers pushed out as much content as possible, even if it wasn’t relevant. Then our space became more saturated, Google cracked down on ranking factors and bloggers began actually writing for the user. At this point I had some really big keywords ranking on position #1 on Google and I said, “It’ll be fine!!” And didn’t go back and revise the content, like the smart bloggers did. I started the content well! But then never went back to finish it in order to keep up with the evolving standards. 
• Cookbook: I had a publisher approach me about writing a cookbook in the fall of 2016 and I didn’t have to think very long before saying yes. It seemed like a no-brainer at the time. If you get approached for an awesome project like that, you HAVE to say yes, right? Creating my cookbook was really fun but it was also really hard. By the time it was published, I was over it. I love how it turned out and it is a project I’m really proud of, but I literally put like 2 minutes into promoting it.   
• Courses: A very similar situation happened with both of the courses I’ve created. I put a ton of effort and heart into creating them, and once they were “done” I was over them. I released them out into the world, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
• Ebooks: Same story here.

“Finished” isn’t done! Especially in this ever-evolving of food blogging, projects are never done. When you publish a blog post, you still have to promote it. After promoting it, you have to revisit the post to stay up to speed with changing optimization standards, etc. Your photography improves over time and so does your recipe development and writing, so these things need to be updated, as well, as time marches on. 

When you commit to starting a new project, take it on as an ongoing project that does not have an end date!

What NOT FINISHING WELL got me and what it’ll get you..

1. A lot of partially-finished projects taking up mental space: You know that concept about not being able to let anything good into your world until you make space for it? There is so much truth in this and I’ve seen it play out first hand. Starting a ton of projects that I never saw through to the end added all kinds of clutter to my business, shutting off opportunities for good things. Easter would roll around and I’d think, “Hmm, I should probably promote my holiday sides ebook” but then I wouldn’t do it. And I’d beat myself up about it and wonder why I even created it in the first place.. Then I’d get distracted with something else and forget about it. This same situation repeated itself every season and with every project I’d started and never finished. I still to this day, four years after my cookbook was published, feel sad when I think about how I let so much opportunity fly out the window with that project.
2. Frustration and burnout: As you all know, certain seasons are busier than others for food bloggers and those especially busy seasons can be very demanding and taxing. It seems like every Q4, no matter how diligent I am, I let the anxiety of the season get to me and I start reminding myself of all the ways I’ve fallen short with ALL the projects I’ve started and never finished. Frustration combined with unfinished projects combined with an already busy season (for me, anyway) leads to burnout and disappointment.
3. Always behind the curve: Not being willing to course correct and follow a project on its journey has equalled falling behind the curve in my experience. When I’ve created a project and saw the end of the creation process as the END, my competition has soared past me because they’ve been willing to course correct, pivot and stick with a project as this world of food blogging evolves.

HOW TO FINISH WELL

1. Set goals: This is always the answer to every problem! Establishing your goals for the next 12 months and keeping a close eye on them will ensure that you don’t take on any projects that do not align. It will keep you focused and it’ll minimize chances of becoming distracted.
2. Think through an entire project before you start: Now that we’ve established that finished never means done, we know that there is so much more to a project than the initial creation. Before starting any project, give each stage some thought and write it all out. Think beyond creation into marketing and follow-up changes and possibly redoing the content on a regular basis and promotions and social graphic creation and sharing, etc. Does this fit into your calendar and align with the goals you’ve established for your business? 
3. Declutter. I’m talking through this point mostly for myself because I have some things I need to declutter in my own business. Pinpoint those projects that are just kind of floating around out there in the ether that have been left unfinished and figure out what needs to be done with them. There are a few options: 1. Kill the project. 2. Create a passive way to offer it to your audience. 3. Make a plan to follow through with it.

That’s all for mistake #5! To recap, knowing that finished does not mean done is very important when diving into any project (including creating recipe posts, btw!). Always have clearly-defined goals to reference, think through projects before you put an ounce of effort into them and declutter the projects that are taking up unnecessary mental space and you will be on your way to being a good finisher (or follow-through-er).

267: Series (Part 5): From Many Mistakes to Big Wins with Megan Porta

As the self-proclaimed “poster child” for making the most mistakes in a blogging journey, Megan from the food blog Pip and Ebby shares about the mistakes she has made within this series. This is the fifth episode in a series that covers multiple mistakes, takeaways and action steps for other food bloggers to learn from. Mistake #5: Starting well and ending poorly (or not at all).

• Think through every project from start to finish before you dive in.
• Finished is not “done.” In our ever-evolving space, projects are never complete.
• Declutter your current projects to open up space for new things to enter.