In episode 388, Ruth Grindeland teaches us how to find international resources for effective and cost-efficient outsourcing.
We cover information on how to decide if you’re going to hire per job or by the hour, what to look for when you’re hiring contractors abroad, how to handle when you receive poor quality back and know what kind of jobs you can hire out.
Listen on the player below or on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.
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Guest Details
Connect with Sinful Kitchen
Website | Facebook | Instagram
Bio Ruth Grindeland started Sinful Kitchen in 2020, during the Covid pandemic. After binge watching 9 seasons of The Great British Baking show, Ruth knew she needed to find a better way to connect with the world. Hence, Sinful Kitchen was created. A vegan and vegetarian blog that shares recipes from all around the world, while occasionally trying to recreate Baking Show challenges.
Takeaways
- When you begin to make some income from your business, you can reinvest the money back into your business.
- Hiring out internationally allows you to support women abroad where they may have less opportunities.
- There are several online resources to start your search for your talent.
- Pay is done directly through the hiring apps.
- Communication is important, giving a lot of supporting detail is important as you determine if a candidate is right to work with and what you want as the outcome.
- Know that you should take into perspective what someone abroad has the framework to know about (i.e. peanut butter is not common outside the US)
- Any piece of food blogging can be hired out.
- Hiring out allows you to be more focused and available to do the work that inspires you.
- You can gain more of your personal life back by using a VA or contract help.
Resources Mentioned
Transcript
Click for full script.
EBT388 – Ruth Grindeland
Intro: 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, and I’ve been a food blogger for over 12 years. I understand how isolating food blogging can be at times. 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.
If you know you are needing to outsource, but are hesitating because of cost, you are going to love this episode. I have Ruth Grindeland with me in this episode. She is from the blog Sinful Kitchen and she talks about outsourcing using international resources, people, services. I think you’re going to be inspired by it. She gives great tangible tips about how to get started, what to look for, ways to be prepared so you succeed. So enjoy the episode, and this is episode number 388, sponsored by RankIQ.
Sponsor: Hey, awesome food bloggers. Before we dig into this episode, I have a really quick favor to ask you. Go to your favorite podcast player. Go to Eat Blog Talk. Scroll down to the bottom where you see the ratings and review section. Leave Eat Blog Talk a five star rating if you love this podcast and leave a great review, this will only benefit this podcast. It adds value, and I so very much appreciate your efforts with this. Thank you so much for doing this. Okay, now onto the episode.
Megan Porta: Ruth started Sinful Kitchen in 2020 during the Covid Pandemic. After binge watching nine seasons of the great British Baking Show, Ruth knew she needed to find a better way to connect with the world. Hence, sinful Kitchen was created. A vegan and vegetarian blog that shares recipes from all around the world while occasionally trying to recreate baking show challenges. Ruth, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?
Ruth Grindeland: I’m good, Megan. How are you?
Megan Porta: I’m doing good too. It’s so great to connect with you and this topic is a good one. I’m excited to shed some light on it. But before we get into it, do you have a fun fact to share with us?
Ruth Grindeland: I do. I have a very serious addiction to Broadway musicals.
Megan Porta: Oh. So how many Do you have a count of how many you have attended?
Ruth Grindeland: I do not. I do not. But we, my husband and I started to get into it. We actually got into Hamilton. And so I refer to Hamilton as my gateway drug, because from there we got a subscription to Denver and then we got a subscription to the local theater and we actually now traveled to New York about twice a year to go see musicals.
Megan Porta: Oh my gosh. Okay. There are much worse things to have addictions to so I think you guys are good on the topic. But that’s super fun. So if I ever have any questions about musicals because I really know nothing about them, I can reach out to you and you’ll shed light?
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah, I absolutely will. I think too, you could say I do this blog just to pay for my trips to New York because I think that’s a fair statement.
Megan Porta: That gives you a strong why, right? That gives you a connection to why you do the hard things.
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah, absolutely. Because the tickets can be really expensive/
Megan Porta: I imagine.
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah. I just bought Sweeney Todd tickets and they were very expensive, but I’m still very excited.
Megan Porta: Oh, I bet. How awesome. I love that you guys love that and that you like it together.
Ruth Grindeland: We do. He was the one that actually really like it. I was not into it, so I would just go with him, right? So we would have something to share, and over time I became more into it, I think, than he did. But we’re both really into it.
Megan Porta: Ah, I love that so much. Okay, so I wanna hear about your story with outsourcing using international resources. I know you have a journey with this. So to start, Ruth, would you wanna just talk us through, I would love to hear like when you started your blog, and then maybe talk about the point when you realized you needed to start outsourcing.
Ruth Grindeland: Absolutely. So I started my blog, like so many people I’ve heard during the pandemic. It was probably around August. I had put down one of my dogs and I was so sad. I know. And I binge watched nine seasons of the Great British Baking Show and I was like, what am I gonna do? Winter’s coming. We’re not really going outside. We didn’t know what the ski season was gonna look like. So I was like, I might as well start a blog. But I really, honestly did not know much about blogging. I think I went from it from like a nineties perspective of oh, I’ll just write about cooking and I’ll just do this and I’ll just do that, right? Not the way they are today. As I got more and more into it, I realized just how technical it was and how much it had evolved. So it was just a big learning curve for me. But I also found out that I really liked it. It became my creative outlet, especially when I was looking at spending a lot of time at home. Even though the pandemic’s over and most of us have gone back, I find that they still just really love it. I just love getting in my head and thinking through things and trying to solve the problems and always trying to make it better.
Megan Porta: Creative outlet. I think that’s such a good way to describe what we do. Some of us lose that over time. So I’m really glad that you’re still in touch with that, just having that as your creative place to go. I think that’s so important. Don’t lose that. Hold onto that as much as you can.
Ruth Grindeland: I think it’s important too. Lately, Megan, I’ve been having these thoughts and I don’t know, maybe conversations with myself of like, where do I want this to go and what do I want it to look like and who do I wanna be in this space. Really down in a way that I haven’t, and a lot of it is that, I like it has a side gig. I like it has extra money, but I don’t see it being a full-time thing for me. Who doesn’t want that? Like we all see the finance reports and we’re like, oh yeah, I’d like that, but I don’t think that’s really gonna be who I am in this space. By defining that it allows me to be creative and stick with foods and things that I really want.
Megan Porta: That’s a conversation that has happened multiple times recently here on the podcast. This is a theme. You’re not the only one. There are other people who are just fine using this as a side job slash awesome creative outlet with no pressure. So I think that, I think that’s going to be more of a theme as we move forward. As we get back into life, post pandemic, it doesn’t have to be 100% your job. You can still enjoy it and make money and do all the fun things involved in food blogging.
Ruth Grindeland: You can. Absolutely, and I always think about I’m sorry I don’t remember her name, but you had someone on your podcast a while ago and her husband had said blogging is like gas and it’ll take up as much room as you let it. I’ve always remembered that and I’m like, no, I don’t want this to overtake my life. So how do I corral it in?
Megan Porta: Yeah, it’s true. That is a true statement. Yes. So I’m glad that you have found a balance there. Then at what point in your blogging journey have you experienced that you need to hand some things off?
Ruth Grindeland: Probably about this time last year I was doing okay and I met with a blogger that lives in Denver and she was like, go to SHE Media and see if they’ll accept you. So I did and they accepted me and I started getting money. That actually made me feel legitimate. At that point I was like, I don’t have to do all of this work anymore. I can hire somebody to do this work. I just need to find somebody within my range that I can afford. That’s when I started looking for outsourcing.
Megan Porta: Okay. Did you start knowing you were going to look internationally or did that just fall into your lap?
Ruth Grindeland: No. So a long time ago, like maybe 20 years ago. I’m totally dating myself, I worked in outsourcing, so I had lived. I don’t know if I really lived, but I had spent six months in India. I would go to the Philippines. So I was accustomed or had familiarity with working overseas and just all the talent. I think that maybe sometimes things we don’t realize is that when you look in different countries like India, the Philippines, Nigeria, Pakistan, you find people who are very highly educated and they’re also fluent in English, but they just don’t always have the opportunities that we have. I think that’s really unfortunate, but they’re trying and they want to, and they want to be able to just like we do, provide for their families and improve their lives. But sometimes I think we overlook them. So once I put all that together, I thought, why don’t I look for people overseas because I really do believe in that and I’m familiar with the talent. Then I also had this desire to hire predominantly women. So wherever I could, I looked for women because lots of times in the Philippines or Pakistan and Nigeria, they have fewer opportunities than the men do. I strongly believed in lifting up the women wherever I could and giving them employment.
Megan Porta: Oh, I love you for this. This is so important. Lifting up women in general, but especially in those countries where they have even more of a disadvantage than we do here in the United States. I love that you do that.
Ruth Grindeland: They do. It’s honestly amazing how talented a lot of people overseas are. So the first. Person I hired was actually from Nigeria. She’s fluent in English and she actually has a masters in ergonomics.
Megan Porta: Oh, wow. I don’t even know what that is. What is that?
Ruth Grindeland: It’s a class that I barely scraped by in college.
Megan Porta: Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. So much talent and education and like you mentioned, some of them are fluent in English. So how do you go about finding the right people?
Ruth Grindeland: This is where it can be a trap. There’s kinda like a good, bad and ugly side to all of this, as I mostly go to Five. I’m not sure if I say this right, it’s Fiverr.
Megan Porta: Fiverr. But it’s two Rs, right? Fiverr.
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah, that’s exactly. I predominantly go there and I go to Upwork. Upwork, normally you pay by the hour and Fiverr you pay by the job. So I prefer Fiver for the job for the most part. Although you can do projects in Upwork, which is like paying by for the job complete. So what I’ve done is I’ll just go, we’ll say Fiverr, and I’ll say, I need help with X. So the most recent one was Pinterest descriptions. Writing Pinterest descriptions and I was like, I just can’t do this anymore. I don’t have time. My mind just doesn’t want to research all these keywords. I just can’t do it. So I went and I just searched Pinterest descriptions. Several people came up.
Megan Porta: I never would’ve guessed that.
Ruth Grindeland: I know, right? I literally was like, I can’t write another Pinterest description. So anyway, what I do is I just go through and I try to read them really carefully and the reviews really carefully. Because sometimes the reviews are coming from the countries that they probably didn’t hire, right? If you see a bunch of reviews out of Bangladesh, chances are that they didn’t have 50 people from Bangladesh paying for Pinterest descriptions. So what I do is I just go through and I read them really carefully. Then I also try to look at the examples of stuff that they’ve done to see if that really makes sense and if they would really fit with me. Then I just reach out to them and say, Hey, I have a food blog. This is what I’m looking for. Can you help me? So with Pinterest’s descriptions, I hired this girl or lady from Moldova. She’s fantastic. She gets them back to me within a couple of hours and they’re really good too. So I just give her the links to my blog or the links to the posts that I want done or the subject for the upcoming post. I say, just need a Pinterest description for this. It’s 20 bucks for 15.
Megan Porta: That’s awesome.
Ruth Grindeland: It’s one less thing that I have to think about. Which I just love.
Megan Porta: Okay. I have a lot of questions. Okay. How many people internationally do you have working for you doing various things?
Ruth Grindeland: So it depends. I have one person that works for me all the time. Then I’ll just hire different things out as I need. The person who works for me all the time is a ghost writer in Pakistan, and she is amazing. We’ve worked out this great situation where basically when I get the ad money at the end of each month, I send her money. So I send her about $200, sometimes $300, and I just wire it directly to her in Pakistan. In turn I get between 8,000 and 12,000 words. What I do then is I give her, here’s the topic, here’s the keyword. I’ll write the recipe and I’ll write the instructions and I’ll try to do the photographs as well so that she can see how I cook it and so it makes sense. Then she sends the post back to me, which she actually posted in my WordPress. Then I go in and make edits as needed. We just have a cycle. So every week she sends me something and we just keep going like that. So she basically sends me four posts a month.
Megan Porta: Wow. For two to $300.
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah. And she does a really good job. I do editing, but to be honest, I’ve edited documents my entire career, so it’s not surprising that I do a lot of editing. I would say that I like the balance between us. So I write really boring business instructional manuals. No personality whatsoever. Her name is Baslow. She writes with much more personality and much, much more peppy. So I think it really helps me because I’ll just be like, go here, do this. But it’s funny. I always go through an edit and I think I really like editing, but I always edit and sometimes it’s funny. Like one time I came across something where she was like, and if you’re too lazy, you could do this.
Megan Porta: That’s hilarious.
Ruth Grindeland: It was totally funny. I was like, we don’t like to say that out loud in America.
Megan Porta: Oh my gosh, that’s super funny.
Ruth Grindeland: It was totally funny. I was dying when I saw it.
Megan Porta: Oh, the true feelings come out on paper
Ruth Grindeland: I think that’s how people overseas sometimes think of us.
Megan Porta: They probably don’t know that it’s not appropriate to actually come out and say those words to people.
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah, she didn’t. I didn’t tell her because I thought it was fun, but I was like, whatever. I’ll just delete that sentence.
Megan Porta: That’s hilarious.
Ruth Grindeland: It totally is. But yeah, her and I have just a perfect rhythm and everything is on Google Share Drive. We have a spreadsheet that we work out of, and I load up the upcoming post, or I write out the upcoming post and then the order I want her to write them. Then we have shared folders. In the folders I’ll do things like download RankIQ, SEO, so she knows what words I want her to hit. I’ll do the same thing with Keysearch so she knows what to be looking for. Also do the must use words from Keysearch as well. Then in WordPress, I go in and I start the post. So I’ll just, like I just did a thing on Lebanese rice, so I’ll write Lebanese rice and then I’ll go in and outline it. So you know, here’s the introduction, here’s the ingredients, here’s the instructions, and I just do that. Then she comes in and fills it. She’s gotten really good. It’s really adorable because she’ll go in and link other things for me. So she’ll link to other posts and then she’ll go link to other sites for different things. She even writes my meta description. She’s fantastic.
Megan Porta: Okay. How many times are things just terrible? Have you ever experienced a situation where you’re like, oh my gosh, no.
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah, I did actually. I feel like things are not so great if I don’t do the research right? So if I’m really hasty, I end up hiring somebody who doesn’t have the experience that I really need. But I did hire somebody one time and she was doing, I think it was just Pinterest designs. She was also in Pakistan. , and I can’t remember what the price was, but I think it was like $25 and it was like 10 Pinterest designs with SEO. So in the thing, I wrote to her and said, this is the package I’m looking for. Can you do it? She said yes. And so she sent over the designs and I said where’s the SEO? She said the SEO’s gonna cost more. I was like, but that’s not what it’s said. She’s like, I changed my prices.
Megan Porta: Oh my gosh.
Ruth Grindeland: Her stuff wasn’t even very good. It really was pretty awful. I felt like I was in this crazy thing, so I was like, I canceled it. She’s like, why did you cancel? It got really crazy. So Fiverr wants you to mediate it out. So you put like, why you did it. She came back and she’s like, no, I’ll make everything right. I was like, no, I don’t wanna do it.
Megan Porta: Never mind , right?
Ruth Grindeland: Because when you start messing me with money, we’re just done. You just crossed the line that there’s no coming back from. So finally I just wrote to Fiber and I said, look, I did it your way. This didn’t work. I’m on the crazy train. You need to make this right. Almost immediately they sent me my money back and I never heard anything else from her.
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Megan Porta: Okay, so if things do go south, they do have your back.
Ruth Grindeland: They do, absolutely. So you do not need to worry about it. They want you to try to work it out with the seller first, but in the event you can’t, they’ll work it out with you. Honestly, Megan, sometimes I’m a bit of a softie. So I have gotten stuff back that I just didn’t think was great or I can’t use. I’ve had to look at myself and say, was I fair in what I asked? So like I had, it was an adorable couple. They were from Bulgaria and they did a video for me that involved peanut butter, right? It was like peanut butter cookies. It came back and it looked just so dry and awful. . I know they worked really hard and they were adorable and I would totally recommend them, but I had to take a step back and be like, why does this look so awful? Why does this peanut butter look so bad? I remembered an article I read a long time ago that said things that people in other countries don’t understand why Americans eat. The first one was like peanut butter.
Megan Porta: Oh, interesting.
Ruth Grindeland: Yep. And I thought they probably don’t have access to the same peanut butter, or when you make cookies, you wanna use like JIF or Skippy, the really bad peanut butter, but it’s full of sugar and it’s a different color and it’s really moist. So when I stepped back, I thought I think some of that is really on me. I’m an American. I’m the one hiring them. I didn’t really think of their situation. So in that instance I just paid them. There was another girl who was Ukrainian. She was living in Turkey and she made one recipe. She made a video for me. The second one she did and I said, can you do this? She said, yeah, I can. No problem. I came back and it was so bad. It was a roll and she folded it. In baking, you can’t do that. That’s really bad. I took a day to try to figure out how to handle this, right? Like how do I wanna be in this space? I was a softie and I just wrote to her and said, this is so bad, I cannot use it, but I know you spent your time and your money and you’re a refugee. So I will go ahead and pay you for this, but I don’t think many other people would. So going forward, just make sure you absolutely know you can do it before you give consent.
Megan Porta: That was so fair of you.
Ruth Grindeland: Aw, thank you. Yeah. I just, I felt, I just had to think it through and thought she’d put all this money into it in time and she was probably just eager to make some money and just didn’t do a great job.
Megan Porta: She probably, even if it was deep down, appreciated your suggestion too; to just pause a beat and decide if this is a good fit for you before you say yes to just anything that comes your way.
Ruth Grindeland: She did write back saying she was very thankful. Yeah, she was nice about it but.
Megan Porta: That’s funny. I’m sure it’s funny to see how recipes are translated outside of the English language and outside of the US just to see how other people, I don’t know, like new versions of your recipe.
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah. Some of them come back and you’re just like, I don’t think that’s right. So there is a gentleman that I’ve hired in Ukraine and he’s one of two guys that I’ve ever hired and he does video. He’s more expensive than a lot of other people, but he’s about a hundred dollars for a two minute video and he is amazing. His work is so good. I recommend him. He communicates all the way through. I was surprised because one of the videos he did for me had cream cheese and I was surprised that he could get that in Kiev, but he did.
Megan Porta: Wow. You’re like, oh, that ingredient showed up.
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah. I totally was.
Megan Porta: Okay. I. Want to hear more about it, so you talk through where you find them, you do your research first. I think that you made that very clear that’s an important piece of it. Just read through everything. Now, transferring money to them, was that easy for you to do? Have you ever had any issues with that?
Ruth Grindeland: No, I haven’t. So normally you pay directly through Fiverr or Upwork, and they charge you a fee. I think 2.50 or something. But they do charge and they come back and say, do you want a tip? Then they charge another fee for that. So I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll ask somebody like, Hey, can you just send me a quote and include 10% tip so I don’t have to pay Fiverr twice. But other than that, it’s been fine. With Baslow, I met her through Reddit and a bunch of people were talking about how great she was, so I felt okay. But I did take a test. So I just sent her like $25 to see how everything would come back, how the money would go over and how the article would come back. Over time, we’ve built trust where I’ll just send her a couple hundred dollars a month. If you’re looking at somebody and you’re not sure, they normally have three options. It’s like a beginner, premium, platinum. I can’t remember exactly what they call them. But I’ll usually do the first one, the least expensive one, which really isn’t that expensive ever to test the person to see if I like what they send me back before, I’ll hire them for the medium one.
Megan Porta: Yeah. Then do you write up contracts for each person?
Ruth Grindeland: Nope. I don’t really, you don’t really do contracts. But lots of times you’ll exchange messages and you’ll say, I’d like to do this. Can you do this? Sometimes they’ll send you back a quote, and so you’re both on the same page.
Megan Porta: Okay, so really Fiverr or Upwork, or if you use one of those platforms, they take care of all of the potential issues, right? So you in theory shouldn’t have to worry about any of that?
Ruth Grindeland: That’s a hundred percent it. Okay. That’s, yeah, it’s really stress free, in my opinion. It’s stress free. Send it off and communicate with the person, and they give you back the product. If the product’s not good, then you can go back and say, I don’t want this. I want it to be this way, or I’d like to cancel this contract.
Megan Porta: That sounds easy. It’s all on them. It’s all on Fiverr to deal with that and it’s out of your hands .
Ruth Grindeland: It’s so true. It’s super, super easy. I just think about researching and really looking into who you hire, because lots of times people will post other people’s stuff or I hired somebody to do web stories cause I needed a break and I was, I did it from my phone. I did it really fast. I forgot my golden rule of researching. What he had up there was the examples that Google has, so he didn’t have anything authentic and I didn’t catch it at the time. What I got back was iffy. It wasn’t great.
Megan Porta: Yeah, so really sticking to your golden rules and those quality control, I don’t know, rules that you have for yourself, I guess is important is what I’m hearing from you.
Ruth Grindeland: A hundred percent.
Megan Porta: Okay. Do you have tasks, like example tasks? I know you mentioned Pinterest descriptions you can get as detailed as that. Web stories. What else could people potentially hand off to someone internationally?
Ruth Grindeland: Yep. So my very first hire was a VA from Nigeria and she was really good. She was actually, she was great. I almost felt bad at how inexpensive she was, but she did for a while all of my Facebook, my Pinterest, my Instagram, and then Whisk and all those things. I wrote out very clearly for her what I and which each week’s tasks were. We actually had a checklist and I would just highlight the ones I wanted for that week and then she would go in and do them. If things were more complicated, I would just record a video of me walking through it on the screen so she knew exactly what I wanted. She was really good. I worked with her for about four months and then, I don’t know, social media is not my thing, so I felt like I needed to take a step back from that and define who I was. So some of the other things, I’ve hired a Pinterest designer. I’ve hired a bunch of video people. Seems like I’ve hired mostly video people, and then I’ve hired Pinterest descriptions.
Megan Porta: Okay, so really any piece of food blogging, there are so many. If nothing else, do what you did and just type it in the search. I can’t believe that a Pinterest description came up for somebody. That shocked me. Were you surprised to see something actually populate?
Ruth Grindeland: I totally was. I totally was. I was so over trying to write ’em and looking for keywords, but so when I found her, I was really happy. She does a really good job.
Megan Porta: So you never know, try it and just see. I think so many people I hear, this is a huge pain point I hear all the time that people know they need to outsource, but they don’t know where to go. They don’t know where to start. They don’t know which task to start with. So this is perfect for them because you can take one little thing that you hate doing or that doesn’t serve you anymore, type it into Fiverr, Upwork and just see what happens and just experiment. So you mentioned you did a kind of a trial period. Do you do that all the time? We’re gonna try this for a month or whatever before you continue? Or do you sometimes dig in?
Ruth Grindeland: So I think I’m more like the dig in. I’m just like, let’s go for it. I’m too busy. So sometimes I will just dig in. So with Akinola, she was the VA from Nigeria, her and I just dug in and she did a great job. I would say with Baslow too, that’s what’s happened. We’ve just dug in and she does a great job. The other ones, it’s really been hit or miss with me. Sometimes I’ve dug in and I’ve hired people for multiple videos, and then other times I’ve been like let’s do a test and see how it goes.
Megan Porta: Yeah. I think the test is the safe route, right? Especially if you’re hesitant about this idea. Are most people receptive to that just doing a trial?
Ruth Grindeland: I think so. They don’t really call it a trial, but they basically, if you think of it on Fiverr, have three levels and the first level is usually really inexpensive and really basic. And so that’s what I see as the test.
Megan Porta: Okay, so what does this actually do for your business? I imagine it allows you to create more, it allows you to focus on those things that you actually enjoy doing. Give us the benefits.
Ruth Grindeland: Oh my God, there’s so many benefits. So it does allow you to create more. I’ve been trying to get up to eight blog posts a month, and I’ve been getting closer and closer to it. I have actually also decided I like having part of my life back. So it’s oh wait, I can go to the gym again and not feel so tied to my computer and I think that is most definitely one of the benefits. But I have been able to create more content. I’ve also been able to really think through what I’m doing. So prior to going down this path, I was just churning out as much as I could, as quickly as I could, and it wasn’t really always great. Now I have more time to look at keywords, research keywords, have fun in the creative path of it all. Then I also have time back to myself, which I really enjoy.
Megan Porta: Creativity and time. I think that is something that we all want more of or we don’t want to lose if we do have it. They’re like coveted things, creativity and time.
Ruth Grindeland: They are. I also feel less stressed. Like I don’t feel like I’m constantly not doing enough to get it off the ground. I really do have a lot less stress in my life and it’s that is priceless to me.
Megan Porta: Oh my gosh. That is priceless. Then there’s one other topic that I thought of as you were talking. You talked about hiring somebody who you felt bad, like you were paying them so little. That is an issue for me too, because I feel like, oh my gosh, there’s such a discrepancy between this pricing and what you’ll find in the US. So I almost feel like it’s a mindset shift that a lot of us would have to break through. Does that make sense?
Ruth Grindeland: It is. It really is. Sometimes it’s hard, right? To say, okay, it’s $10 an hour for this. That’s below the American minimum wage. I just have to think okay, in her country, first of all, she put this out there right for what she wants to do. But in her country, that could be a game changer. She was from Nigeria and I think she was from maybe a smaller town in Nigeria. Maybe she didn’t have as much power in her life financially. So I like to try to think okay, maybe that’s a game changer.
Megan Porta: Yeah, it is. It’s a different world, literally. Like it’s a completely different mindset, and I can see that being a hurdle for some people. But just keeping that perspective. Hiring them is benefiting them. Otherwise they wouldn’t be seeking out the job, right?
Ruth Grindeland: I think that’s exactly it. Yeah. And I think too, you have to be sensitive, like some of the things you say. So Baslaw and I were just exchanging messages and somehow all the traveling I have done came up and she said, oh, I really wanna travel. I just had to remember it’s just, it’s not always as easy for her to travel internationally as maybe it is for me. I try not to talk about it anymore and I just try to be like, I really want that for you too.
Megan Porta: Do you ever have to fight the desire to pay more than what they’re asking? I am such a giver. Be like, oh, I’ll pay double. But that kind of defeats the purpose of looking internationally.
Ruth Grindeland: No. So when I ended the contract with Akanola in Nigeria, I did actually pay her a full month of what I was paying her and I put it in as a tip. Because I felt maybe she’s gotten used to this money and I didn’t want to hurt her financially at all. So I figured a month would give her a good launching point to plan or do whatever she needs to do. But you can always tip, and I think that’s really important. So you can always give a really big tip. With Ukraine, when I hired the photographer from Ukraine, I was like, absolutely made sure I tipped him because I had to think there’s a war going on right now. How is the economy over there? How is he feeding his family? To be honest, I was surprised that he wasn’t a conscript, right? Because I thought all men of a certain age were forced to be a conscript. I didn’t ask him, but I just thought if I help him more, then he can help the other people in Ukraine from buying food in different services and that there’s a ripple effect.
Megan Porta: Aw, you’re spreading goodness all around the world, Ruth, literally. That’s so inspiring. I love this so much. Is there anything we’ve forgotten that you feel like is really important to touch on for anyone considering this?
Ruth Grindeland: I don’t think so, but there’s one thing, and I think I touched on this a little bit, and I feel like when we hire other people, even in our life here in America, communication. is 50% us on what we communicate what we need and 50% them to be able to receive it. But I think when we’re communicating with people overseas who maybe aren’t so familiar with what we do and why we do, it’s really up to us to communicate exceptionally clearly. So it’s more like 75, 25. So you really have to say, this is exactly what I want, this is how I want it to look. Then you also have to be forgiving, right? Like when you get them, unless you’re too lazy, like you just gotta be like, okay, I’m just gonna laugh that one off.
Megan Porta: Don’t be offended by that.
Ruth Grindeland: Yeah. I was like, we’re just gonna delete it. But I do get stuff back that I edit quite a bit and I just have to remember that they took me a large part of the way there and that is fantastic. It saved me all that time.
Megan Porta: Sorry you’re, unless you’re too lazy, the line is just too funny. But yeah, I love this. I think this is super valuable and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few people follow your lead and just check this out. So thank you for bringing all of this to the table.
Ruth Grindeland: You’re welcome. I really hope they do. There’s so much talent overseas and it’s just amazing how well educated and how proficient in English people are.
Megan Porta: Yes. Awesome. Do you have either a favorite quote, Ruth, or words of inspiration to leave us with today?
Ruth Grindeland: I do. My favorite quote, I’ve been saying it, well since I worked in sales. You miss a hundred percent of the shots you do not take.
Megan Porta: So true. Just do it, right? Yeah.
Ruth Grindeland: Good old Wayne Gretzky. If you don’t try, you’re gonna fail, so you might as well try.
Megan Porta: If you’re not too lazy, you’ll try it.
Ruth Grindeland: I still love that. It was so sweet.
Megan Porta: In my follow up email to you, I’m gonna say, Ruth, if you’re not too lazy, share this with your audience and don’t be offended.
Ruth Grindeland: I totally will. I totally will.
Megan Porta: Okay we’ll put together a show notes page for you. If anyone wants to go look at those, you can go to eatblogtalk.com/sinfulkitchen. Love the name of your blog, by the way. Okay. Tell everyone where they can find you.
Ruth Grindeland: I’m at Sinful Kitchen. So just look up Sinful Kitchen and you’ll find me.
Megan Porta: Are you on Instagram, TikTok?
Ruth Grindeland: I am. So I am on all of those. So I am on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok, but I’m not the best person on social media, so you can always just find me on my blog or you can always just email me at [email protected].
Megan Porta: Thank you so much for all of this, Ruth, and thank you so much for listening, food bloggers. I will see you in the next episode.
Outro: 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’ve posted it to your social media feed and stories. I will see you next time.
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