I still can’t get over the love from last month. It seriously amazes me what people will respond to. I put myself out there on the heels of a local magazine article coming out and, well, I’m so glad I did. It was, hands down, my most popular post to date reaching over 8,000 people on Facebook. Not too shabby! So thank you. Thank you for the likes, comments, shares, and love. I’ve said it before and I will never ever stop saying it: I seriously appreciate every. single. one.
So, what happens next. A wonderful question. So much of the love received was so positive and often times, humorous, and then I got the occasional question or two: so, what is it you do? What is it you’re going to do?
Excellent questions my friends, excellent. Because I just happened to sort of piece it all together myself.
You all know I’ve established this blog as a hobby. A fun space to be creative and share recipes with family and friends. And then it continued to grow and I was still so naive about the whole thing thinking ‘hmmm, what am I going to do when I grow up?’
What I didn’t realize is I was doing it. Come on, C. Building a brand is an incredibly hard thing to establish authentically. Yet perhaps some of the best brands are those built when you don’t even know it’s happening.
If anyone asks me truly what I’ve done since staying home with the kids I would say that I have been mothering. I’ve been changing diapers and doing midnight feedings (for a year, by the way) and driving to baseball and to football and wrapping birthday presents and playing room mom and so on and so forth. This is what I’ve been doing. Yet throughout it all, even in the haze of not sleeping, I was building up the brand of A Life From Scratch. Making every single decision, often at odd hours. What font to use. What quality photograph. What size photograph. What exact shade of pink my dress should be in the logo. Figuring out the spacing between L’s stripes in the logo. Writing all content. Photographing food. Figuring out what words I like to use. What words I don’t like to use. It just kept going and going and going and eventually the end result was something bigger than I ever even knew was even being built.
Weird, right? My goal was never to create a brand. It was born out of the chaos of my kids, the drive to be creative, and very little help in terms of actually having normal working time to devote to it all. It was something that was truly needed in my life as it just kept….going. It never occurred to me not to do this. Then all of a sudden poof! I had this brand – this business – when often times I was wondering what else I should be doing.
During a recent date out with Mike, you know, where we can complete actual whole sentences to each other, he randomly began speaking about his senior exec partners over at Aetna. He said there was a discussion that, 9 times out of 10, it makes sense to do what you’re already doing way better than to actually expand it. Yes, yes. The timing of it all was uncanny. It’s exactly what I needed to hear.
Now, onto the what’s happening next part. I’ve got this brand, what is it that I’m doing with it? To be clear, the blog does bring in (a little) income. That all happens through advertising right over there on the side and links I create to specific items our family uses and enjoys and is excited about. This was, and is, never the point of the blog. I’ve always shared and linked items I’m truly digging. If people click and eventually buy that’s fantastic. I’m making money while I’m carpooling kids around. And if not, that is A OK too.
Even more exciting is that I’ve partnered up with CaptureHits Marketing Group. This was a huge step for me. My baby, so to speak, is now in the hands of some serious experts. They are handling all the behind the scenes items that I am clueless about that moves an established brand from point A to point B. All the tricky side of Google and SEO work and link building. That stuff, mama has no time for. And let’s be honest, has no clue about.
The goal is to build up even more advertising opportunities, even more followers, even more subscribers, to get big enough until….wait for it….a book makes sense.
Yes.
That is my goal. I’ve always wanted something of mine to be in the hands of people that choose it. A physical, heavy, bound, beautiful, book. It’s a dream, really. Content is already swirling around in my head and in my dreams and, perhaps, on my Mac. And it’s good my friends. It’s about happy stuff and hard stuff and everything in between all brought together by…..food. Because if you haven’t figured out by now that is my love language. My life language, really. And I can’t wait to share more and more with you.
Thank you, as always, for following our little lives along and supporting our (growing!) brand. It means more to me than you know.
*Photo credit: Silver Branch Photography
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Courtney
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I very clearly remember, back in late 2009/early 2010, you and I were chatting about what we wanted to do in life. I was in between jobs and planning my wedding, and I was frustrated.
We talked about our dream jobs and possible goals and what-ifs…nothing serious, just “wouldn’t it be cool” phrases.
And I distinctly remember us referring to another cookbook ….Giada, maybe(?)…and mentioning it seemed like her “style” was sort of similar to yours. And you loudly vocalized that you would LOVE to have a book written.
Obviously at the time, it was more of a cookbook, than, what I am assuming will be more of your all-inclusive lifestyle book today.
But anyways, what I’m trying to say is…to think all of that dreaming and what-ifs…could actually become a reality?!
I do actually think it will happen, doll.
You keep doing what you’re doing…keep your head up through the shitty comments and trolls of the world, focus on the good, and you’ll get that damn book.
And it’ll be fabulous, of course!
Tia G. recently posted…PGD Set-up Update
You can do anything, my friend. Good for you.
Twitter: J_maceinyoface
says:
So incredibly proud of you, friend! I’ll be waiting in line for a copy of that book! I know it’ll be great.
Just catching up on your blog from when I was out of town. I literally was so tired at the end of the day I barely turned on my laptop in 11 days!
So excited for this chapter in your life! I am wholeheartedly of the opinion that you have to make something happen not wait for stuff to happen in life – I know you’ll be a success!
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Twitter: charminglyuncmp
says:
So many exciting updates (and smart decisions)! Love reading about these exciting developments – thanks for sharing the details!