How to treat your blog like a business and start actually making money!

I knew I wanted to work ‘in business’ from about the age of 15. Largely inspired by the film ‘Working Girl’, which is still one of my favourite films of all time. It sounds daft, but it was the business mindset of the lead character, played by Melanie Griffith, that really inspired me – the way she connected the dots and figures out how to make the deal (in this case a corporate merger).

I studied business at one of the UK’s top business schools, spent a year working as an intern for a big multinational in Paris, worked for a while in the wine buying team for a Bristol wine merchant, then landed myself a dream marketing role at a well-known luxury supermarket.

But somewhere along the line I got burnt out and quit ‘business’. Years working as an English teacher in the EFL industry and two kids followed before a couple of small things made me realise I could combine my passions for food, writing and business and start my very own bloggy biz.

I was fortunate as my business training meant I set up my first blog, Easy Peasy Foodie, as a business right from the get go AND had the business skills to know how to get it to make money.

For many bloggers the whole idea of turning their blog into a business comes a bit later down the road… or even happens accidentally!

But I also see so many bloggers who desperately want to turn their blogs onto fully fledged businesses, but don’t know how. Or worse, brilliant bloggers quitting blogging because they can’t make money from it. This was a big reason for starting Productive Blogging. I wanted to share my skills and help as many bloggers as possible to fulfil their dreams.

Have a business mindset right from the start

The number of times bloggers have told me ‘I’d love my blog to be my business, but it doesn’t make any money.’ …
Stop that thinking right now! Your blog doesn’t have to make money right from the start to call it a business.

Think about it. If you started a more traditional business, let’s say a café, you might take out a big loan from the bank and not pay that off for many years.

Technically, you might not make a profit for a long time. But would you call it ‘just a hobby’ until you actually made a profit? Of course not! So start calling your blog your business from TODAY!

Set your business hours and stick to them

If you truly want blogging to be your business, you have to treat it like a business. That means setting your hours and sticking to them.
You wouldn’t just take a random day off any other job because you didn’t feel like it or because the pile of ironing was too huge, would you? So don’t do that to your blog!
Of course, I don’t necessarily mean working 9-5 (however good the Dolly Parton song is!).
You may already have a full-time job or childcare commitments, which mean you can’t work ‘normal’ office hours.

It may be that you can only work 8-11pm once the kids are in bed or 5-8am before you go to work. Or maybe you can only work on your blog at the weekends.
The important thing is not WHICH hours you choose but that you STICK TO THEM, just as you would stick to your work hours in any other job.

Don’t blog in your PJs

A controversial one, I know, but dressing the part really makes a difference.
Have you ever done a phone interview? Then you’ll probably have heard the tip that you should dress for a phone interview in exactly the same way as you would dress for a face-to-face interview. Because how you dress affects your mindset.

Dressing in your pyjamas (or similar) puts your mind in ‘oh it’s just a hobby’ mode.
But dressing relatively smartly – as you would for a day in the office, puts your brain in ‘this is my job’ mode and will help you treat your blogging more professionally.

Don’t believe it? Try it!
Now, I will confess, I don’t wear a suit to blog in! But I do wear smart-casual clothes and I always wear makeup. Basically, I dress the same as I would if I were meeting a client, even if it’s just me in front of the computer in my office all day.

Have an ‘office’
So I realise not everyone is lucky enough to have their own office from which to blog. (Hey, it took me YEARS to get there – thank you Mr G for making me my very own home office!)
BUT that doesn’t mean you can’t have a regular place where you can ‘set up office’ so to speak. It might be your kitchen table. It might be your spare room, a corner of the living room or your bedroom.
But, if you possibly can, carve out a little space in your home to be your ‘office’, where you do your work and where all your blog related things live.

Again it taps into that ‘this is my job’ mindset and will trick your brain into being more business-like. It will also make you more organised and tidier as all your blogging things will be together.