Today's guest went from being a professional copywriter to falling in love with blogging. Today I chat with Jessica from Sweetest Menu blog in Australia. Take a peek behind the kitchen doors and join us on a sweet ride through the world of blogging and baking.
A trip to the states inspired Jessica to dive into her passion more and today she shares all about it.
In this episode we will cover:
Want to check out Jessica's blog? Tap her to take a visit
Busines FREEBIES:
Grab my FREE resource guide and get 30 plus resources to level-up your home bakery business click here to grab my FREE guide and get more tips from me every week.http://bit.ly/bakersresources
Are we friends on Instagram? If you enjoyed this episode TAG ME at @bakingforbusiness
I really do appreciate each and every one of you guys and LOVE meeting new baking friends.
Today's guest went from being a professional copywriter to falling in love with blogging. Today I chat with Jessica from Sweetest Menu blog in Australia. Take a peek behind the kitchen doors and join us on a sweet ride through the world of blogging and baking.
A trip to the states inspired Jessica to dive into her passion more and today she shares all about it.
In this episode we will cover:
Want to check out Jessica's blog? Tap her to take a visit
Busines FREEBIES:
Grab my FREE resource guide and get 30 plus resources to level-up your home bakery business click here to grab my FREE guide and get more tips from me every week.http://bit.ly/bakersresources
Are we friends on Instagram? If you enjoyed this episode TAG ME at @bakingforbusiness
I really do appreciate each and every one of you guys and LOVE meeting new baking friends.
Hey, sweet friends, my name is Chef Schaumburg. I started my baking business with the bottle of DeCerono and one Bundt Cake Pan. Fast forward to today, from news to magazines, speaking on national stages and more. I can truly say that baking has changed my life. So now, as a bakery business coach, I get to help others have the same success. I've helped hundreds of my students across the world in my global membership program create six-figure businesses, mainly from home.
Speaker 1:The Baking for Business podcast is an extension of that, from actionable tips to valuable tools and resources that can impact you as a business owner. I truly believe y'all. We would never have been given a gift if we couldn't profit and prosper from it. So come on, darling. What are you waiting for?
Speaker 1:Hey, sweet friends, welcome back to the Baking for Business podcast. I'm so happy to have you guys here with me this week. I'm happy to have you guys here every week, and this week is awesome because we're talking all about blogging. And so, before you run, all of you guys who bake from scratch or bake from box or whatever it is you bake hear me out. You can't be on your feet forever. No one wants to be 99 baking, and today's guest has found a different alternative in order to live her dream to take her baked goods and still make an income. All I be in a mom and working part-time. How cool is that? So today we have Jessica from the Sweetest Menu and she's going to talk all about her blog and how she started in this industry. Hey, jessica, thanks so much for coming on today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're more than welcome, and so we were chatting before we pressed record for a nice little while. Your blog is beautiful. I love your work. How exactly did you get started, though?
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you so much. Well, I actually didn't grow up baking hardly at all. I baked on the auto cave in with my mom, but we weren't really I wasn't really in the kitchen, but I did love food and it was actually I got, when I got married, my husband. I remember we got home from our honeymoon and then we just stood in the kitchen and we were like, oh, who's going to make dinner, what are we going to do? And we realized neither of us really knew how to cook or bake at that stage. So we kind of went on this journey of teaching ourselves. I remember we got a Janie Oliver cookbook and we basically cooked our way through it and through that journey we just, you know, developed this real love of food and being in the kitchen. And from there, yeah, I started to teach myself to bake basically.
Speaker 2:But I, you know, I was in my twenties, I was, I was a bit older, I wasn't growing up with my grandma teaching me, unfortunately, but yeah, but that's that's sort of where it, where it came from. And then also travel was a major influence. So I remember, in my early twenties as well, we started to travel overseas and a few of our first trips were to America and that's really where my love of baking was quite ignited, because I tasted so many good things over there and so many flavors that I'd never had before Like. And it's different now because it's about 15 years later, but back then, like, I'd never heard of like plus another's and red velvet cake and banana pudding and all these like really cool things. So I came back so inspired and passionate and that's sort of yeah, where you know my experiments in the kitchen really took off.
Speaker 1:I love it. And now you actually had a corporate background, though, so tell me a little bit about your job and what you were doing, why you started the blog, or before you started blogging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, I studied communications at university and then I worked as a copywriter, so I had a, you know, nine to five office job and a few years into that I went back to school to do some night classes in graphic design just for fun, and my husband had gone back to law school so he was studying sort of around the clock. And then my graphic design classes were coming to an end and I just thought I just felt like I had a lot of time outside of my full-time job and I thought, what am I going to do? That's creative. And it was right around the time. It was 2014,. Food blogs were, you know, all the rage and I was following so many of them, so I just thought, oh, I'm just going to give it a go and try to win the fun. So, yeah, february 2014,. Sweetest menu is gone. Actually, I think it was called the sweetest menu or sweet. No, it's called sweet menu, that's right. And then it changed to sweetest menu. So, yeah, it's come a long way.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it, and I read that you even worked at Australia's biggest food magazine, so I could imagine you did learned a lot there. So what were some of the occupations or the things that you learned on that job?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was fun. So I started my career working in travel. So I was doing a lot of travel copywriting and then, as I started to really enjoy the food blog, I thought I'm just loving this, I want to see if I can do something in food in my day job as well. So I ended up landing a job at a food magazine and I was doing I think I was doing copywriting, but it was like digital marketing, social media, that sort of thing. And then it kind of leaked out that I had this blog and this interesting food.
Speaker 2:And so they said do you want to come on some of our photo shoots with us? And I was like yes. So I came along regularly, but that wasn't kind of in my role as a food prep assistant, so I'd work alongside the chefs and prep all the food for all the magazine photo shoots, and then you know watch as the food stylist came in, did all the styling, and then the food photographer did their thing. And you know I would come alongside them and ask them a few questions oh, how do you do that and what? What setting are you using on that? And trying to gain everything I could to take home to my blog and use it all that information. But it was really fun and really interesting to see how, how they did real deals, magazine shoots behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:And so, when you started your blog, what were some of the first things that you started posting? Did you have a particular specialty or what were some of the first recipes? If you can jog us back, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. It's always been sweet. So I, you know I have a big sweet tooth and I love baking and the joy of you know cakes and cookies and things like that, but I I was still learning how to bake. So back then I actually think the first recipe I posted was chocolate covered Oreos, which was literally getting a packet of Oreos and dipping them in chocolate. And you know, that was it, and I think I think my next one might have been a chocolate chip cookie. But yeah, it was quite humble at the start. I definitely have come a long way in my kitchen abilities.
Speaker 1:Some people may feel like, because I know one of the things you stated was that you traveled and you tested a lot. Some people may feel well, I'm not a professional, so how can I blog? Or did you ever have any of those mindset issues that hindered you? Or you just went straight straight?
Speaker 2:for it. No, I did, I did. And I remember, like my husband saying, oh, you should start a food bug. And I remember saying, but I don't know how to write a recipe. I know how to follow a recipe, but I don't know how to, you know, create my own recipe. And he just really encouraged me to just start and so, like I said, I did, I just started and it was started literally like I couldn't really write a recipe like chocolate dipped Oreos. I mean, it was just like counting how many Oreos and then trying to figure out how much chocolate you needed to dip them. Like there's no, like great, you know, still needed in that recipe. But that's just where I had to start. And you know if you can start anywhere, whether it's, you know, a recipe that you think that you've made and you've tweaked and tweaked and tweaked over time and it's slowly become yours, or, you know, I even asked, like I didn't bake with my mom so much or my you know grandma's or anything, but like my husband's grandma had some recipes, so like I asked her for her recipes and then, you know, played around with those. So it's just kind of like starting anywhere with any inspiration that you can, and really it's all about experimentation.
Speaker 2:I mean, I have so many fails in the kitchen. I have them every week, every all the time, even now, because that's how you, you know, make a recipe. That's how you learn how the ingredients work and what does work and what doesn't. And you know, 10 years in, I'm still 100% learning that. So I think I think it's very normal to have that concern, but that's how we learn this and there's nothing wrong with failure. There's no need to be scared of failure in the kitchen. That like I actually now, I used to cry when a cake didn't work. You know like my husband would find me. Yeah, I'd be like, oh, I made this cake and it didn't work, you know, and I'd take it so much to heart. Now I'm like, okay, cool, it didn't work. What can I learn from that? Oh, it must have been too many eggs, too many, this too many, that Like it's just part of the job.
Speaker 1:You know, I love that because with that it comes a change mindset. And you're right. Sometimes it's just how we look at things. Instead of saying you know, I'm a failure, it's more like you said what was the lesson?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's the best way because I can read something a hundred times oh, baking soda does this in a recipe, blah, blah, blah and it doesn't kind of sink in. But then when you have that and you go, oh, I see, I put too much in and it's sunk, or you know whatever it is Like, that memory is going to stay and every time you make hate you think, oh, I don't want to have it like it's sunk that other time. You know, and that's how you learn, that's how those lessons kind of stick in mind.
Speaker 1:So how did you decide? What was your first Cause? We're coming up on a 10 year celebration, so congratulations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. My grandma, an internet grandma?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're so silly In the beginning. What was some of the first types of software that you used to get the blog started?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was very humble in my beginnings. I'm pretty sure I started on a blogger, blogger or blog spot, whatever the free one was. I did my own logo in Photoshop and chucked it up there. There was nothing fancy about. I didn't even have a proper camera. I think I might have borrowed someone from someone, yeah, but I only had like a $100 camera for years. Like I really didn't invest until you know, this was something that was sticking and I was really going to go for it. So, yeah, very humble beginnings and like nowadays, you can start off so much better purely because of an iPhone. I mean, you've already got something that can record great photos and videos right there. Yeah, so it was like a zero money investment. I think I paid like $20 for my domain, that was it.
Speaker 1:And you never had a desire to, because some people will say, well, you know, why not sell your baked goods or anything like that, but that was never a desire. You just always had a passion, I guess. Be it that you were a copywriter to always.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So it was more, and it was more about the teaching side of things than just presenting someone with a cake or someone paying me for cake. I just love to teach and I love to share. So, like when a recipe works and even to this day, when I make something that is so delicious, like I get so excited. I cannot wait to share it with people on my blog or on Instagram and I'm just like this cake, like you have to try it, and I just think, yeah, getting that message out to as many people as possible is just by blogging. It's like the sweet spot. And also, most of the time when I was doing this, I was. I live in a house now, but I lived in a one bedroom apartment with a really teeny, tiny. It's almost like a kitchenette kitchen really, so it wasn't really built for like a home-made breakfast day.
Speaker 1:And so you did the blogging for about six years before you went full time right? Yes, that's right. So what? Did that look like over the years, revenue wise in the game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for the first 18 months I made nothing, and then I actually.
Speaker 3:I actually and.
Speaker 2:I was fine with that because, like I said, I had a job. It wasn't really considered, you know, to be a job, it was just so much fun. And my dad actually said to me, oh, you should put some ads on your site. And I was like, oh, no, that'll ruin the site, you know, like all my beautiful pictures, even though they weren't that beautiful back then. And he was like, no, go on. And I was like, oh, and I toyed around with it for a while and then I was like, I'll just, I'll just see. So I think I signed up I think it was just Google ads since back then and then I made $50 in that first month and I was so chuffed I was like $50. You know, because that pays for your baking ingredients. I was like, yeah, fantastic, now I'm, you know, even instead of like in the hole. And from there it just slowly grew.
Speaker 2:And my story isn't one of, you know, quick success. Where I grew, you know, a huge readership overnight. It's been like a long journey and that income slowly did grow over time and, you know, eventually, after about six years it overtook my day in the first month and after about six years it overtook my day income. And that's when I sort of thought, well, what am I going to do here? And I made the decision to do it full time. But it was actually quite a hard decision because I actually enjoyed my day job. I didn't hate it and you know, I built this career. I'd been doing it for a decade. I'd studied at the university.
Speaker 1:It wasn't that easy to say goodbye, to be honest, but I didn't go to college. You go to college so short. You're thinking this is what you're going to do, and then you leave and you're like, oh, wait, a minute what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and you know it is a bit of a risk and I'm working for myself, and it was even things too, like I just thought I'm going to be so lonely because I'm just, you know, I am an introvert, but I'm just used to being in the office with people every day, you know, catching going into the city, catching a bus or whatever. So it was a huge sort of whole life change. But you know, what's funny is, when I finally made that decision, I was actually pregnant with my first child, but so I knew sort of it was coming to an end anyway. But I finished up early and it was in March 2020. So right, so the day that I packed up my office desk on that Friday, all my colleagues were packing up their desk too, because they'd been told they were going to go work from home for three weeks and that turned out to be, you know, two years. So it was quite funny that it kind of all came to an end when, like, everyone else was coming to an end.
Speaker 2:So even if I hadn't quit, my day job, I would have been working from home on my own anyway, so it was just a funny turn of events.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything happens for a reason, so it definitely sounds like it all lined up and fast forward. Now. Some of your work has been featured by pop sugar, brit and Co, buzzfeed, huffington Post and Hurrah magazine Hurrah. I like Hurrah better I was like come on a minute, spit it out. But yeah, but needless to say, it has definitely paid off, and you've also had the privilege to work with brands such as KitchenAid, williams and Sonoma, who I love, almond breeze, who I love to drink, so that's pretty good girl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah come along way. Yeah, I'm really, you know it's it's, it's an honor really and that has been able to be a real thing and now it's being sustainable. So obviously I've been doing this, you know, as my proper, proper job sort of thing, for three years now and yeah, it's a real thing and it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:So what does day to day operations look like for you now? Because you're doing the blog? You've generated over six figures now with the blog. So, yeah, a year, yeah, so that's awesome sauce. So what does it look like now? Are you still using Google AdSense, or when did you make the? Are you still on blogger, which I know you're not, but when did you make the switch? Yeah, just share with the viewers to level up the game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. So a few years in, I wanted to make the blog look a bit more beautiful, so I moved to Squarespace. Is it okay to say this? But I moved to Squarespace, yeah, because then, because then a few years later, I moved to WordPress and I immediately saw an uptick in my traffic. So, you know, I liked Squarespace. It was easy to use, but it was. It was more beneficial for my blog as a business to move to WordPress. So I encouraged anyone who may be trying to decide whether to go for something more beautiful and easy to use, that actually probably better, to move to WordPress, where you have access to everything and all your back end and that sort of thing in the long run. So that's something I wish I, you know, moved to earlier and, yeah, I'd moved to Mediavine, I think, in.
Speaker 2:I think it was about 2016. No, that's not right. Maybe a few years after that, I can't remember. So I've been with them for a while now. They're fabulous. So they sort of manage all the ads for me, so I don't really have to do anything on the backend as far as ads, which is wonderful to take that sort of off your plate. And now, because it's earning enough income. I can also get someone like I have Nerd Press, which is a team that manages the backend for you and a lot of the technical aspects, which is great, because that's something that's just not of interest to me at all. Yeah, so it just means, yeah, slowly making those changes to make it more beautiful, more sustainable, and then I got a custom theme design in 2020. So, but that was still, yeah, six and a half years after I started, before I made like a big investment into the look and feel of it.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of great changes. But also you mentioned you said a couple of things because so many people they may go to Squarespace because their mind is always on, oh, it's pretty. But I tell people SEO is so powerful Like a site can't just be pretty, it has to be functional.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's very true and there's a lot that goes into it that I didn't understand back then. And I think I saw around a 30% uplift in like organic traffic when I moved to WordPress. And yes, seo is very important for my business. It's a huge part of what I do and a huge traffic driver for me, so it's really important to prioritize things like that.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, yeah, especially with blogging, because then we have all of the long tail keywords, meta tags, keywords like all that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, never ends, yeah.
Speaker 1:Never ends right, absolutely. What information or what advice would you give to someone who's thinking of either stepping away from the kitchen to blog or who doesn't even wanna step in the kitchen to sell period? They just say, hey, this sounds more like me, because what I'm noticing more with people my students and I have some students who wanna teach, but they're always like I'm so so camera shy and I think you may just want to log in. You might know that, looking at it as an alternative for those who don't wanna show their face or to be the face of their business, even though that can only take you so far, because you still it's to build a personal brand. But what advice would you have to someone who's looking to start?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's definitely a great opportunity and, like you said, it might be somewhere where they start and yeah, sure you might not wanna go on camera right now but that might be something that you can approach later on in your journey. But yeah, blogging is wonderful and that's one thing I love about it is the ability to teach. So for me it's not about necessarily like a pretty picture and like a yummy cake and everything. It's like the ability to transfer what I've learnt and some of my skills that I've learnt, and I learnt a lot of it the hard way, through fails and just not knowing I can.
Speaker 2:I kind of write back to my 15 year self, when I was in the kitchen and a recipe would be so scant on detail and I just didn't have the knowledge that I think a lot of recipes assumed that you had, when I would say cream the butter and sugar, and I'd be like what is creaming you? And when it says beat something and it's like, well, is it low speed, high speed? Like is this a hand mixer, stand mixer? Like just those details that a lot of people assume. So I think if you look at blogging and if you look at posting recipes as a way to teach, like that's essentially what it is. It's a way to give away information and help people on their journey, and that's what I love about it, and I think, if you have that drive to want to teach, like that's something that you really enjoy, I think it's a fabulous place to start and a great way to learn, because, also, the best part is because there's a two way, because you get comments through your blog or through social media.
Speaker 2:You learn what people want to know, what people don't understand, what it like you get the same questions over and over and over, which is like it's fabulous, because it's a great way to learn straight from those people what are people missing, what don't people understand, what do people want to know, and like that's your kind of research done for you in many ways, right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love I can't get enough. I'm always listeners. Anyone I'm like ask the question. Ask the question because people don't understand. I learned through your question sometimes we could be so that we forget those beginning blocks, and so it's a wonderful way, like we stated, a wonderful way to teach and to serve your community. Yeah, exactly, and what are some of the type of recipes that you've been posting lately? I have your blog right here just to make them sound sexy and soon worthy. What are some of your favorites that are on the blog?
Speaker 2:Um well, I just made a honey cake or, I'm sorry, just posted a honey cake the other week, I think I love honey cake.
Speaker 2:I. It took me like I think seven or eight times to get it right. When I got it right, I was like absolutely dancing around my kitchen and then I got a beautiful photo of it. So that's sometimes the first thing is like, can you make this thing take amazing? And then can you make it look amazing? And when those both line up I was like celebrating. I was like this cake is so good and it looks so good, like everyone's gonna love it. So I was super pumped post that one recently. But yeah, and I even went around. I used it as an excuse to go around to a few bakeries around town and try their honey cakes to make sure that mine was better. No, I use it as inspiration. So what did they use? What did they use in their frosting stuff so that, yeah, that one was. That one was really fun.
Speaker 1:And you also have things like clinkers. Ice cream cake no bake. Oh yeah, chocolate tart, that sounds delicious. Cheesecake stuffed apples.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I love as a lot of cookie recipes, and something that was born out of lockdown, which I've continued on, is my small batch series. So I had a lot of people asking for, you know, smaller batch, because I know we can't, all you know, have 20 cookies. You know a lot of people living alone or they just have, you know, just them and a partner, or them and a roommate. So, yeah, I've been scaling down a lot of my recipes as well. So, like I recently did one where it's the chocolate chip cookie, which is only makes three cookies and you don't need a mixer or anything and they're just like divine. The only problem is I just keep making them because it's so good it doesn't make sense anyway, but not for me, but yeah. So it's small batch has been awesome and I've gotten a lot of great feedback from people, which is great because I love to make what people want to want to make.
Speaker 1:I love that, and so where can we find you to learn more about you and check out your blog? Of course, I'm going to put a link in the show notes to anyone who's listening, but you can give us your website please.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my website is sweetest menucom and you can find me on probably Instagram is the best place at sweetest menu. I hang out there all the time and, if you do, pop over, send me a message or, yeah, have a chat, because I love to hear and I'm always putting things in my stories of things that didn't work and asking for advice and all that sort of thing. So I love to. I love to hear from you, yeah, so come over and chat.
Speaker 1:Awesome. And before I let you go, we do have to play a game of lightning round. Are you ready? I'm ready, let's do it. What is your favorite color?
Speaker 2:Yellow at the moment.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what is your favorite kitchen utensil?
Speaker 2:That's really hard and probably I just didn't want to say my mixer because everyone would say the mixer. But you know, I can't live without my, my KitchenAid mixer and my and my hand mixer too. I got the cool cordless one where you don't have to plug it into the wall, and that's just like a game changer. Yeah, it's so good if you're like filming videos or you're like jumping from bench to bench.
Speaker 1:I love it. What is your favorite book?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a hard one.
Speaker 2:You know what I love a good biography, but I can't even remember what one I've been reading lately. And you know I love. You know one that I love that I've read over and over. Is the help? Oh really yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm in red the book, but I remember the book.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I always wanted to.
Speaker 2:I always wanted to copycat it and put it on my side, but I never, I never had the guts to do it. But it's just like mini, mini, spinny, famous fire.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. No, no, no, no, actually not the bad one, you know she was so.
Speaker 2:I just a regular one, not not the one with the questionable material in it.
Speaker 3:Sorry, you might have to delete that out of the podcast.
Speaker 1:We don't delete anything. You're fine. I feel you All right. What is or who is? I'm sorry. Who is your celebrity crush?
Speaker 2:Um, look, I'd have to say probably at the moment it may be like Paul Hollywood, because I've been so into the Great British Baker. Have you watched that show? I know I've watched it like all the time, like rewatch all the seasons.
Speaker 1:I'm mad for that show, so yeah that's actually the weird thing about me, though I read on your site that you like the Great British Baker. I actually watch baking shows, unless one of my students, really, I know right, yeah, I guess.
Speaker 3:But if there's one you need to watch that's the one.
Speaker 2:That's the one. Yeah, that's the one.
Speaker 1:Okay, I might have to get started with that. I love it Well from the bottom of my heart. Jessica, thank you so much for coming on and for jamming with me. I really love hearing your story and just how you had the faith you know to just start this blog. And congrats to you on making your 10 years. And thank you so much for sharing all your tips with everyone.
Speaker 2:Thank you, you're so welcome. Thank you for having me. You're more than welcome. Frauen.
Speaker 1:How awesome was Jessica. You guys, I hope her story gave you a bit of inspiration as well as motivation. You know so many of us actually want to leave our careers for our passion, and you totally can, and I love sharing stories like this so that we can see how other people did it, and one of the things I love that Jessica mentioned was it did take a while. However, she didn't give up, she had a goal in mind, and I just love the realness, as well as all the features and her sharing her day-to-day life with us as a blogger. I think this is just another wonderful alternative for those who don't want to sell their baked goods to actually share their gift and put it out there in the world in another way.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys, so much for tuning in and listening. If you have any recommendations, let me know. Have you messaged me on Instagram yet? I love hearing from all of you guys, so DM me or at me at Baking for Business on Instagram and let me know if you like the show. Let me know as you're listening, or shoot me a DM if you have a guest or a recommendation for someone who should be on the show who is just as awesome as Jessica was today. Thanks so much for tuning in. You guys Take care. Bye for now.