 Hi everybody. I'm really excited to be here with Shailaja. We have been getting to know each other over the past months because she is a fellow content creator. She is a blogging expert, social media expert, and it's just been a pleasure to get to know her. And so we're going to talk about how blogging really works today and you know, any tips she has for how do we create content and how do we do it with consistency, etc, which I know a lot of you are very interested in. So Shailaja, welcome. It's good to have you here. Thank you, George. It's good to be here. So let me go ahead and just kind of share your official bio with the audience and then we'll start the conversation here. So Shailaja is a blog and social media coach with 13 years of blogging experience. Her website is called Blogging and Social Media Simplified. There will be a link in the notes below and it aims to simplify the art of content creation down to easy to comprehend bits of information and her intention is to help creators like all of us here grow a loyal audience of engaged readers, clients and customers while tapping into their passion. She conducts one-on-one coaching sessions as well as group calls and webinars. And she also has courses and ebooks to help people find that special spark and enjoy the work that they do. So it's yeah, it's wonderful to talk with you because you have so much experience with creating and with helping people create. And I know one of the you know, misconceptions people have when they reach out to you, when they work with you is what exactly do you do for them or with them? Like, you know, some people go, oh, social media coach. So so she's going to basically rewrite my social media profiles or write my articles. But what's your how do you answer that question? So the thing I tell people when they reach out to me is that I help them. DIY, their blog or their social media. So the idea is I want people to understand why they blog, why they started blogging in the first place and help them reach their loyal audience. And it's much easier to do it when you're doing it on your own instead of when I'm doing it for you. So it's not like I can't do it for you. I would rather that you do it on your own. So my aim is to help you find that path and help you get set you on that path such that you're comfortable doing it for the long term. So yeah, now that's great. I I really appreciate that answer because I have worked with so many writers, copywriters, marketing writers over the years. And I've always found that no matter how good they are at communicating and writing, it is not my voice and it's not my voice for the long term. And it's like if you're going to be around as a business for years, it's got to be your audience has got to get to know your voice. And if they don't get to know your voice, they don't like your voice. Well, it's not authentic experience when they actually start working with you. And also, you are missing the huge opportunity to learn how to communicate well and to kind of have because your unique your expression is unique in the world. So anyway, I just want to say I really believe in in in the way that you work with clients. So one of the other things I bet people often they come to you and I say, all right, Shailaja, let's let's grow the social media following numbers. And there's such a focus on the numbers of followers and things like that. And of course, over time, of course, it's going to grow with with good content. But what is your advice around thinking about that? So the thing I tell people, especially when they come to me saying that, you know, they don't have a large following. So the thing I ask them first is what will you do with that large following? So if you're so focused on just growing the numbers and you're not really focused on enjoying the work that you do or reaching the audience that is actually interested in your work, growing the numbers makes absolutely no sense. So what I tell people is and I give them my personal example. So I've been blogging since 2007. And for the first six years, I literally blogged without an audience. Well, unless you count my mom. So I literally didn't have readers. So it was in 2013 when I wrote a really heartfelt series of posts on my blog. It was a series called how I learned to yell less at my daughter or how I learned to stop yelling at my daughter. And that was a series of posts that really touched a chord with a number of people. And that kind of sparked the understanding that if the content comes from the heart, it will reach the right audience at the right time. And from then it has been a slow and steady and progressive growth. So when people come and say, I need to grow my follower numbers, they don't even know why they're doing it. Whereas if they focus on creating the content from the space that makes them happy while helping their audience, you'll notice or they will notice that the follower numbers will grow automatically. But most importantly, the right number of followers is more relevant than the large number of followers. Yes, you can relate to that, I'm sure. Absolutely. And also that's where our clients come from. Our customers and clients, they don't come from the masses. They come from the ideal readers, not just clients, but also word of mouth and potential other opportunities that come to us. So this is wonderful. I'm so impressed that you were able to blog for six years without having a ton of engagement. People get people give up after six weeks. Sometimes not even that. They post six things on social media and they didn't get the kind of following that they expected. That is such a I wish I'm I'm so glad you mentioned your story because, you know, I did it for I did it for two years with very little feedback, but I continued doing it. Some had something happened after those two years that really broke through. But six years is really impressive and actually reminds me kind of of Seth Godin. Seth Godin is one of the famous marketing experts today. And he he some people when I look back at his blog, he has all his archives back into back to the early 2000s. He blogged for something like eight years or something before he really got traction. So I'm just really impressed when I hear those numbers six years. So well, I want to go into this right now. Like what kept you going in those six years? I mean, like I said, people give up after six weeks because they don't get enough followers or clients or whatever from it. What kept you going? What stayed the course for you? So the thing that kept me going and actually the thing that does keep me going even today is the fact that I love writing. I just love to write. I mean, I don't really need people to tell me that the writing works or it doesn't work. I just write anyway. So I think I that goes back to my teenage years and my my years in college and even my years as a teacher, which is what I was before I started blogging. And that was just right. So, you know, it was it was a habit. So writing for me is a form of release in some way. So writing consistently itself was the motivation. So just being able to show up and do the work, so to speak. And for, yeah, I love that. So some people watching this need to reconnect with their love of writing and just realize that, yes, I mean, we all know those of us who write, the more we write, the more the more like we build the muscle of exploring our inner world and our outer world through words. And so so, yes, all of us, those of you watching, you should reconnect with your love of writing. Or in my case, I have to say, I actually didn't love writing until I wrote myself into loving it. It's so funny, like I've really I've really had a traumatic sort of, you know, kind of growing up experience with with writing because of school and because of being an immigrant to this country and had to learn this as second English as a second language and getting kind of almost made fun of and all these things about my writing. So I had a traumatic experience and I really didn't love writing until more recently when I kept writing. Now I love writing. But for those who don't love writing, do you have another recommendation or do you what do you recommend that they can they can still build a social media presence? So the advantage with content today is it doesn't just have to be written, right? We can do podcasts because I know a lot of people are uncomfortable on camera. Or if you are comfortable on camera, you can do videos on YouTube or IGTV and get word out there. Or you can just start by writing social media posts. So a lot of my students today, especially my clients who have started blogs in the last year or so, or I would say in the last six months or so, have been the kind who have dabbled with Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, just getting their feet wet in the idea of writing. And they used to send me their links to their posts and say, you know, this is what I've written and what do you think about it? And then I would give them some feedback. So I would say, you know, it's great. It works. But here's where you can improve. Here's where you can start putting the spotlight on the reader instead of yourself. And that kind of helps them fine tune their understanding. And one of the reasons I recommend a blog over just social media is because a blog is something that you can technically own. A social media platform is still volatile, right? I mean, you never know when Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn is going to go belly up. I mean, I'm hoping they won't, but there's always a possibility. So you don't want your content to live on the social media platforms. You need to have backups as well. So what I've realized is as soon as people find their rhythm of content creation, wherever it is, and whether it's on video, audio or just social media posts, it's easier for them to transition into blogging on a regular basis. So that's what I find works. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about income that can come from blogging. I mean, you have so much experience being around other bloggers too and kind of noticing what works. So kind of share with us what what what is the I mean, what have you learned about the truth about what it takes to make money with blogging and being a being a presence on social media? Right. So as a blogger, there are multiple I would say sources of revenue or income that you can have. One is, of course, ad income. So that will depend on the number of page views you have. So if the more page views you have, and if you get into the right ad network, which is not Google Adsense, by the way, you tend to get more revenue. But for that to work, you really need a lot of page views. You need anything between 50,000 to 100,000 to 200,000 page views a month. And for a lot of bloggers, it's difficult to maintain on a consistent rhythm. Unless you are consistently creating content, consistently promoting it. So it becomes a bit of a hamster wheel. So a lot of bloggers get frustrated because they don't see that much revenue within a certain timeframe. The next thing which tends to work for a lot of bloggers is brand collaborations and sponsored posts. So let's say somebody is a fashion blogger or a lifestyle blogger. So they can tie up with brands in the fashion or the lifestyle space and they can do promoted content for them. And the brands pay them and then as a blogger, you're supposed to disclose as per the disclosure rules that you are promoting a brand or you are promoting a product. So that's one form of revenue. So a lot of lifestyle fashion bloggers, food bloggers tend to make revenue that way as well. The third way to make revenue and these two modes, that is the ad revenue and the brand collaborations are two things that I don't work on anymore. I don't really focus on them anymore because my focus is now more on products, coaching, affiliate income. So affiliate income is pretty interesting. So it's where I recommend a product or a service that somebody else has in my niche, which I think will benefit my audience. And when I sell that product, so I earn a commission. So for instance, if you have a course and if I recommended to my audience, I end up earning an affiliate percentage based on the number of courses that I sell. So I send clients your way and at the same time, I earn revenue. So for all of these things to work, though, the one most important thing is trust. So the way you build trust, because nobody's going to buy from you unless people know you, know the values that you stand for and the products that you recommend. So all of these have to be in alignment, which is why I tell people you can start a blog. But as far as earning income from your blog is concerned, I need you to give yourself anywhere between eight to 18 months in order to see sustainable and steady income. Otherwise, it's going to be very frustrating. So if you go into it, expecting that you'll start making money in three months time, it doesn't work that way. And I know this for a fact because a lot of people tell me that I'm going to quit my job, start a blog and start earning money. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Well, you have now been, you know, earning income, obviously, you've been in a blog for a while. I'm just curious, you know, I don't know how you want to answer this, but how does your income, you don't have to reveal any numbers, but how does it compare to other people in your location in terms of the income? I just want to give people a sense of it. Obviously, India, you know, sort of like average income is very different from the US, for example. So, so, but what is what is anything you want to share with us regarding that? So I'd say that in the last six months, the income has been, you know, kind of on the upward trend and it's, I would say it is a decent part-time income. And for people who do this full-time, you can still make a full-time income, but it's, you know, it's as demanding as a full-time job. So it's a question of knowing where to strike the balance and how you can make it work for you. So I enjoy my job, I enjoy blogging. So even if I weren't necessarily going to be making any money from it, just as a hypothetical situation, I'd still do it because I love to blog and I love to write. So I think that's very important. As a blogger, you need to keep that at the forefront. And remember that there will be months that you may not make enough affiliate income or you may not sell enough products or you may not, you know, sell out your coaching sessions. But if you're able to then fine tune the rhythm for the following month, make maybe learn from the mistakes and decide, OK, this didn't work. So let me see what will work for the next month. And then keep building on that. It is a decent, sustainable form of income. Full-time, I would say you would have to give yourself anywhere between three to five years before you can reach full-time income levels. But as a decent part-time income, it's doable within eight to ten months as well. So yeah, that's great. And, you know, you're a mother. So, you know, you have so many responsibilities besides this blogging thing that we're talking about. And I really, you know, honor mothers and fathers, too. I mean, parents, you know, it's to me, it's like a superhero because there's so much, so much involved in raising raising kids. So, of course, time management comes in a lot with with regards to this given that you have these different roles in your life. So any tips because, you know, you know, yeah, it's it's you can't like leave the home for 40 hours a week and work on this stuff. I mean, you have to take care of everything that happens at home. So, yeah, any tips you want to share with regards to how you manage your time? So I would say time blocking really helps me. So and I and I kind of got into the concept of time blocking when I read the article by Laura van der Kam, she's a productivity expert. And I got really interested in that and I started reading more and more about the concept of productivity and time management from, say, people like Chris Bailey, who's a written hyper focus and the productivity project, I think, and an atomic habits by James Clear and, of course, your own book, Joyful Productivity. So what I realized is one of the things that I tell people when they ask me how I manage my time or how I find time to do what I want to do. So I tell people I never find time, I make time. So if it is something that I really want to do, I will make time for it. And the only way we can make time for anything that we want to do is to mark it out in your calendar, because if we don't mark it in our calendar, we won't do it. You know, we would much rather be scrolling through Instagram or, you know, reading through all the various tweets on Twitter and not really get anything done. And I realized that different people have different expectations. I mean, kids of different ages, you may have ailing parents to take care of. So I understand all these parameters. But even if you were to work only for two hours a day on your blog, you would have to make that time and keep it sacred. If that means you wake up half an hour earlier than the rest of the family and maybe stay up half an hour later than the rest of the family. So you get that extra hour through the day in any case. And then you make time again to sit and, you know, work on things which will move the needle forward for your blog as well as your business. So a lot of people I've realized spend time chasing things or doing things which don't really help their blog or their business. So it's important to identify what works for you and then pursue that in a very relaxed manner. So I don't stress myself out if I don't take everything off my to-do list. There will be days when I don't do laundry for three days in a row. You know, so I kind of make it up on the weekend. So that's an example. But I try not to compromise on certain other things like, let's say, my daily workout, you know, it's good or my daily walk or my daily 10 or 15 minutes of meditation or my daily blogging. So even if I don't publish a blog post every single day, I'm still writing every single day. So I will be at the laptop writing something out. And I, in fact, recently did a post on Instagram about it as well where I talked about how you can you never really run out of content ideas. There's always this Ferris wheel of content idea and it's going to keep coming and it's going to keep generating it the more you exercise it. So I just tell people, find the time that works for you. Make the time work in your favor. So that would be the direct advice that I can give. Yeah. And, you know, what I'm wondering also is your environment has as kids, you know, in it and so and, you know, maybe other family members or other other interruptions. So how do you deal with interruptions? Time blocking, you know, it sounds it sounds good, which I do as well. But I'm I'm lucky. I mean, the only interruption occasionally is my cat wanting to go out the room or something like that. But but but I have way less interruptions, I think, than a lot of people watching this do. So how do you deal with interruptions while you're doing time blocking? So I always tell people two things. There's a difference between interruptions and distractions. Now, interruptions, you are not always in your, you know, within your purview. So you can't really predict when somebody is going to ring the doorbell or, you know, you're somebody is going to, you know, knock on the door saying, I'm hungry, you know, get me a sandwich and things like that. So that's an interruption. But as far as distractions are concerned, where these are things which you tend to, you know, let yourself sidetrack, get sidetracked. So if if a distraction comes into play, you don't really, that's really on you. But if it's an interruption, I let the interruption happen if it is urgent and if it is something which cannot wait. And usually that's that's rarely the case. And it's very rare. And as far as family members are concerned, especially my parents or my in-laws, so they know when I'm on a call or when I'm in a meeting and they know that there will be certain times of the day when I'm busy. But if they do have to reach me, there's another number. So they can always reach me on that number. And if they call me on that number, I know it's urgent, you know. So as far as interruptions are concerned, I would say if it is unavoidable, go ahead and take it. And I'm sure everybody will understand that. Let's say if I'm in a meeting with you and you know, I get an interruption, we'd still be able to make it work because especially when you work from home, these things happen, right? But as far as distractions are concerned, that's on you. So if you're going to be working on something, but you're also going to be checking email and checking social media and, you know, wondering about the latest thing on Netflix, then that really cannot be helped. So then it's a question of, you know, training yourself to start distinguishing between interruptions and distractions and making sure you don't get distracted, allowing for interruptions as long as they are unavoidable. But otherwise, I think it's important to set expectations and boundaries. It's really good. I love that distinction. And, you know, even in that case of, you know, the kid comes as I'm hungry. We can learn from that for next time and say, OK, before I go into an hour long or two hour work session, let me check. Let me check with him or her first and see, OK, hey, let me let me get you a sandwich and then I'm going to be unavailable for an hour kind of thing. But but yeah, I love I love what you say. So is that is is that something you can help clients with? First of all, you work with clients one to one, right? Yeah. And you also have a group you have courses. So is that something you can help clients with distinguishing directions, interruptions? Yeah, absolutely. In fact, one of the things that I talk about a lot on Instagram is productivity. So I usually run a series on productivity tips or building good habits. So I usually do a month long or a week long series. And it's also on my mind to probably build a course or a workshop or a webinar around it, because I know that a lot of people struggle with making time for themselves. And the reason this happens is because they are unable to distinguish between what is important and what is urgent, what is necessary. And, you know, so it's a question of, you know, trying to keep too many plates spinning at the same time. So I help them try to step back from that and understand what matters right now today, this week or this month and kind of focus on that. So definitely is something I can help. And I imagine you can also help clients be consistent with their content, which is one of the biggest requests that I get. It's like, I know the content is going to be beneficial for my for my business. Yes. And also for my own development, my own creativity, my own message getting out there, all so many benefits. So then consistency is one of the key issues. So you can help people with that. You can help clients with that, particularly. Yeah, getting getting consistent. And of course, if they watch you, you are the model of consistency. I mean, the time that I've known you, I'm constantly impressed. Like, yes, you know, this this person really walks her talk. So thank you. Thank you for being that kind of model in the world and inspiration. Any other any other offerings that you want to mention? So one on one one on one coaching easy to refer people to you because, well, you you walk the talk and you have the experience and the knowledge. But yeah, tell us any any other offerings we can look for. So I've recently launched this course. It's called the Seven Day Blog Reboot Program. So what I help people understand with this seven day program. So it's it's spaced out over seven days, as it mentions. It's all prerecorded videos, each video is between 15 to 25 minutes long and comes with a companion sheet where they have tasks that they have to do for each day. Each day's task will take anywhere between 15 to 20 minutes as well. So I want to teach people that blogging or content creation for that matter is not something which you have to make two hours in a day for. You can do it if you have 20 minutes in a day. You can do it if you have 15 minutes in a day, if you have 30 minutes in a day. So the idea is how do you create content on a consistent rhythm without a burning out and be without getting frustrated because a lot of people have these series of expectations when it comes to content. And then they start it, they put it out there, they don't get any response. And then they're back to square one of, you know, they go through that loop. So this seven day blog reboot program explains how you can get into this space of consistent content creation without burning out and falling in love with the idea of creation for its own sake. And I've had a few students sign up for it already and so far they're loving it. So yes. Yeah. If you can help people fall in love with creating for its own sake, it is a life changing shift because because then it becomes truly sustainable for them to keep doing it. So yeah, thank you for that offer. So thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to kind of any other tips or any encouragement you want to say before we complete this conversation? Well, I to everybody watching, I would say follow George because I have to I have to say this because I know I've said this to you personally and many, many, many other times as well. But George's approach to marketing, content, productivity and business in general is something I hope many bloggers and many marketers adopt for their own purposes. Because it's when I started adopting George's principles and implementing it in my own business, A, I saw my business grow. B, I started creating more offers aligned with my audience. And C, began to enjoy the work. I anyway enjoy the work I do, but began to enjoy it without the stress and without really worrying about the outcome. So thank you, George, for for everything that you do. Thank you. You know, it's yeah, it's like I put all these things out there and it's like the people who are ready to just take their thing to the next level can actually receive it and actually do something with it. And so that's what obviously you've done. You you you are, you know, you're a sponge. And because you're both you're both a teacher and a very good student. And I think that's really what the best teachers are. It's like they're they're also the best students. And so thank you for all that you do. Like I said, thank you for walking the talk of being creative and being a true blogger, social media presence. Of course, I'm going to have your links below to the places that people should follow you. You have quite an impressive following on Instagram, on Twitter, of course, your website. And yeah, I'll just have I'll just have all the links below. So people should definitely look at how you do things there. So thank you so much, Shailaja, for sharing your wisdom with us. And yeah, looking forward to seeing people get benefit from what you do. Thank you. Thank you, George. This is a wonderful opportunity, and I really want to thank you for this. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.