Transcript
Welcome to the Bloggy Friends show.
What's up my bloggy friends?
Famous Ashley Grant here and happy new year.
Or if you're not listening to this at the beginning of the year,
well happy whatever day it is.
But for me, it is the new year.
It is January, 2024.
And I am thinking all about the things that I want to do to be better as a blogger this year.
And I guess you could say that's what a lot of people do, right?
At the beginning of the year, you start thinking of all these grandiose plans and all these goals you have for yourself.
And I know that some people believe that if you have goals, you should keep them to yourself and work on them in private,
and then announce them whenever they're legit or have already come true or come manifest.
I'm of the opposite camp.
I'm one of those people who believes tell everybody what you think you want to do,
because then who knows you might connect with people that can actually make those things happen.
And so that is why today I am just basically going to lay out my goals for 2024.
Now, some of them might sound insane to you.
Some of them might sound dumb, but whatever the case may be, maybe they'll inspire you.
Maybe they'll inspire you to think of your own goals for 2024.
But this is my way of putting it out into the universe.
This is what I want as a blogger in 2024.
So the very first thing that I want to do this year is I want to prioritize my health and my wellness.
I know that's so cheesy, but it's just a fact.
I experienced some pretty frustrating health scares in 2023.
I ended up in the hospital for the first time.
Well, not the first time, I have been to the ER before, but this is the first time I actually had to get an IV.
I've never had an IV before, and that sucked.
That was a mountain of suck.
But basically, it was kind of a wake up call of all the things that I need to fix with my health.
And though I have been trying to go to the gym more regularly,
it's definitely been shoved onto the front right burner of priorities of my life,
is that I know I need to prioritize health and wellness.
And I don't just mean from a physical perspective.
I also mean from a mental perspective.
I have said many times in the past that I'm a huge advocate of therapy and mental health and taking care of your mental health.
And I still will shout that from the rooftops.
If you think you need help, go get help.
But basically, I am committing to things like going to the gym more regularly.
I'm committing to meditating more.
I am committing to journaling more, what I call word vomit sessions.
Basically, what I do is I open up a Google Doc and I literally write down every single thing that's going on in my brain at that moment.
And when I do stuff like this, it really, really helps get it all out of my head.
And what's funny is some of the times that I do these word vomit sessions,
it really gives me amazing ideas for my blogs, my business, my whole life.
And so I'm going to double down on that this year, word vomits for the win,
and definitely going to be prioritizing health and wellness.
And I think that this will help me avoid the dreaded burnout because I've definitely had periods in my business.
You know, I started writing as a professional getting paid to write in 2007,
which is insane to me that 2007 is when I started this crazy journey of being a writer that gets paid to put content out there.
And then I started blogging in 2009 and I went, I guess you'd call it pro blogging in 2011,
whenever I started getting paid to actually write for websites, which, you know, sometimes I still pinch myself.
I can't believe that here I am in 2024 and I have basically made my living creating stuff, like making stuff, like making stuff up.
And I'm very grateful for that.
But basically where I was going with that is I have had periods of burnout in my life and in my career.
And I want to really work on doing more things that are going to take care of my health mentally, physically, emotionally, etc.
So that I don't get burned out this year. That is that is one of the goals.
And along with that is and I can't believe I'm saying this because I've done it before,
but I need to really like double down on it this year.
I want to scale my business.
And what I mean by scale my business is I want to do more things in my business that don't require me.
I've hired help in the past and I want to really work on that a lot more this year than I have in the past and try to give it a fair shake.
And what I mean by that is some of the people I've hired in the past, they have either plagiarized work or they used AI to submit their articles.
And don't get me wrong, I understand a lot of people are obsessed with using AI for writing content and things like that.
But when I tell someone I don't want them to use software and then they do it anyway and I find out about it, you get the idea.
I can't stand it. So needless to say, that is that is one of my goals.
I want to hire people again, but I want to find a way to do it that actually feels good and works well in my business,
because there are a lot of things that I want to do, but I want to make sure that I am not devoting so much of my time to work that I have no time for play.
Because that's another goal. Another goal is that I want to play a lot more in 2024.
I want to take time off. I want to go on more vacations. I want to see more of what there is to see.
And I have found that whenever I do take time off, it's definitely that important time where you can recharge your batteries and you come up with new ideas.
You come up with inspiration. You come up with all the things that you want to do.
And so I want to work on that as well.
Another goal of mine is that I want to finally I've talked about it for years.
I've been telling people they need to do it for years.
I finally want to start an email list.
And speaking of which, if you go to famousashleygrant.com backslash newsletter, you can sign up for the Blunky Friends newsletter.
And I would so very much appreciate it if you did that, because I really want to start connecting with the people that are basically listening to this show.
I know some of the people that listen to the show, but I don't really get to interact as much as I would like to.
I want to get to know you and find out where you are on your blogging journey.
What are you up to? What are the things that you hope to have your goals be? That kind of thing.
So please sign up for the newsletter. Like I said, it's famousashleygrant.com backslash newsletter.
And I'll just basically jump into your inbox once in a while and tell you what I'm up to.
And if you ever decide, hey, you don't want to be friends anymore, blogging friends anymore, that's totally fine.
You can unsubscribe at any time. I will be using ConvertKit to do that.
And I'm pretty excited about it because ConvertKit has a free way of doing it.
And this is not sponsored in any way, although I am going to be signing up as an affiliate for them,
because I really want to get into newsletters. That's basically the bottom line.
But speaking of affiliates, that's another goal of mine. I want to do more affiliate marketing.
And the reason for that is twofold. First of all, there's a lot of products that I use in my business,
and I get asked about them all the time. And I feel like, well, if I'm going to be sharing those things, shouldn't I get a kickback?
And I know that might sound selfish to some, but the reality is that whenever you are creating content,
it takes a lot of time and energy. And if you're listening to this,
I believe that you should be getting paid for every referral that you make as well.
So if you're not doing affiliate marketing, you should start.
And one of the best videos that I have found that teaches people about affiliate marketing is Pat Flynn's video on YouTube about affiliate marketing.
And so I will leave that in the show notes. But I really want to get more into affiliate marketing.
I want to play with it a lot more. Like I am an affiliate for several companies that I've never talked about.
And that's crazy to me. I need to actually start telling people like, hey, here's my link. Go get the thing if you want the thing.
So that's another goal of mine. So I've been talking nonstop for a few minutes here.
So let me just take a quick break to get a drink of water and I will be right back. Welcome back, my bloggy friends.
I just want to say real quickly that I am so appreciative that you are taking the time to listen to this episode.
I appreciate every single one of you, whoever chimes in and tells me what you thought about an episode or anything like that.
And that's all the more reason that I really want to start this newsletter, because I want to hear more from you guys about what you think and what you want to hear more of.
So back to the goals. All right. So another goal that I have for 2024 is that I want this to be the very first year that I make six figures as a blogger.
It feels kind of crazy to me to say that goal out loud, that that large number, because I have been so fortunate to be making, you know,
full time income as a blogger for several years now. But the reality is there are a lot of goals that are financial in my near future.
Like I want to purchase all of the things that I need to make a proper video studio, because that's another goal of mine is that I want to start a YouTube channel, a proper YouTube channel.
I've dabbled in it a little bit, but I want to like get serious about it. And so I want to purchase all the materials needed to create a video studio.
I want a proper podcasting studio because, you know, I'm sitting here at my desk right behind my kitchen and that's how I'm recording this.
And I would really love to have a dedicated space for audio and video. And so that's one of the reasons I want to earn six figures this year.
I want to start, I want to start a retirement account for myself.
Like I'm embarrassed to say that I do not have a retirement account at this time, but I want one.
And so that's another goal of mine is that I want to start putting investing funds into some sort of an account that I can retire with.
Because though I intend to be creating content until my very last breath, I want to at least have the ability to take time off whenever I choose to.
And as we get older, I know that I'm going to want to take more time off and I'm going to want to go on more vacations and things like that.
And I feel like there'd be a lot less pressure if I have a retirement account.
So probably to some of you is like, well, duh, of course you want a retirement account.
But that's a goal of mine is that I finally want to create an actual account that I can put funds into regularly.
So that's that's one of the big reasons that I want to finally earn six figures.
And my goals to make that happen is the affiliate marketing.
I want to scale up my business. I want to bring on, you know, more clients.
I guess you'd say just diversify my income to make more money.
I'm hoping that if I do start the YouTube channel, I can turn it into a monetization channel for myself.
I'd like to get some sponsors on this podcast. If anybody wants to sponsor this podcast, hit me up.
And speaking of, if you would like to sponsor either this podcast or if you want to sponsor my website, FamousAshleyGrant.com,
hit me up at FamousAshleyGrant.com backslash sponsorships.
And I would love to chat with you. But back to the show.
Another one of my goals for 2024 is that I want to increase my productivity.
And I know what you're probably thinking. Didn't you just say you want to take some time off?
Yes. But what I mean by increase my productivity is I want to have better systems and processes.
I spoke with Nadja Williamson recently about systems and processes, and I'll leave that episode linked in the show notes.
But basically, I want to start creating systems and processes that make everything that I do a lot easier.
I want to have templates for the blog posts that I'm going to load or write.
I want to have, you know, different things in place that are going to make all of the things in my job easier.
I want to finally create a better workflow for creating and promoting and even analyzing my content.
Another big goal I have in 2024 is to increase the traffic on my FamousAshleyGrant.com website.
I want to optimize some of my old posts. I want to finally start social media marketing a lot more for the posts that I have written.
I really want to focus on quality over quantity.
But I want to go back to all those posts that I have already written and add better value to them,
because I know that some of them are kind of stagnant. They have old quotes. They have old, you know, statistics and things like that.
So I really want to go back and play with them and make them better.
Moving right along, another goal that I have is that I really want to launch a food blog.
I have been talking to a lot of people in my private circle, I guess you'd say, and I actually have mentioned it to several people, I guess, in my public circle,
that I want to start a food blog. I want to start a proper food website.
I have a vision in my head about how I want to create this.
My husband and I have chosen the perfect name for it. We're not telling anybody what it is until it finally goes live.
But I want to create that food blog. I want to go to food conferences and food blogging conferences,
like Tastemaker Conference is coming up, and I'm so bummed that I don't think I'm going to get to go in 2024 unless some sort of a miracle happens.
But at this particular point, it does not look like it's in my cards for 2024.
But needless to say, the point is I want to launch this website and turn it into what I think it can be,
talk all about my passions in regard to food. And I have all these visions in mind of what I want to do with it.
And I can't wait to play with it and basically take all the things that I'm telling all my ghost writing clients and make them real,
make them reality on this website. And it's not the only website I want to launch.
A couple of my other goals is I want to launch a proper website for my pampered palm cheese.
If you're not following them on Instagram, it's instagram.com backslash pampered palm cheese.
They're also pampered palm cheese on Twitter. Oh, I'm sorry. RIP Twitter on X on X.com and on Facebook.
OK, so if you're not following the pampered palm cheese, you can find them on TikTok on X.
You can find them on Facebook and on Instagram. And I'd love it if you follow my little pups,
my little pampered palm cheese, Bayliss and Kahlil. And I want to launch a proper blog and website for them.
I think it'd be so fun to also launch a podcast for them, which I jokingly have been calling the podcast as in P-A-W, not P-O-D.
I think it'd be fun to launch a podcast all about them. So that's another goal of mine is that I want to really play with pet blogging.
I think that'd be so fun to just like really lean into all the fun things.
Like we got a spa dog box to try out and spa dog was so much fun. Like to play with that box was just hilarious.
It's gorgeous. I can't wait to share the video. I can't believe I haven't yet.
I'm so embarrassed that it's taken me this long to even talk about them.
But I will leave a link to spa dog in the show notes as well because it's the cutest, most ridiculous and over the top thing you could get for your pets.
It's like a luxury box. It's a subscription box service similar to like the bark box, only a higher scale.
It came in this rose gold box. It was absolutely gorgeous and so like I said, over the top, it was adorable.
And so I will be sharing a little bit about that once I do launch the Pampered Palm Cheese website.
But so that's another goal of mine. So I have the food blog I want to launch and I have the official Pampered Palm Cheese website that I want to launch.
And another website I want to launch is well, you know what, I'm going to just keep that under wraps.
But that's another goal of mine is that there's another website that I'm really dying to launch and I'm excited about it.
We're already working on it. I'm not going to disclose what that is.
But basically there's another one that is in my mind and I have so many other websites I want to launch eventually and I know I can't launch them all at once.
But so my goals for website launches for this year is I want to relaunch famus-lagrant.com.
I want to officially launch pamperedpalmcheese.com.
And I want to officially launch the food blog that I will not be sharing the name of until it's officially live.
So I'm excited about those goals and back to some other goals.
I have a lot of goals. Can you tell I have a lot of goals? I have a lot of goals.
OK, so along with the systems and processes, I want to create an actual content upgrade schedule for refreshing my old posts.
And I need to not only create a schedule for that, I want to create a proper editorial calendar for all of my websites,
all of my social media so that I don't open Instagram or Facebook or whatever thing I'm opening and go,
what in the world am I going to post today? Because that's a big problem is, you know, you have all these ideas.
But then whenever you actually go to do something, what do you do? You get lost. You don't know what you should do next.
And so that's the reason that I really want to create a proper schedule so that every given day I have ideas in the hopper and I know what I'm going to be posting next.
OK, so I've already told you about my goals for I want to make more money and I want to create new income strings from affiliate marketing and display ads and sponsorships and all that good stuff.
Well, other stuff that I want to work on is I want to improve my page speed because we always need to be thinking about how can a user who comes to your website have a better experience?
So I know I need to upgrade my page speed. And what I mean by that is I need to go through and take all of those images that are way too big and start actually properly converting them the way that they need to be done.
So I need to go through that. I need to delete all of the things that are bogging it down effectively and make it a better website.
And I want to make it a better website. That's the best way I can put it.
Another goal I have is that I would love to host some sort of a workshop where I can teach people how to do what I do, basically, because I did create a course many moons ago.
And, you know, I just feel like there's so much more I could have done with it. I didn't give it my all.
And I kind of regret that because I still get questions all the time about how do you become a ghost blogger? How do you make that your full time job?
How is it that you get to work from home and all that stuff?
So I would love to kind of go back and redo that and give it the proper oomph that it deserves, the proper knowledge that it deserves.
I want to kind of go back and I want to go back and redo that course to make it updated, make it fresh, talk about the truth about using chat GPT, how to use AI properly to blog and things like that.
And I did write an article on how to properly use AI for blogging, and I will link that in the show notes.
I wrote that for GoDaddy and I'm so excited that I still get to work for GoDaddy.
So another thing I would love to do is I want to help mentor new bloggers and kind of give back to the community.
That's that's another goal of mine, because I did get the opportunity a couple of years ago.
I got to speak at a women's community center and teach people how to do what I do.
And though I didn't really get a chance to dive as deep into the topic as I would like to,
I really felt good about the fact that I was telling people, you know, a revenue stream of something that they could do to work from home,
because the women that were in that class, they they were looking for a different lifestyle.
They wanted a career that they could do from home.
And it felt so good to be able to tell people how they could do what I do and do it from home.
And so that's something I would love to do more of.
I would love to tell more people how to do what I do, because I do think it's such a neat it's a neat career.
And it's so, so easy to get started if you can string a couple sentences together.
You know what I mean? So I really would love to do more of that.
Another goal of mine that feels a little bit out of left field, but that I have talked to some people about,
and some people do know that I want to do this is I want to launch a membership site of content, readymade content,
PLR content, which is known as private private label rights.
I want to create a way that that has just like a pool of content that multiple people can purchase.
And I want to teach them how they can use it and make it their own.
Because one of the big things that I hear a lot in my business is that the reason that people don't hire me is they can't afford me at the rates that I charge.
And so they're looking for ways that they can purchase content that is a little bit cheaper.
And so the cool thing about PLR is that you can purchase a lot of content that's being sold to multiple people and use it for your website.
You can use it for your newsletter. You can use it for all kinds of different things.
And I've really been like learning a lot more about PLR.
And I just think it'd be so fun to create some sort of a membership site created all around one type of one type of content that people can use.
And I have the idea in my head.
I know exactly what kind of content I want to create and who I want to sell it to.
So I think it'd be fun to create this membership site not only as a way to scale the business,
but also to make it a little bit easier for some of the people who can't hire a professional writer to still get the content that they need for the things that they need.
Another goal that I have is that I want to take this podcast and make it better.
I have been pretty inconsistent.
I haven't released as many episodes as I would like to.
There's a lot more I want to do with this podcast.
I want it to be a lot more educational, a lot more informative, a lot more inspirational.
And so if there's something you want to hear about on this podcast, I would love it if you would share it with me.
On when you go to famousashleygrant.com backslash goals in that form, there will also be a a little note to ask you, what do you want to hear about?
What do you want to hear on this on this podcast?
I am planning on doing a lot more solo episodes where I basically just get on the mic and spit some knowledge at you.
Because though I love interviewing guests, I have absolutely adored all the people that I have brought on.
I feel like there's so much more that I haven't said that I haven't shared.
And I really want to kind of lean in and tell you more of my truth, more of the things I know that are working.
Like I want to I want to play and I want to experiment and then I want to tell you what's working and what's not.
What I what I did that failed or, you know, failing in public.
I want to basically let you guys see the behind the scenes of what's happening.
And so as I release new things, I want to tell you about them.
I want you to be the first to hear about them and let me know what your thoughts are.
But please be nice. I just I want this to really be a community of bloggy friends.
Like that's the whole reason I named this the bloggy friend show is I wanted it to be like, hey, I'm a blogger.
I want to teach you how to do what I'm doing.
And if you're a blogger, I want you to teach me what you're doing.
Like, let's let's have a conversation.
Let's figure out how how can we make more money and make more of an impact on the world while still creating amazing content that helps people.
That's the whole goal. Right. Speaking of goals.
That's another big goal is basically just to to put out more amazing content and and give our knowledge to the world, man.
Like, that's that's what I want to do. I want to create because at the end of the day, that is what I am, is I am a content creator and I want to create more for you guys.
OK, so that was a lot. And I know that was a lot.
But I'm so excited to share all these goals with you guys.
And I'm sure there's more that I'm not even thinking of.
But basically, I just I want this to be a better year.
I want this to be a year filled with positivity and I want it to be a year filled with creative possibilities.
And so I'm so thrilled that you heard my goals and I'd love to know what are your goals.
So I'm so glad I got to share my goals with you.
So do me a favor, go to famousashleygrant.com backslash goals and share your goals with me.
There's going to be a form there and you can fill out the information about what your goals are.
And I just would love to hear it. You don't even have to put your name on it if you don't want to.
But I just kind of want to know what other people are thinking about, what they want for 2024,
what they're hoping to see in the blogging world.
And I'm just so excited I could be here with you guys today.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
And until next time, may your page views be high and your bounce rate below.