JEN BISHOP - THE INTERIORS ADDICT
ON BUILDING A PROFITABLE BUSINESS WORKING THREE DAYS A WEEK
Is it possible to build a profitable, fulfilling business, working 3 days a week? If you're asking Jen Bishop, former newspaper journalist and magazine editor, the answer is a resounding YES. She's built The Interiors Addict, Australia's largest interior design, styling and renovation blog, doing just that.
In this chat Jen shares how she’s designed her business around the lifestyle she wants and how she’s intentionally kept her operation lean, employing contractors to create the majority of her content while focusing her time on bringing in the cash.
You’ll learn:
Birthing her business after being made redundant
Being a commentator not an expert
Monetising her platform through sponsored content, partnerships and brand ambassadorship gigs
Getting through COVID despite losing most of her cash flow
Her preference for working with contractors over agencies
Why being kind is her guiding principle
We hope you enjoyed this conversation – for more podcast action follow us on Instagram @lady.brains, or sign up to our monthly newsletter at www.ladybrains.com
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“I’m from the UK, you can probably tell. I’d been in Australia for about five years and I was working as editor of a small business magazine. Then I became the associate publisher, and then the publisher, and I was there for five years nearly. It was a great job. Then unfortunately, quite surprisingly to me, I got made redundant because print was dead. I got made redundant while my permanent residency was still pending, which is a really bad thing because if you lose your job when you’re on it you have 30 days to find another job or leave the country. ”
“I can remember that in that first six months I was scrambling. There was no way that it suddenly became enough to be it a full-time income. I was just doing everything I could do to charge money, I was doing copywriting, I was doing social media audits for people. So, I just was a freelancer that had a blog. But then it changed in quite a big way. I started working with an agency who sold my ads for me. And that really changed everything. ”
“I think a lot of [my success] is to do with being a journalist and a storyteller by background. I am very confident to say that what I’m trained to do is to tell stories and to create content. That’s what I’ve proven myself as, that’s what I did for years before I became a blogger. So I think so much of making it a business has been to do with being a content creator by trade, and having the ability to make money from it. Obviously, really important part of making your business, you can create the content but you’ve got to know how to be able to monetize it, too. ”
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That is pretty much my guiding principle. I work hard, because you have to work hard to keep any small business going. And I’m nice...in business, just don’t be a dick. ”
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