A Never Quit Attitude with Stephanie Melchione

Food blogging can be a lonely business, that means having a Never Quit Attitude is so important! But look, it can feel like everyone has the skills to make it happen except you! Add to the mix a few rejections from places like Food Gawker and brands, and you’ve got a real recipe for disaster. Stephanie Melchione with the site The Cozy Cook talks about the rejections she experienced early on in her food blogging career, and how she persevered, dug in her heels and learned new skills, and ultimately quit her job to pursue food blogging full-time!

About Stephanie Melchione

Stephanie’s background is as a business analyst. As a result, she lives by her spreadsheets! However, she had her eye on starting a food blog thanks to her interest in cooking. Once she started her site The Cozy Cook, she was ready to get started!

Stephanie has a “jump in” approach to new things and she did the same with her food blog. She learned along the way that there were some aspects of food blogging that were really, really hard. However, Stephanie had a never quit attitude too and that served her well because she worked hard to gain the skills she needed to be successful. It wasn’t long before she resigned from her business analyst job and is now a full-time food blogger!

Having a Never Quit Attitude

We’ve all experienced it — a rejection from Food Gawker. Stephanie said she received nearly 600 No’s for every Yes. And when her photos got rejected from Food Gawker, she felt the familiar pangs of frustration. But then she dug in her heels and got herself a DSLR and learned about food photography. That’s when things really began clicking for her as a food blogger.

Setting Goals

Before quitting her full-time job, Stephanie created goals so that she could prove to her family her food blog was a success. Of course, she created spreadsheets to track her goals and targeted a daily dollar amount (how much she was making at her full-time job + benefits).

That said, once she reached the targeted dollar amount, she hesitated to quit her job, continuing with both for awhile before finally taking the leap!

Experimental Mindset

When it comes to food blogging, you can wait to receive the “recipe” from others on how to do everything, or you can get out there and do things for yourself. Stephanie took the DIY method and began experimenting with different images on Pinterest. As a result, she found a process that really resonates with her audience.

Shownotes

Here are the important references mentioned in today’s episode on Having a Never Quit Attitude with Stephanie Melchione:

• Connect with Stephanie on her site, The Cozy Cook
• Say thanks to our guest today with a shout-out on: Instagram
• Stephanie mentions Nagi’s book called The Food Photography Book helped improve her food photography styling and skills
• There are lots of great SEO resources Stephanie used to improve her site, including Casey Markee who was on this podcast too
• In addition, resources such as Hashtag Jeff were helpful to Stephanie as well
• Stephanie uses Nicole Barker’s VA Services to run her Pinterest account and she loves it!
• Related Episode: Matt Molen talks about an Email Growth Mindset on a recent episode
• Connect with Chopped Academy Online:  Instagram  | Twitter
• Connect with Marly: Namely Marly |  Instagram  | Twitter
• Today’s post production, music, graphic art & sound design by Shawn Beelman
• Subscribe below to be the first to hear about future Chopped Podcast episodes and get some awesome tips on food blogging. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page. You’ll be glad you did!

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