Just Start

Hey cuties! In todays blog post I’m going to tackle a question I get at least once a week, I got asked it three times yesterday so I thought I would write out the answer for you here!

“How did you get started”

I’ll start by saying I don’t really love broad and vague questions like this, I’m much more apt to be able to answer specific ones. If you have questions for a blogger you want answered, the more specific the better. So today I’ll answer this question because it is one I get so often, but I’m not sure the answer will be able to apply to as many as I would like because it is so broad. Nevertheless, I do hope it helps or is atlas entertaining, so here we go 🙂

So .. “How did you get started”
Before we get to the how I started my blog, let’s focus on the why. I had graduated with my MBA and moved to New York city with the hopes of landing a job in corporate fashion. I was 21 but my resume made me look 30 with interests in math and finance rather than fashion and styling. I couldn’t get hired at all so thats when I really started working on my blog. I had a Pinterest account, polyvore account (RIP) and a blog before where I posted photos from the fun themed dinner parties I hosted in college, but none we’re really “serious” if you will. When I first moved here and was miserable in looking for a job while working retail, Color Me Courtney served two roles: a creative outlet and a resume booster. Eventually, with its help I maintained my sanity and creativity while eventually landing a role in corporate fashion … that I ultimately hated.

So I had finally done it, after about a year of working on my blog and working retail jobs on the side I landed what I thought was my dream job … and I was miserable. My co-workers weren’t the kindest. Condescending thing like “oh you’re wearing that nail polish color, you’re so brave” were said on the regular, and it was just a passive aggressive mean girl culture that I didn’t fit in with. I also didn’t like my actual job aside from the culture and found I wasn’t that great at all, all things that made going to work really hard. I would come home deflated and broken everyday, pouring all of that into my blog.

Working hard on Color Me Courtney on nights and weekends was what really kept me afloat. At the time, instagram was just starting to have a major moment and I thought I could easily learn how to master that form of social media and use it to help grow my blog and brand. I read everything I could about instagram and developed a method that really worked for me, I am actually currently using it on my other new disney page as well on a smaller scale (my new page is @colormemagic_ if you’re interested.). If you want a detailed post explaining that, let me know. Anyways, I would spent 3-5 hours a day working on growing my instagram after work and another 2-3 hours before work working on my actual blog. I’m not totally sure, but I think I grew it to 50K in the first year and then 150K the following. If I do a detailed instagram post for you guys in the future I’ll get those exact figures, promise.

I dont really have a reason why I focused on instagram at first, I saw people starting to get sponsored collaborations there and only there and knew I was behind on blog traffic when compared to the big bloggers. I thought I could use instagram to level the playing field and knew brands were looking for collaborations there and only there at the time. I also liked that I could do it on my phone, and work on it anywhere. I would spend 10 min of my lunch break at work eating and the remainder working on instagram. I would work on my commute or on any free moment. It was just easier I guess but there was also some serious strategy to it.

The first year was purely me growing, I didn’t pitch myself to brands and turned down almost all of the sponsorship offers I got. I just didn’t feel right taking any money until I had built something really strong. If you’re looking build a blog now from scratch, I wouldn’t take a dime until you have built a strong body of work atlas 6 months of fantastic content that can stand alone. The reason brands pay bloggers is because they have an audience, unique point of view, a voice and a talent for content creation. Until you can prove you’ve mastered those four things, I don’t think you can add value to a brand in a way that requires payment – thats just my opinion. That doesn’t mean you cant make money that first year, you should just do so in other ways such as affiliate links. Building up your commission on affiliate links will also provide you with metrics that you can use to justify sponsorship rates in the future, so overall its a good place to start.

The second year was focused on turning the brand I built into a business, then I would entertain sponsorship offers and actively pitch. At the time I would say 80% of my sponsorship offers are ones I initiated. I would seek out the brand I wanted to work with, draft a pitch deck, pitch it to them and negotiate the deal on my own. I didn’t know how or what I was doing exactly, I just made it up as I went, making adjustments as necessary based on my conversations with brands. After each deal was completed, I would ask for feedback or ways to grow and improve in future dealings, then apply those on the next pitch. Towards the end, I was making more only blog than my full-time job and ultimately decided to leave it to pursue Color Me Courtney full time. It wasn’t easy, my days started around 5 or 6 am editing and publishing CMC content before heading to work, I would still spend my lunch hour working on social and then spend 7-1AM every evening attending events, answering emails, working on pitch decks and planning future content. On the weekends I would shoot all of my content and get organized for the week to come. It was one of the hardest years of my life, but also the most fun. I loved both jobs and thats why I was able to give them each so much. If you don’t find yourself wanting to put in an unnatural amount of time into your blog, then I’m not sure its the job for you. Even now I average 80 hour work weeks and rarely get a day off, I wouldn’t change it or ever complain, but its important to know that this isn’t a normal 9-5.

Aside from being vague, I also don’t like this question of how do you get started because of what it means. If you’re interested in starting a blog and your first instinct is to ask someone else how to do it, it might not be for you. Blogging is like the Wild Wild West, even more so when I started. No one really knows what they are doing and there is no right or wrong way to do it – you just start! Now Most of it is trial and error, guess and check. If it is something you’re passionate and want to do, just do it. Don’t waste time asking others how to get started because what worked for me years ago won’t work for you, the industry changes everyday and you have to be able to change with it. So instead of asking, just try something, anything and if it doesn’t work, learn from it and try something else.

So to answer the questions “How did you get started” quite plainly, I just did. And if I can, you can too. Promise!

Although this post applies to blogging its important to note that it can be applied to almost anything, if there is something you want to do don’t waste any time trying to figure out how and just find a way to start. Life is too short and precious for anything else. Don’t wait, don’t waste it, just do!