Hey, Hey, being a fam.

Welcome to Brown Ambition.

This wasn't the show that I envisioned for this week.

In fact, it's not at all the show that I envisioned for this week.

But it's so much better.

Everything in life that's meant to be will be.

And I am so excited to be joined at the Brown Table today with my girl, Denise Torres.

Be a fam.

I know y'all are not new to this.

You are true to this, you know.

Denise is the host of the Jokaida Dinato podcast.

She's also the powerhouse author of the personal finance book Financially Lit, which if you're watching on YouTube, I don't know.

Janie has everything.

Everything she's done is advertised right now.

We have awards, we have books, the accolades.

I love it.

I am in.

I'm honestly inspired to get my own background together.

But honestly, Janiese is a new mama, so she knows.

I am just happy to have my own damn space right now.

I've been fighting for some I've been fighting for a door in this house for way too long.

And be a famo.

If you're hearing Jenese's name for the first time, where have you been I'm not sure, but let me just give you a little bit of background.

Jenny's, like I said, as the creator of the award winning Yo Kioto Dineto podcast, where she's helped thousands of listeners transform their money mindset and build wealth, especially in the Latina and multicultural communities.

Also Happy a Sparic heritage month.

So Happy that.

Financially Lit is a modern guide for leveling up your finances and breaking generational barriers.

And it's going to be released an Espanol.

Is that right?

Yes, it is available in Espanol as of twenty twenty five, and it's called jo kio din netto easy to find.

Oh that's so excited.

Oh that's so exciting.

Okay.

So Genese's journey has been an incredible one.

She was an engineer making six figures.

She got burnt out, she left that life, became a full time entrepreneur, founded the six figure blog Delish Delights, and now also helps you turn your side hustles into six figure businesses.

She's passionate about making financial independence accessible to everyone.

And I'm always happy to have you here, Janie.

It's really nice to see you again.

Man.

I'm so excited to be here.

You know, I called you man that came out of nowhere.

A very millennial thing to know is that bro dude, my five year old broh, don't understand.

I don't even know what they're going to be saying by the time my daughter is age to be having these weird conversations because I don't even understand half of what's on TikTok at this point.

Well, right now, she's just a little squishy squish.

How's it been.

It's been amazing, And I feel like motherhood is one of these experiences in life where it's very much like the Men in Black, like erase your brain, blank slate, don't remember my life before it.

It is good for that, right, I just literally can't imagine my life before.

I don't even remember what it was like.

But it has been an incredible journey, and yeah, I mean that's what we're doing all this for, right.

Yeah, well, I mean yeah, I mean a little bit different.

I launched my I had a baby first, and then I became well then I went sort of like left corporate, and sometimes I'm like, damn, these beginning building years, I you know, would have been nice to just be able to put my whole brain twenty four to seven energy into it.

It's very different once you have kids, like I genuinely I don't have all the same hours in the day as someone without kids, is how I feel.

Have you felt a shift and like your approach to your business before and after?

Yeah, I feel like a switch was flipped in my brain very quickly, and it was much easier to say no to things that felt like they were going to deplete me, that felt like they weren't worth my time, as far as like leaving my daughter right as somebody who does speaking engagements and like I have to be on the road.

Sometimes I'm much more discerning about where my time goes and where my energy goes because I feel like it's just so much more valuable now that I have a little mini at home that needs mom.

So I definitely think motherhood has made me way more intentional with my time, and it is also forced me to have way stronger boundaries than I ever had before.

Okay, I think like it's very easy for me to like put my needs aside, but I don't compromise at all when it comes to making sure that like she has the environment she needs, she has the support she needs all that stuff.

Mama Bear is definitely in full activation mode.

Okay, we're talking like personal boundaries with people, family.

All of it.

You know.

I think as an eldest daughter Latina household, we're very much like people pleasers oftentimes.

We are very much like parentified daughters oftentimes.

And I speak to a lot of eldest daughters who tell me the same thing that when they became moms, they became much more fierce advocates for themselves in ways that maybe they weren't doing in the past, because now there's just a shift in your priorities and just like what you're willing to allow and all this stuff.

So I definitely think I've been going through that transformation as well.

That's such a beautiful thing to witness.

I have a sister in law who's going through a very similar journey.

We share a mother in law, so we both know this druggle.

But the first thing that happens when you move from people pleasing to setting those boundaries and really staying true to you know, what you're willing to deal with and what you're not and protecting protecting yourself and your daughter in this case, is you start to you know, piss people off.

So it's just a natural byproduct.

You tell people now they can't cross it, and if they've crossed it before, they get a little frustrated by it.

So how's that been?

Yeah, you know, I used to get really in my feelings when people were pissed off at me, and now I'm just kind of like, well, I don't even have the energy to entertain your emotions.

Like we're all adults at this point, and I'm responsible for my household, for my emotions, and really nobody else is, right, So, uh, it's it's just been much easier for me to kind of stand on firm ground and know that, like every decision that I make is rooted in prioritizing what is important to me, my household, my family, and like the people that get it get it, and the ones that don't, I'm really not trying to worry about convincing them at this point.

You know.

It's I think there's something about motherhood that just makes you realize how important your time and energy is.

It's a freaking currency, and I'm just not going to waste it on anything that is not worth my life.

You know.

Yeah, the one thing that I realized, you know, and I know I said earlier, like as far as entrepreneurship and like running a business for me, it has been so challenging because like trying to do so much and being in that really like deep building phase.

I have struggled to find enough hours in the day to do everything that I want to do business wise.

Uh.

But at the same time, I have no idea how I could have that nine to five like corporate lifestyle and have, you know, the family that I have and be there the way that I want to show up as a mom.

And I'm just so grateful that even though it's not you know, give myself credit, Like even though it's not perfect, and like it's maybe not what I all these different milestones aren't reached and we all have goals we want to strive for.

But I am like the lifestyle ten out of ten to be there to get my son off the bus, you know, and at the same time be able to yeah, contribute financially.

It's just something that I can't envision.

How was this ever going to work.

I don't know what it's like in Florida, but it's hard of hell up here.

I have that exact same thought all the time.

And I think one of the reasons why I had such a mental block around motherhood for the longest time was because I did not see how a corporate career, especially in my field as an engineer like I was in a very male dominated space, so there wasn't even like the desire to accommodate women.

Oftentimes it was kind of just like, well you figure it out, right, and there was I think there was a very valid reason why there oftentimes I was the only woman in the room because they just didn't want to quote unquote entertain our issues, right, So it just did not feel compatible for me.

And it really wasn't until I became a full time entrepreneur that my eyes even began to be open to like the possibility of fitting motherhood into my life.

And I think it sucks, you know, because how often are people making this life altering decision or the choice not to do it just because of the finances or the lack of flexibility in their career.

I really think, you know, our corporate environment are so behind the times when you talk to folks from other countries around maternity leave and flexible work, and just like government subsidies to help with childcare, Like America is so pro birth, but we are so anti family and it's just very frustrating.

And I think that's one of the reasons why it's like, you know, the math has never mathed here in this country.

But god do we love telling people go have some okay, But do we give a damn about these babies once they're on planet Earth?

Absolutely not okay, And it's frustrating as hell.

And I think that's one of my main drivers, especially now in this new phase as as an entrepreneur that focuses on people diversifying their income and just really pursuing financial freedom.

It's more than just about the money.

It really is about taking back your time and like creating space in your life that allows you to focus on the things that matter, and for.

Most of us, that is our families.

Right.

I just don't think that it's fair that we have to often choose, you know, how much time we get to spend with our kids just to get a freaking paycheck.

There's there's other options out there, and I want people to know that.

I couldn't agree more Now as having has post motherhood, have you shifted like I don't?

I have I know, I think we're similar.

We have like I've had Mandy Moneymaker's course, we have the podcast, I'm working on my book.

I'm trying to get that baby out into the world.

It's coming, It's in breach.

I might need a see section to get it out of me.

What you gotta do?

Lord, it's so hard, but so many different things going on, and I and certain and what I've liked is that I can sort of like push and pull the different levers depending on you know, what's happening with me.

But so pre having your daughter and then post have you been shifting, like what parts of the business you're really focusing on and can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah?

Absolutely.

I think one of the main things that I used to be guilty of before was just saying yes to everything, And now it's just like, is the paycheck giving If it's not, like, I'm not even gonna entertain conversations, right.

And Also, I think I did a lot of back end work even in preparation for like my book launch a couple of years ago, that has helped me continue the momentum in my business in a way that I haven't had to make compromises around like income and just like my capacity, because a lot of what I think stalls entrepreneurs as they're in that build phase is like not building processes and not building multiple revenue streams that you can kind of turn.

On and off just based on what you have going on.

So for me, I think I've always been really good at assessing pretty much like on a quarterly basis, like what's my capacity and what are we going to try to accomplish?

And then I mean, I don't want to diminish the fact that I do have help, right, So I have a part time nanny who comes to my home three days a week for four hours a day and just gives me space, right, so like podcast recording and being able to work out or like go get.

My nails done.

It's it's nice to have some time to go and be human because being in caretaker mode twenty five eight is going to drain anybody, and especially someone who is running a whole ass business and then trying to manage a whole family.

It's a lot.

So I want to like take the stigma too out of getting support because sometimes you just don't have your family around, or maybe you don't want your family around right who you think would be default caretakers.

And it is absolutely one hundred percent okay to buy your support system, especially if that's going to be the difference between you accomplishing what you need for your family and for your business versus just being burnt out and not really doing anything productive.

H Yeah, big one.

I mean, if there's a stigma around it, we need to blow it up, Like are we done with this yet?

Can we just normalize it?

Heavy on the you know, if you don't have family around too, because I'm definitely between the pandemic and being thousands of miles from my immediate family, you know, here in New York.

Yeah, I don't recommend trying to do the whole mommy thing by yourself.

I was forced to the first time, and by the time number two came, my remy roo he just turned to in May and I was like, Okay, cool, we're getting, you know, at least some support.

I don't do well.

I don't know if this is you, but I really don't do well being just mom all day.

I lose my mind very quickly.

Absolutely hate it.

I hate it more.

Women need to be honest about that, right, because I think saying it out loud.

It's like you're afraid to be judged and like thought of as like, oh my god, you must not love your child or you must not be a good mom.

And it's like, no, y'all.

If anybody who's a caretaker full time, like even for adults, right, there's a lot of people who have to take care of elders who are sickly, who are going through all kinds of medical conditions, and it is just as fucking taxing, if not more.

Okay, And I think there is like this martyrdom syndrome that a lot of us get instilled with, especially as women and especially as women of color.

We are taught from a very young age that our main role is to serve our families.

And so when you try to push back against that and just make some space for you to actually pour into yourself, there's a lot of inner guilt that many people feel.

And there's a lot of like fear around the perception, like the stigma of saying I need help, I can't do this alone.

And I saw my own mom and other women in my family just like hang their hat on the depleted, exhausted, exhausted mom as if like they're giving an award.

Out for this stuff.

I'm just not interested in any of that.

You know, I am very much a cycle breaker in my family in many different ways.

And this is also what I intend to teach my daughter too, that like you cannot pour from an empty cup.

Nobody is handing out awards for most exhausted women of the year.

You know, I'm not interested in that prize.

And I think more of us just need to keep it real, like you have full permission to have multifaceted identity outside of mom, and sometimes you just need a break from that shit.

You can love your kids and still need a break from them.

Yeah, name, and it only gets tougher, I think, honestly, I look back on those newborn because baby girls.

She's not even a year yet.

Right now, she's around nine months right now.

Yeah, oh girl, you're just in that like sunshine and yeah, every baby.

Yeah, just it's great.

All her shit's not everywhere yet, she's not taking up rooms and room like I'm hurting it all in.

I feel like I'm in one of those like Game of Throne shows where the throne is our living room and I am constantly fighting for my tear I'm like, how is it a playroom again?

I thought we were done with the playroom and I'll clean it all out and clear it out, and then they'll just move it piece by piece and baby baby toy and kid furniture and hot wheel structure.

My god, it just changes it.

It will at ebbs and flows, and then that's what they're real.

I think the challenges is like how do you maintain yourself and.

Your true and also like for those who are in partnered relationships, I think it's also very important to communicate your needs right.

Like I think there's a lot of stigma too around just like you know, having dad like pull his own weight, as if like he's not an equal parent, Like my husband is a stay at home dad.

And god, you should see the look that I got from family when people were like, what do you mean he's gonna stay home?

I'm like, nobody asked that of moms, Like stay at home mom is such a normal thing.

But like god forbid, we flip the script, you know, and like mom's the bread winner.

There's just still so much progress we need to make us a society, and like what is quote unquote acceptable, Like anything's acceptable if it works in your frickin' house, point blank period.

And I think we need to do a lot less explaining to people about the decisions that we make that work for our families.

Hey, ba, fam we got to take a quick break, pay some bills, and we'll be right back.

Oh hell yeah yeah.

I mean, thanks for sharing that.

I think it's great to have different examples of different family dynamics and what has worked not and like just no judgment, Like I can write you that story and feel I'm like creep.

I mean, it's an example.

That's it's nice to have a case study for how a modern family is making it work, especially a modern family with a woman, you know, with a with multiple you know, online businesses going and makes perfect freaking sense to me.

I wish my husband would just like leave his a little government job and stay home.

But he's like, but I carry the insurance.

I'm like, we can get that.

I know.

Oh, and it's great, and you know, it seems like y'all have such a great partnership.

Okay, but I want to like present day, you know, when it comes to I'm a bit I'm a bit challenged now by the relationship to social media and like having to show up online a lot, you know, I especially it just it doesn't it feels like every week of news is always so challenging and there's so much out there, and I I something about being a mom.

It just made me hyper empathic, like hyper I feel everything so deeply, which I think is a great thing, but also it's very Sometimes it's like debilitating.

I'm not even that.

I'm like, I I finally took IG off my phone.

Actually this morning, like in the wee hours three am.

I got online and I saw, you know, bodies of children in Gaza on my IG feed, and you know, there's news about these two young men who were found hanging and no further details have been released.

But it's like, you know, in Mississippi and everywhere you turn is like this, and then school shootings and like all the things.

And sometimes just to get through the day, I'm like, I feel like I'm hanging on to the kids like almost like a little life raft.

And at the same time, I'm like, how am I.

What are we doing?

What am I doing?

How is any of this mattering?

And I don't even know if there's a question there.

It's just like a Sometimes that's how it can feel like the feelings are so big that in those are the days I'm most grateful where I can just be like click pause, turn everything off.

I don't have to show up anywhere, can sort of take this space and get back on some firm you know, some firm ground are you have you have you realized or felt anything similar sincepeaking of that.

Yeah, you know, honestly, I feel like I was one of these very like stereotypically former, like child free by choice people who would just like side eye kids when they were like loud and shit, you.

Know, I'd be like, control your kid.

You know, I was very judgmental about of parents in general.

And I feel like this has made me realize like, oh, I was a total ahole, like for all intents and purposes because I just didn't get it right.

And I think that just speaks to the greater lack of empathy that there exists in the world, Like many of us need to just get way better at putting ourselves in other people's shoes.

So it's been transformational in that perspective.

I think there's like something that gets activated in you where you see all of the world's children as your children and so when you see the constant bombardment of children in Gaza, or just like the overall violence in the world, it can just make you feel very quickly like what is the point, you know, Like are we living through the apocalypse?

Was it a mistake to have my child and bring them into this world?

Like?

There's a lot of existential crap that comes up for people, And I think one of the things we need to realize, especially about social media, is that they make money by keeping you hooked, and negativity sells, okay, Like we see it on the news.

People tune in to see the chaos, right, they want to know, like, what's the latest thing that's burning down.

I don't think any of that is accidental.

I think it's all by design.

It's meant to keep you trapped in a fear loop.

Right.

That doom scrolling is a real thing.

I think we just need to get way better at feeling what is coming up when we are interacting with social media platforms and throwing the phone across the room quite literally, when it gets to the point where it's just like what is this actually doing for me?

What is this doing for my nervous system?

What is this doing for my mental health.

I, as someone who makes a living off of social media, have to very very carefully curate like why am I on this platform?

Am I doing more consuming than actual creating.

I'm constantly having that conversation with myself, and I think it's just important that even with all the stuff going on in the world, if you are a person who is dependent on social media in any type of way for like financial you know, reasons you make money doing it x y z uh, you just have to get real firm boundaries around what you're doing on there.

I love the fact that, like you can put time limits right and Instagram will literally tell you is it time to take a break?

IVI on the am I doing more consuming than creating?

Because scrolling?

As you know I took and it's IG in particular, TikTok algorithm knows what I like.

It's giving.

You know, it's giving tends to be like more positive news, but something I mean, IG just really felt so violent, like to be a sol like that.

It was twenty minutes before I was picking up my son from the bus stop and I was like, okay, so now I'm like gotta you know, undo whatever you know, mental like damage this has done in emotional damage and push through it.

But at the same time, we do have to we have to create and I think you know, you're one of the people online who the content you're creating is useful, it's purposeful, it's inspiring, and put myself in that category two.

And absolutely you're right if we if we get that fear loop, if we let it get to us, then we're not actually standing in our purpose and reaching the women that we want to reach.

Right now, that's it, you know, I feel like now more than ever, it's important to be really intentional about your use of social media because there's a huge lack of consent as to all the things that you were going to be bombarded with.

It's almost like just by opening the app, you were consenting to being shown horrific things that in a normal world before this existed, you could a lot more intentional about what your brain is exposed to.

And I think it's very dangerous, but it's also a really good reminder of how we as parents also need to be super vigilant about what our kids are being exposed to, because you think about, like what you're seeing as an adult, if your kid has access to the Internet, like you don't even know the half of what's going on.

Okay, So I'm going to need y'all to just get really intentional about making sure that your kids are also not being subjected to things that are just way beyond their capacity to understand.

Because shit can feel very very scary.

I know, all right, Well let's not.

I feel my like my little anxiety heart just kind of going, yeah, anything to do.

It's just it's just so real and raw, and it's just what I'm going through right now.

But I want to bring it back to you in this business, my friend, so Delichi to lights still going strong.

This was your original, baby, right, your original, like I'm going to take this is when you were doing this while you were an engineer.

Yes, you start the food blog.

I feel like you you for a time, you were like putting, you were investing even more to it, you were doing new photography and all that.

So how how many years has it been around now?

And how has the approached the business side of it shifted over that time?

Yeah?

So I have been a content creator now for twelve years, which sounds crazy because when I was first launching the blog, I did not even know that like content.

Could be a career, right.

So it's one of these things where Wow, the Internet is wild and what it's been able to do for just like creating jobs that didn't exist before.

So as far as you know what.

The blog has been doing, it has been it's been growing, especially since the pandemic.

So I am in the food space.

So if we think back to what happened in twenty twenty, everybody was locked in their house, there was nothing to do but eat, and so as a resince Loardo, my website blew up, so to the point where, for the first time ever, it made a six figures in AD revenue because there was just so many people that were on the internet, you know, making all kind stuff.

And ever since then it has continued to replicate that level of success.

So I have been able to make over one hundred thousand dollars a year in AD revenue from my website.

And it's been amazing because, like I mentioned, when I first started this, it was a straight up hobby.

I had no plans to monetize.

I had no intention to make any money.

It was just a creative outlet to get something other than my engineering career, to be like part of what defined me as a person, because I felt like up until that point, I had just been very much in the let me just check things off of the list of life that you're supposed to do as a good, responsible adult.

You got to graduate from college, you got to go get the job, get a master's degree, work your way up the corporate ladder.

And as I continue to achieve success on paper, I just felt more and more unaligned, And so I think the blog was very much like an existential cry for help to reclaiming some time for myself and get back into creative mode, which now has become like the entire thing that I do.

I just I get to create for a living, which is nuts at this point?

Is it?

Sort of?

Because I mean I was in content marketing for a long time, and there's a lot of maintenance.

Once you have like a big, vast library of content, there's a lot of maintenance that goes into it.

But how much of your time are you spending creating new content or maintaining what's there?

Is it very much like passive now?

It's very passive.

Now.

I have only created fourteen new blog posts since twenty twenty one, So we're talking about four years and I haven't blogged it all in twenty twenty five, and my website is just continuing to turn out revenue all thanks to being like super SEO optimized and in demand content.

So my food recipes are primarily Puerto Rican, so a lot of folks who either are Puerto Rican or have been to Puerto Rico and they want to replicate the recipes.

So I definitely have to say, like, I found a niche that was in demand and that was being underserved, And I think that is the key to taking your blog from just a hobby into an actual business.

It's really being able to hone in on where's that area of expertise that I have that can also meet an unmet need.

So then let's talk about the course and the community that you have built too, because you have been teaching how to blog and how to turn a blog into a lucrative side hustle for years.

Now, tell me about what's going on there, And like, I know that you're taking on new students right now, but what exactly all do you cover in this course?

Yeah, so I when I was first starting out as a blogger, there was no blog coaches, right, this is like over a decade ago, blogging was still very much like a new industry for many people, and I had to kind of learn by the school of hard knocks, so making a lot of mistakes, not understanding like how to actually create content for a blog, et cetera.

And so when I was thinking about the course, first of all, this was something that I never even intended to teach because I was convinced that like, nobody cared about learning this, right, I was just like, who cares about blogging?

But then I kept getting.

Twelve years ago blogging wasn't like new new, it had been like it kind of felt like then blogging moved to like now content created like on social media became the thing.

But I love the idea of like that old school I mean, not in old school, but like owning your own platform.

Yeah, and nothing.

An insta, not a TikTok, but like Jenny's touris dot com or sorry delig delights dot com or maybe money dot com and making that a thing because no one can really take that from you.

Yeah.

I think that's the mistake that a lot.

Of people in social media have had to come to the realization of, right, because there's a lot of creators who have created their entire platforms on these rented spaces, if you will, and then they end up getting blocked, they end up getting demonetized, they end up getting inactivated right reported as whatever.

So it's it's it's come full circle.

I see a lot of content creators who are now coming to the realization that like, oh, if I you want my business to be sustainable, I need to own my platform.

I need to own my audience.

I can use social media as a funnel to get people to my actual website.

But like, relying on these algorithms, relying on these fricking platforms for your business to be sustainable is like building a whole ass business, you know, house of cards, reference if you will.

It's just one false move and you're done.

And unfortunately, I've seen a lot of creators have to build their followings from scratch again, you know, and it's like, how do you get back in touch with the people if you don't have an email list, if you don't have a domain that they can go to.

It's very frustrating for me because I see folks also like wasting a lot of income generating potential where let's say, for example, you're a food blogger or you're a food creator, and you've built your entire platform on Instagram.

Where can people go to actually get the recipes?

They have to go and read your Instagram captions.

How are they going to search for a recipe?

Like Instagram is notoriously horrendous to search for anything.

So like, you're creating a piece of content that, if you're lucky, people are going to see for like forty eight hours and never again.

And if they want to go back to that, they don't have anywhere any way to do that easily.

It following this one great British bakeoff baker and she'd put the recipe in the cap like as a comment, and it would get like buried, and he'd be like, god, damn it, Ruby, I want to take recipe.

But like this is so annoying.

It is so annoying.

And so you know, when you have a link to your actual website in your link in bio, you are taking that audience off of social media.

You're potentially getting them on your newsletter, your email list, You're able to get in touch with them, and most importantly, you're able to get their eyeballs on content that then you can monetize with ad revenue, with affiliate links, you can push them towards like programs or workshops or courses or whatever it is that you're doing.

So I think it's just such an important part of a creator ecosystem to build everything around your own platform that you have built, and that, for me, is why blogging is still so important and relevant even in twenty two twenty five.

So talk me into well, I think I'm a good example of like you know, it's been way too long to not have monetized Brown Ambition.

I don't want to talk about it, but as you guys know, who's you know if you're listening.

And then Janise, like Tiffany, I left the show at the end of last year, which means I am full you know, I have full ownership of Brown Ambition, all the IP and the you know, the website and all of that.

And I think what was holding me back in the past is it was never because I was in a partnership right and we were both we both had our own individual, fully independent projects.

We were working on my career and then my business and her business the whole time.

But now that it's fully mine, I can really do whatever I want as far as Brown Ambition Podcast is concerned, but dot com is concerned, and I'm working on redesigning it, and the new iteration is very content focused, and so I'm going to steal your advice since I tricked you into coming here to give me free advice.

By the way, you go to your get at the podcast dot com and sign up for her.

What is it?

What's the jump start your blog boot camp?

Right?

Correct?

Yes, So with Grannemission Podcast dot Com, I'm reimagining it as a very content focused, you know, personal finance and career tips website.

And I have this huge volume of you know content, eight hundred something episodes countless, just countless stuff that hasn't been written down and turned into blog post form, but has to be where do I start?

Like I have?

Where do I begin?

I think you need to hire somebody first and foremost to do this, like what okay?

So there's a couple of different things.

If you do not have transcripts of your show, like that's the baseline start with, right okay, So those transcripts can be plugged into AI and turned into different pieces of content, so that can be turned into blog posts where you're breaking down the topic that you talked about on the show, you can turn them into potentially social media content, you know, carousels, clips, et cetera.

So I think it's important to not to like squeeze the juice right out of everything that you're doing.

From a content perspective, podcasts are great ways are are great to repurpose as blog posts.

So one of the things that I do on Joke or the Netto podcast, we have a podcast section where you can check out, you know, individual episodes kind of what the topics are and whatnot.

But we also have a separate blog area where we talk about you know, personal finance, entrepreneurship, investing in all those things.

So what I think happens oftentimes for podcasters is they don't necessarily realize like how the two things interact with each other.

And I think that most podcasts can benefit from having a blog to accompany them because it makes you way more Like when you think about just searching for a show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you're going to get exponentially more discoverability when you're also on Google and you're SEO optimized and you like have your transcripts because your transcripts essentially serve as like information that Google can then search when somebody's looking up a topic, and your blog posts that's you know, part of your podcast website can be the thing that like gets people to find you.

So I think it's important to strategically attack what you have going on.

You have a ton of content.

I would hire somebody to do maybe like you know, some back end downloading of your content, kind of organize it into different potential topics, some content pillars, and then use those episodes as inspiration for different blog post topics that your readers would be interested in checking out.

And also doing like some keyword research to make sure that you're creating content that is in demand versus just like posting for the sake of posting, because I think that's another mistake that a lot of people make.

It's like, does anybody care about this topic?

Let me go and do some like Google trends analysis and see like what are people searching for?

And you cover SEO in your course right, Absolutely, it's It's it's even more embarrassing because I was an organic content marketing senior director for five years.

Jenny's I know all that shit, and I was doing it for other websites, just not my own.

You know, you're not the first person who has a marketing background who has told this to me.

Like I've had plenty of students who are professional marketers who have come into the course and have said, I don't know why the hell I wasn't doing this for my own business.

Like literally, people hire me to do this, but there's like this mental block when it comes to applying the skills that you have to your own business because typically, especially if you're a solopreneur, like it's you.

So that's why I say, you know, in cases like this where there's a heavy lift, there is something to be said about just like hiring even part time help for like a project based thing so that you can get this stuff off the ground and you don't become the limiting factor in you know, taking your business to the next level.

Totally a limiting factor for sure.

I am and I think we had the same web designer.

I'm working with Shirley again on my Numission podcast.

But then I'm like, damn, I hired another solopreneur.

We're both struggling.

I'm like, surely, come on, we do this and.

Mothers so I'm like, uh, we gotta high, we gotta hire us, but also we gotta we gotta get this shit done.

Yeah.

Well, I'm excited about the potential for it.

You know, I love a passive income stream, and you know what it is.

I think, you know, it's all the things all at once.

You're never going to do anything.

So while I'm not investing in this area of my business, I've been investing in others.

But it's like, you know, it's high damn time now.

However, I have been talking to you know, cause I was a senior content director at lending Tree and we rebran content for eight different personal finance sits underneath the lending Tree umbrella.

And I've recently had some conversations with peers of mine who have stayed in that space, and I'm asking them how they have incorporated AI into their content strategy.

And what I've heard from one of our biggest competitors, one of their their editors, is that now on Google, when you certain you've seen this, when you search something on Google, now you get that AI search result first, yeah, which is then answering the question for the reader, and they're not as often clicking through to websites.

Have you noticed that as well?

And is that how is that impacting if it is at all the blog the people's blogs so you're working with, or even your own blog, has it had a diverse impact.

It's funny because I feel like, obviously some niches are affected more than others.

And in the case of like the food world, you're not going to get like a recipe in an AI summary, right, So when we're thinking about you, have you seen it?

Though?

You see a lot of basics and whatnot.

Right, You can even go and CHATTYBT and be like, give me a recipe for this, But oftentimes it's going to be just like a mishmash of a bunch of stuff that it tossed together, and it doesn't necessarily have like the original intent, especially if we're talking about like a cultural recipe.

I'm sorry, AI TRAGBT and got the sas song to be like making herosconandulas in an authentic way.

Okay, it's still trying to figure out what the hell Sofrito is.

So I think one of the things of them your members, that's what it is.

Right.

One of the things that I like to remind folks is that you know, AI is great at putting words together.

Okay, it can churn out words, but it does not build authority, It cannot build trust, and it cannot build a personal brand.

So when it comes to blogs that are going to thrive and that are thriving right now, they are going to be based on lived experience.

They're going to be based on a very niche expertise and your unique voice.

These are all things that AI cannot replicate, right And what I think is important for people to know is that search engine are cracking down on like low quality AI content because what was happening is that people are like, Okay, well I'm just going to launch a blog and put a bunch of like AI written articles and I'm going to go and make a bunch of money.

And that is not what's happening.

It's actually the complete opposite.

Search engines are cracking down and they're actually rewarding like organic, helpful experience based writing and penalizing generic AI written content.

So that is not the way to go.

And I think, especially as AI continues to flood the Internet with you know, generic bs, human blogs are going to stand out more because people are going to be craving like real insights, case studies, like personal stories.

It's almost going to be like the more rare thing and the more valuable things.

So I'm one hundred percent like betting on human lead blogs being long term winners, because I'm hearing even stuff in other arenas where you know, they're talking about launching like a bunch of AI podcasts, and I'm just like, like, who wants to listen to that?

Who wants to listen to like robotic non existent creators talking about like.

Whatever?

There is something to be said about human connection and the same way that people listen to podcasts because they want that human connection.

I think it's the exact same thing with blogs.

Hey ba fam, we got to take a quick break, pay some bills and we'll be right back.

I mean, maybe I'll get away with it.

In the beginning, there was that I remember Student Loan.

There was some student loan website.

Was it so far?

They had like a chatbot called drew Cloud that was an AI thing and it was giving interviews to the media, and media hadn't figured out that it was just a pod.

I hate it here.

That's because there's lazy journalists who just email questions.

They don't get on the phone anymore anyway.

No, I tend to agree.

I mean, I have no choice but to agree.

My whole career kind of depends on people liking a human touch.

Yeah.

I have been pleasantly surprised to hear that AI.

Like, for example, my content team at lending Tree, it's not as big as it was because there has been, like mean, the pandemic and everything that has been a challenging environment.

But they have not replaced everyone's jobs with AI yet.

And I think at the very least we'll need you'll need a really smart editor or someone who has expert knowledge of the subject matter to at least be vetting.

Like I absolutely use AI with brown ambition, whether whether it's you know, coming up with yeah, social media captions and shorter like LinkedIn posts, things like that newsletter copy.

But at the same time, I wouldn't trust it one hundred percent, and I'll say I wouldn't feel I wouldn't feel like authentic myself.

Yeah, you gonna be a fan through a bot like I just it doesn't make me feel good about it.

I don't want to find an easy way to make money without just seems I don't want to cheat in that way that seems scammy.

No, I totally agree, And you know, people are have also caught on to the all the stuff that people are using, right, so it's very easy spot like AI generated content.

Now folks are used to interacting with things like many chat and the dms, so it's important to like use it to your benefit, but also like not let it take out the entire essence of it what makes your brand or your business or your you know whatever.

So I think we have to remind ourselves that robots are not capable of creative thinking, they're not capable of empathy, they're not capable of like emotions, and so human facing content creators that's going to be the winning ticket for me.

Yay for humans.

So what level of experience do you need to have to start a blog today?

Like?

Are you know?

That seems like such a at least I know, I have this big mountain of content through the podcast that I can start with.

I'm not starting from scratch, but yeah, it would feel overwhelming to think I want to start a blog about money today and just like starting from nowhere?

So how much level of experience do people need before they can like start blog you know, I.

Think there's this perception that like you have to have a tech background or you have to have like coding experience to start a website.

I am actually very jealous of people who are starting blogs in twenty twenty five because they do have access to all these tools that we do not have, you know, when I'm thinking about just like how something like jatchbt can help you brainstorm and outline drafts and speed up your writing process and edit and like repurpose content and optimize for SEO like what you used to have to hire an entire team of people to do all these things.

And now it's like you go and talk to this little thing and like, you know, seventeen seconds later you have a freaking blog post.

Then you can customize and add your own voice to it.

So from a like resource perspective, it is easier than ever.

What is important is for folks to understand that like those lifestyle blogs and like personal diaries of the past, like nobody cares about that, that is not what you need to be focusing on in twenty twenty five.

If you want to have a successful blog, you need to be helped people solve problems.

Okay, helpful content.

Is what is being rewarded on Google.

They've had several algorithm updates that are focusing on actual helpful content that is based on facts, not like pseudoscience and like all this information that is out here in the world.

You're going to be.

Rewarded if you're focusing on helping people solve specific problems.

So if you can identify, like what your secret sauce is, what is your expertise, what can you help people with, It's very easy to start a blog.

You need a domain, you need a rudimentary website that you can get like one click setup with most major hosts, and you need to just start having a content plan and looking at your data, looking at your analytics, seeing what's lands, seeing what you need to create more of getting good at writing.

You know, like there's so many people who have limiting beliefs around I'm not a good writer, Like AI eliminates a lot of the crap that you.

Are reading today.

Are people reading?

I mean.

Read seventy seven percent of Internet users read blogs, Okay, And think about the billions of people that use the Internet every day, and I think people don't actually realize like how often they're actually interacting with a blog, like every major news website.

Is a blog basically a blog.

You're right, right, because.

They're all chronologically ordered from newest to oldest.

That is literally what defines a blog.

So if you're looking at you know, nerd wallet or whatever, other websites like, those are all blogs.

And oftentimes we don't even realize that we're interacting with a blog because it's just so mainstream that, you know, people they don't even think twice about it.

But chances are you've read a blog in the past forty eight hours, if you've done any kind of.

Google search, Well I know I do, but I don't know I'd be looking at them like these other people.

I'm like, does anybody read anymore beyond just like the tweet that led them to the just gave a headline.

But you're right, you're right.

We can't be so cynical.

Now, monetizing a blog, I understand the ad sense of it all.

That's kind of technical.

I'm sure you go into that in your course, right lodule and monetizing for sure, How do you make it so that you're not becoming one of those blogs that I hate to go on to where it's just like pop up and that, and you can't scroll past here without something popping up in your face.

I want to make money in a passive way, but is that the way to do it?

Like that is a great question, And you know, I think it's very similar to the conversation around like podcast ads, right, like when is too much too much?

One thing that I think is important for everybody listening.

If you are interacting with content on the Internet and you're not paying for it, your eyeballs are what you're exchanging for, you know, the fact that you were getting free access to this content, or your ears if you're listening to this show, right, So, I think it's just important that creators need to make their businesses sustainable.

So they're either going to charge you a subscription to be able to access their content.

You're going to be behind a paywall, or you're going to have to listen to ads or read ads or see ads in order for you to get access to this information for free.

So I say that on behalf of all the content creators, like you can't be worried about people that get irritated about your content because look, most of us are paying over one hundred dollars a month for streaming service YouTube, TV, Hula, whatever, and we're still being subjected to ads.

So at least your creators.

Aren't charging you money for you know, what they're doing.

That being said, I think it's responsible as a creator for you to make sure that your user experience is optimized.

And so what I do with my own ad provider is I will opt out of specific types of ads, Like we're not going to be advertising any politics, any religion, any alcohol, drugs like weight loss, any kind of toxic contest.

No, we're not having any of these.

Opting out Okay, they let you opt out of specific categories gambling, et cetera.

So I make sure to opt out of anything that doesn't personally align with me.

And then also your ad volume, so the types of ads that you have, how many you have per page, all of that stuff can be optimized.

So I think it's it's a delicate balance that you have to achieve.

You can also optimize out of specific types of ads.

So the one that you were mentioning is called an interstitial ad, which it takes over the entire screen and then you have to like scroll past it, or there's like an X like I opt out of those things.

They're big money makers because you're like forced to interact with them, But for me, I hate them as a user, so I'm not going to subject my audience to them as a creator.

Well, it's also important for your your search ranking, right, it is how people interact with your page, and if they're getting so annoyed that they click off of it, Google's going to like vote down your website.

Yeah, absolutely push it down.

So it's it's a delicate balance.

So you you work with an ad manager, are you also you know, so someone like us, we have a podcast, we have advertisers advertising on the show.

Are you also working in like custom content you know, as that become appealing, Like will you work with one of your advertisers and say, you know, we could also do an activation like on Deligi to lights and we'll do a series around this topic and it can be sponsored by you know X company.

Yeah.

So I've worked with a lot of different brands in the food space.

So oftentimes it's like a company that has a specific ingredient that they want me to incorporate organically into a recipe.

I've worked with like appliance companies, right, like a crock Pot for example, or even just like specific stores like you know, Publics or whatnot.

So there's a lot of different ways that you can create organic brand partnerships that weave in to the content that you're making and don't feel like very much like placed advertisement.

So I will work with brands who maybe have like a Latin theme, right, or I will incorporate an ingredient into a traditional Latin recipe.

So I think it's just about getting creative so that your sponsored content is also in line with your niche and it doesn't feel like something out of left field.

Yeah.

No, let's that makes sense.

And I think it's just you're more likely to get the brand deals when everything is in alignment.

Yeah, and you're really sticking to your niche and not questioning it.

Yeah, and you know, let me.

I want to mention one more thing about brand partnerships too, because oftentimes people think of that as like something that you do strictly with social media, but brands actually pay a premium for content creators who also have like blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels because they understand the value of long form content, you know, with a social media post, like I said, you're lucky if you get forty eight hours of traction with this stuff, Whereas when you're creating long form content that can potentially send traffic back to this brand and lead to sales for months, if not years, like you can charge a lot more for that type of content versus something as fickle as a social media post I know.

And brands, if you have money to spend, please brandibision podcast dot com and Yokhitto di Naro podcast dot com.

Okay, because life is lifing these bills and needs to get paid.

Honey, let's get the brand deals.

Yeah, the brands have not been as hot twenty twenty five.

I was like, it smells like money.

Has not smelled like money.

It's so true.

I have noticed that too.

I think unfortunately, there's obviously a lot of like economic pressure and marketing is one of the first things to go when it comes to the budgets for a lot of these organizations, But the ones that are are doubling down on creators, like understand just the value that we provide and also the loyalty and the trust that we've built with our communities is next level.

You know, It's not something that any major corporation can tap into.

The same way that we do, especially when you have like such intimate relationships with your followers.

So the brands that get it get it.

Yeah, and we love you and Reneficient podcast dot com.

You okidat to Narrow podcast dot com if you want to contact us with those opportunities.

Yeah, I think so.

When you're talking about, you know, starting a blog, does it it's not just about monetizing the content on it.

It's like having all the pieces of your business sort of like feeding into one another.

Can we talk about that a little bit?

So we're also are you also going over you know, a lead magnet and maybe a newsletter?

Yeah, maybe having a product that you yourself.

So for example, you have your courses and other digital services, and I have Mandy money Makers and my VIP coaching program.

Those are like my you know, so through my blog, I'm also promoting those products that help to drive revenue.

It's almost like creating a platform that I can advertise on.

But do you recommend like not starting with all the things and just starting with the platform itself, like the blog first.

Well, I think that it's nice to plan from like a long term perspective on what the overall goal is of the website, right, Like if you're gonna plan to sell courses, like doing research into where are these courses gonna live, Like how are you going to market them?

Building out your sales page, having a link tree, like all of these things can be part of the planning process, but I think the most important thing is like without traffic, right, nobody's gonna make any money if nobody's going to your website, So shamelessly plugging the fact that you have this website is number one.

Like there's no such thing as over marketing yourself.

And yeah, I think blogs are a great way for you to show your thought leadership, showcase your expertise, like get people to start to know you, what you value, what your mission is, what your expertise is, all that stuff.

It's literally like a living resume, if you will, of everything that you know, of everything that you can.

Help people with.

And it's a great way to like introduce people to your ecosystem for free in exchange for you know, an email perhaps and then you can get them into like a nurture sequence that you're then introducing them to courses or workshops or whatever it is that you have going on.

Just from like a sustainability perspective.

Like I mentioned before, your blog needs to be the hub, the center of your digital universe because it's the only thing that you actually own.

And fun fact, a lot of people don't know this, but when your website has built up traffic and has been monetized, you can actually sell it just like a piece of real estate.

Okay, I've gotten my website evaluated recently and it's worth about five hundred thousand dollars if I wanted to sell it today delicial lights.

Yes, congratulations, not nuts, Like I could literally drop this website on a marketing form, like a sales form for people who want to buy domains, and like, go and buy a.

Whole ass house with this digital real estate that I've built.

So I think it's just so important to understand, like why you need to own your platform, because if you're building your website on like you know, Wix or Squarespace or medium or sub stack, like all of these are easy to start up, but you don't own them.

It's rented space.

And so I just like to remind folks, like you got to own it to really be able to maximize the earning potential that you have what.

Do you mean by like wis I don't have my site on Wix, but those are not what do you mean You're not owning it.

So essentially, if you wanted to move your website from Wix to like another host, you're not going to be able to retain the custom code because Wix is a website that you know, like the code only works there, So if you try to move it to another, like a self hosted platform, you're going to lose the user experience.

You're gonna basically have to like readesign your website somewhere else.

And if you're.

Using these free websites where it's like you know, Manny Moneymakers dot wix dot com, you don't even own that URL.

So if you wanted to keep your traffic, to keep your domain ranking, to keep your SEO, you're not gonna be able to do that.

So it's like, don't don't rent space, and don't build this platform and don't have all of your expertise somewhere where you can't even transfer it over if you wanted to without losing all of what you've built.

It's an important important point to make.

Deni's I've just loved having you on girl, I wish.

Yeah, I'm just gonna be grateful the time that we had together and not be like I wish I could see more of you.

But you're such a battie.

Thank you for sharing again, y'all.

Please, I'll put all your links in the show notes.

And how long do they have to sign up for your blog boot camp?

So the blog book camp is open until midnight on Monday, September twenty second, So if you want to find out more about that, head over to my Instagram at Jocato Dando podcast link in bio.

All the stuff, all the things are via fam.

This is perfect timing, then serendipitous that I reached out to here a little of this launch.

Happy to support Deennise.

Thank you so much for joining me and for sharing your light.

I love in the new background.

Say hi baby so much baby, such a good baby.

We'll have you there to take care.

Thank you so much.

All right, ba Fam, Until next time, check the show notes for all the links.

I'll see you Friday for Baqa and Sunday for Washday Woosa.

Bye okay va fam, thank you so much for listening to this week's show.

I want to shout out to our production team, Courtney, our editor, Carla, our fearless leader for idea to launch productions.

I want to shout out my assistant Lauda Escalante and Cameron McNair for helping me put the show together.

It is not a one person project, as much as I have tried to make it so these past ten years.

I need help, y'all, and thank goodness I've been able to put this team around me to support me on this journey and to y'all bea fam.

I love you so so so so much.

Please rate, review, subscribe, make sure your sign up to the newsletter to get all the latest updates on upcoming episodes, our tenth year anniversary celebrations to come and next time.

Talk to you soon be a bye.