Hi Krista! What's your background, and what are you currently working on?

During my transition to “adulthood,” the chase after the American dream never made sense to me.

We worked so hard to pay off our student loans. And then what? Upgrade our car? Start a family? Take on a mortgage for a home? Buy another car?

And in 2017, I started a lifestyle and travel blog. I wanted to inspire millennial women to say “yes” to more opportunities outside of the American dream - while still being financially savvy.

Within just a few days after starting my blog, I made a whopping $0.44 commission from Amazon Affiliates.

And that’s when I realized I could make money blogging. Soon, I learned there is an entire community of people who leverage the Internet to make money online - blogging, freelancing, remote work…

The idea for Reroute Lifestyle came several months later. I traveled across the Atlantic for the first time with my boyfriend at the time. We returned from our days exploring the Cote d’Azur to emails with notifications of affiliate sales.

Now, Reroute Lifestyle helps goal getters create the financial freedom they need to make money online, ditch the 9-5, and be in control of their own schedule.

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How did you build Reroute Lifestyle? Which is your business model?

Because volatile in the digital industry can be volatile when you’re first starting, Reroute Lifestyle makes income in 3 ways:

• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Sales
• Services

To make money blogging, you need a source of income (like affiliate marketing), content that advertises those affiliates, and a targeted audience to consume the content.

Reroute Lifestyle’s primary revenue-generator is through affiliate marketing.

Our income started on a small scale: before we built our website, we put together a mini-ebook with some affiliate links. We offered that ebook as a freebie to grow our mailing list at the same time. As we built the website, we circulated that mini-ebook via Pinterest.

With this in mind, I plan to at least double Reroute Lifestyle’s affiliate income in 2018.

1. Keep writing content, some with affiliate links.
2. Continue growing our audience acquisition with Pinterest.
3. Turn readers into lifelong followers by offering email freebies and free information with our newsletter.
   

Which are your marketing strategies to grow your traffic?

Putting both time and money into Pinterest has tremendously helped me grow a brand-new blog to over 11,000 page views per month in 6 months.

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For other platforms, my main strategy was to nail my storytelling. There’s a reason why people visit Reroute Lifestyle. It’s because they want the freedom to be the CEO of their own life - in other words, they want to make decisions for themselves. And they want to leverage the Internet in order to work for that freedom.

So, when I guest post on other blogs, schedule posts to Twitter, or post on Reroute Lifestyle’s Facebook page, I think about storytelling first.

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What were the biggest challenges you faced and obstacles you overcame?

When it came to managing Reroute Lifestyle as a business, the biggest mindset I had to overcome was my money mindset. I transitioned from being a penny-pincher to being a business-owner allocating every penny earned.

I’m trying to make calculated, strategic investments in my business instead of just letting any money earned sit in a bank account.

Personally, the transition to self-employment was difficult. I was sick right after my last day at my day job. Of course, that week I moped around the house missing paid time off benefits.

I also struggled to devote “full-time” work on this blog - and regularly. I didn’t know how to grow my task list so that I would spend 40 hours, or more, on the blog every week.

Now, I try to balance:

• Promotion - Pinterest, SmarterQueue, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
• Content Writing - at least 1 post, at least 1 email.
• Networking - interviews, guest-posting.
• Growth Analysis - audience behavior, affiliate performance, and email list growth.
• Side Projects - eBook writing, blog consulting.

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These tasks don’t fit into 40 hours per week yet, but I’ll get there one day.

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Which are your greatest disadvantages?

I am a multi-passionate, so inherently I love writing about multiple topics. Niche-related blogs have it easier in the sense that they can target their audience better in their marketing, their content, and their product creation.

But the biggest disadvantage I give myself is being unable to niche down even further.

During the process of building & growing Reroute Lifestyle, which were the worst mistakes you committed?

Constantly changing my mission and audience. 

Again, I’m multi-passionate. I thought I could really niche down with Reroute Lifestyle. But as I kept writing for the blog, I realized that I’m happiest when I’m writing about multiple topics.

This made growing hard. A lot of people follow me for my tips about affiliate marketing, but I want to branch out and write about travel and side hustles while traveling.

I’m very cognizant of this, so I try to keep one main theme with my content: leveraging the internet to make money online, so you can work from anywhere.

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If you had the chance of doing only one thing differently, what would it be?

If I had to start over, I would do less with more. At Reroute Lifestyle’s launch, I wanted to have multiple opt-ins, and 8 different posts in multiple categories. Instead, I wish I:

1. Outlined one specific transformation to offer readers,
2. Created one mind-blowing opt-in (instead of several),
3. Written a few in-depth posts optimized for engagement and sales.

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Even though it took us a month to put together Reroute Lifestyle (at the time, I worked at my day-job on the side), I wish I took a step back to focus on creating LESS content (posts & email opt-ins) with MORE value.

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Apart from mistakes, what are other sources of learning you would recommend for entrepreneurs who are just starting?

• Breaking the One Percent: The 2 guys behind BTOP learned how to crack Pinterest. Learning a platform that targets women actually skyrocketed their business growth. They have great tips about blogging, affiliate marketing, and Pinterest.
• Sam Bell’s The Brand It Girl Podcast: A great podcast with tips on elevating your branding, influencer marketing, blogging, etc.
• Blogger’s Guide to Making Money Blogging in Your 1st Year: An eBook with the exact steps I take to start lifestyle blogs, monetize them, and guarantee their organic growth.

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Where can we go to learn more? 

Read more about my journey to ditch my 9-5 life and Reroute Lifestyle here. If you’re looking for a supportive community to start your blogging or freelance journey, join the free Reroute Lifestyle Community.

Or, if you want to get social, follow Reroute Lifestyle on Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook.