10 Years of Blogging — Here Are The Lessons

What happens when you’re reached monumental success online. When you’ve been blogging for nearly 10 years and have made well over $100,000 per year? When you go from being people’s “dirty little secret” to being one of the most popular business sources in the blogosphere. Well, I’ve got the answers from the woman we *should* all know and love… Naomi Dunford.

Her snarky responses and incredible insight make this interview a great read! If you’ve got six minutes — be sure to read it to the end, less you miss something.

Thanks for joining us, Naomi. Making money online is somewhat of a new territory in business. How do you explain to people what you do?

I try to avoid it, if I can.

Well, there are two types of people who might ask what I do. People who might care, and people who almost definitely don’t.

When people who might care ask — like I’m at a networking event or a conference or something — I quote my Twitter bio and say, “I support business owners during times of significant growth. Because growth is great, but also REALLY HARD.”

When people who don’t care ask — as in, my cousin’s new girlfriend — I say I’m a business coach. 1% of people find that interesting. 99% of people walk away to find another drink.

Do you think that anyone has the potential to be an entrepreneur — what qualities have been the most helpful in your journey?

Ha! Great question.

Technically, I do believe anyone has the potential to be an entrepreneur, but only because I believe in neuroplasticity. Anybody can ultimately be an entrepreneur, but for some people, it’s going to take a lot of brain retraining to get there.

You have to be willing and able to change your mental patterns and defaults. All the normal fears — rejection, success, failure — if you want to be an entrepreneur, you must embark on a lifetime quest to get over them.

The most important qualities, for me, have been bravery and self-reflection. Both of them took almost a decade of entrepreneurship for me to develop. (See: neuroplasticity, above.)

What was your original vision for IttyBiz — your core mission that you set out to accomplish when you started?

I wanted to help 1000 people quit their day jobs. There’s a lesson here: Don’t pick a core mission that can be accomplished in less than a year. It leaves you with no direction.

There’s more in this interview about what Naomi has to say on how removing one of her signature styles (profanity) affected her blog, important lessons on rebranding, why sustainable doesn’t matter, and when you should start hiring employees for your blog…. click here to keep reading.