Shaunda Necole of The Soul Food Pot: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder

An Interview With Doug Noll

One of my favorite quotes is, “Start before you’re ready!” I’ve found that proactive and preemptive work is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. It’s one of those “Thank me later” moments. This time to yourself, from yourself. I run my business intentionally, working at least 6 months ahead; whenever it’s time to pivot or get creative, the necessary tools are already in place.

As part of our interview series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Shaunda Necole, Blogger at The Soul Food Pot.

Shaunda Necole is the go-to recipe creator for modern soul food cuisine. She is the founder of The Soul Food Pot, the #1 Southern soul food site on Google, author of six culinary guides, and the host of The Soul Food Pod, Apple’s first show dedicated to the history and culture around iconic African American dishes. She believes in making life easier, and more soulful, one recipe at a time!

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Throughout my life, things usually happen very organically from a need, or opportunity that arises. This is how I got here — where I own and operate a publishing company built on the innovation of shared media. I unite influencer marketing with consumers, advertisers, and brands through the power of original content creation.

In other words, I’ve created my own online network (think NBC’s Peacock, ABC’s Hulu, or Netflix). Advertisers pay for ad placement on my “channels” (my three websites) to reach the many viewers, visitors, and subscribers that tune into my channels.

And the fun part about creating this? It was truly organic. Almost accidental!

Starting my first blog channel was an up-level of a simple website my daughter, a teenager at the time, made for me to keep in touch with friends and fellow enthusiasts of a unique brand of dishes and kitchenware I collect. Enthusiasts become clients that I would shop for annually.

I wish I could say that when I started that blog, I saw the end in the beginning. Instead, it was a bumpy ride of necessary pivots to progress and become profitable.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

In hindsight, when I first started in the online space circa 2016, I had no idea where I was going with this. I was pivoting from owning an in-person retail store where I used my two hands to make thousands of hairbow products weekly.

I’d adopted the phrase, “You make a job with your hands and a business with your mind.” I gradually found my way into the online space, leaving the job mentality behind to create a new business based on my knowledge and expertise.

My start-up was a unique business where I provided high-end personal shopping services for a niche shopping event that happened only once a year. I acquired my customers by making friends on Instagram with fellow collectors that used niche hashtags. Little did I know that was my entry into the world of SEO — search engine optimization.

My blog was created out of necessity to keep in touch with my clients for over a year until the next big annual shopping event.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Things were hard. Can you imagine receiving a paycheck only once a year?

With my blog, that’s what I’d essentially created — a niche business that was only profitable once a year! I was only making money when that annual sale happened. For the rest of the year, there were no commas and no paychecks from my business.

Lucky for me, consistency is my superpower. So, throughout the years, I’d been creating content for my readers with blog posts about my favorite home decor, kitchenware, fashion, and travel. Naturally, that included product recommendations. Brands began to reach out and pay me to discuss their products with my audience; about the same time, the term “influencer” became a thing.

I doubled down when brands started knocking on my door and added affiliate commissionable links to my site. Between the brand collaborations and affiliate commissions, the business took on a new direction beyond an annual event.

By 2019, I’d garnered a managing agent and was getting paid to show up offline for paid speaking events. Telling my story of how to duplicate my online marketing success. lt worked like a well-oiled internet machine (if the internet needed oil to run) until March 2020.

So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

The start of 2020 presented a new set of challenges for the world. Including content creators like me. If people didn’t have money to shop online and physically couldn’t travel, how would my e-commerce business exist?

I kept creating consistently, even without an answer to that question. I started my second blog out of my love for cooking with Instant Pot and modern kitchen appliances. Then, a timely collaboration with that brand made me realize one essential thing — I’m a born creator.

What does that mean? Content comes easy for me. What I find magical is that all I have to do is bring my ideas to life in writing, and brands are willing to place ads on anything I write about and pay me.

So before creating my next two websites, I corrected my past errors. I invested time and money into understanding the ins and outs of SEO content creation. Now, I call myself a Google whisperer, sometimes holding courses and keynotes about SEO, unveiling my best tips and tricks.

Today, I own and operate a masterclass site, an e-commerce site, a podcast, and three online channels in the food, travel, and lifestyle verticals (with a site dedicated to pets on the horizon). One of those blog channels, The Soul Food Pot, is Google’s #1 Southern soul food site!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I don’t know if I’d call it funny — because it kept me from becoming profitable for years! But the biggest mistake I’ve made in content distribution is creating what’s known as “thin content.” Meaning content KNOW ONE is searching for. Maybe only your mom. i.e., “What I ate for breakfast today,” “My Monday musings,” or “Why these are my favorite shoes.”For years, I wrote in this journal-entry style.

A detrimental online writing mistake is not creating searchable content.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

My bread and butter site is my food blog (no pun intended), The Soul Food Pot.

My success here has been described as:

“The blogger who built a soul food empire with just one pot!”

On The Soul Food Pot, I reimagine iconic African-American recipes via modern kitchen appliances, often shortening the time to prepare these culturally beloved traditional dishes. I love trying new cooking appliances to see how Southern recipes can be adapted for more efficiency for busy home cooks.

A lot of people wonder how my site gained Google’s top ranking in just 2 years. And here’s the thing. I’ve found my most successful writing voice by prioritizing what my audience is searching for and de-prioritizing what I think of to share. I call this my SEO rule number two: It’s not what YOU say. What’s most important is what THEY say.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

You’re probably wondering what my SEO rule number one is since I already shared rule number two. Like SEO, it’s simple: You must go small to get BIG!

At the beginning of my business, like many entrepreneurs, I wasted a lot of time trying to cater my content to everyone and everybody.

But that kind of thinking is outdated. The best strategy is to niche down. Because when you go small to reach that particular customer, reader, or client, you are now BIG in the eyes of the hundreds and thousands of very nuanced people searching for exactly what you create.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I’m grateful for my fellow content creators. Online entrepreneurs who understand that you make a business with your mind. Your knowledge. Your expertise. The niche thing you know best.

These creators share podcasts, courses, webinars, video tutorials, ebooks, and blogs. All of which I feverishly sign up for and make it my business to purchase, skyrocketing my business to infinity and beyond.

My business pro tip: Invest in learning resources. Someone online knows what you’re looking to learn and has already created the course to teach you exactly how to do it. A couple of innovative thinkers’ podcasts I enjoy and often recommend are The Secret To Success with Eric Thomas and Bigger Pockets.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

One of my favorite personal accountability questions is, “What kind of ancestor will I be?”

With my niche soul food site, I’m sharing and preserving culture with my family’s African-American soul food recipes, representing our beautiful people and the legacy of what we eat.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my company” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

1 . One of my favorite quotes is, “Start before you’re ready!” I’ve found that proactive and preemptive work is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. It’s one of those “Thank me later” moments. This time to yourself, from yourself. I run my business intentionally, working at least 6 months ahead; whenever it’s time to pivot or get creative, the necessary tools are already in place.

2 . Consistency is key. Said another way, “Inch by inch is a cinch!” I thrive in the mundane. The routine. Doing the same thing well over and over once I determine that it works. Consistently moving the needle forward, even if it’s just a little bit day by day. Consistency alone has yielded over 250 recipes and millions of annual readers — translating into a thriving online business!

3 . How can you learn to use SEO and speak to Google? Start with my SEO rule number one: You must go small to get BIG! You have to niche down so hard that Google understands it’s a very specific and niche customer you aim to reach. For my site, The Soul Food Pot, my audience is looking for Southern soul food recipes. So I don’t waste time creating content about my favorite one-off Italian dinner or a new gourmet meal I just learned to make in the air fryer. If it’s not Southern-soul, I don’t post it!

4 . Know that it doesn’t matter how you say it. What’s important is how they say it. My SEO tip number two aims to keep you from creating content that no one will ever find or see. True story: before I could move forward and create new blog channels, with hundreds of posts already on my first site, I spent days correcting and unpublishing content that wasn’t helpful because it wasn’t created to be searchable.

5 . Ask questions in your content. The most common way people use Google is to ask a question or search with a “how-to” phrase. This is my 3rd foundational SEO rule. Think of yourself as the game show, Jeopardy. You need to know the questions people ask so you know what niched-down content to create!

Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

Remember: “Innovation is rewarded, but execution is worshiped.”

It’s not what you think about doing or creating; it’s seeing the process through and doing the thing.

It can be quiet and lonely working in the online space. Family and friends may not understand what you do, how to best support you, or how to share your business with others.

I choose not to look through the lenses of loneliness and non-support. Instead, I see my business model as innovative, ahead of its time, and full of roaming freedom and flexibility that other careers aren’t capable of exercising or enjoying.

The content I create has allowed me to live bicoastal, with homes we own in two states. I live in my hometown, Virginia Beach, and my dream city, Las Vegas (I even started a third blog channel about things to do in this fabulous city.)

Looking back at almost a decade of starting before I was ready, inch by inch, day-by-day consistency, I’m no longer only an influencer, a writer, or a blogger. I’m an innovator. A company creator. From one tiny niche blog about an annual sale, I’ve created a wildly profitable network built on the innovation of shared media and the power of distributed original content.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

My wish for everyone, including myself, is that none of your dreams come true.

This may sound like crazy talk, but if your level of success were capped at your limited or inexperienced visions and dreams, you’d destroy all possibilities of shattering glass ceilings!

So, my wish for everyone is infinite success — beyond your dreams. A wish for a movement of trust in one’s personal seeking, exploring, and executing capabilities. And starting before you’re ready. A capable and productive society trusting in your niche talents and pursuits. We’d thank each other and ourselves later!

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Check me out on one of my niche sites, ShaundaNecole.com, TheSoulFoodPot.com, or VegasRightNow.com.

You can also find me on Instagram@ShaundaNecole and Pinterest @ShaundaNecoleBlog.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

I’m honored. Thank you for having me!

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!

About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.