Interview with Chris Miles of Blog Revolution

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the developer podcast where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of interviews or calling this interviews 2.0. In this episode, we are wrapping up our interview with Chris Miles of Blog Revolution. We have traveled far and wide in our conversation talking about how to build a business, talking about blogging and podcasting, putting content out there, that whole affiliate marketing approach and how he built one from scratch. So very much just like you, just a normal guy that has put the work in, put some, there's definitely some effort, some research, some thought that went into what he's done. But over time, he was able to recover the income from his wife and then also for himself say, hey, I'm going to go be my own boss. And that story alone was one of those where it's like very well done. It's awesome that he had that timing so that he didn't have to lose his vacation. We wrap up in this episode our discussion with him. We talk a little bit about the sort of that build versus buy wrapping up that conversation and get into a couple of little other things talking about Benji's dad, which if you've followed him at all, you will have seen that noted somewhere along the way. And then we would go off the rails a little bit maybe and just talk about a couple of other items just sort of wrapping up. But it was one of those could have cut it, but figured, hey, a little slice of life stuff, not geeking out quite as much as normal. And so maybe it will just be a nice little like lighter episode as we wrap this up and maybe a little time for you to just think about some of these nuggets that have been dropped off in the last couple of episodes and maybe a little bit of time to think about where will you take this this information and what will you do with it? So without any further ado, let's get back into our conversation. Yeah, and it expands past just lawn maintenance. You know, that's that's an ideology we're thinking that can work with pretty much anything. You know, sometimes it's just better to hire someone else to do it for you, especially if they can do it better and faster. But when you're first getting started and you're bootstrapping everything, then yeah, you will have to do quite a bit of it yourself. But the cool thing about what I do, especially with the blogging is that, you know, you can start a blog for maybe 20 bucks. It's one of the super, super low, what do you call it, entry level. You know, you don't have to worry about too, too much. We're getting started with it. Barrier of entry, that's the word I was thinking of, you know, very, very low. And they have pretty high profit margins as well. So that's the part I like. Yeah, that was something actually. Yeah, we we created a thing a couple of years ago is launch your Internet business. And it was it's like using Amazon and some of the free stuff that's out there and WordPress and all these things. And I think it ended up like if you added it all up, you could include you. It was basically the money. Most of the money was for your domain name. And it was like the whole thing was, I think, for 35 bucks, you were covered for a year. You got a website for a year. You know, you're you're set to go. You know, now you have to spend a lot. Well, I guess you still don't get you have to get your SSL and get your certificate, your certificate certificate. And there's free places to get that stuff. So, you know, it's one of those at the cost. The barriers to entry from a cost point of view, from a money point of view, are very low. But now you have to spend the time. You know, that's the thing is swapping the money for the time to go. And some of those are the tools are pretty good. So you have to design out your site and put your content together and things like that. Either you have more time than money or more money than time. And when you based on what the answer is to that question is basically how you need to proceed. Yeah, that's yeah, that's that's that is like that is the best way to sum it. That's which way do you want to go? You want to you got a lot of money and go pay somebody to do it. If you got a lot of time, then maybe you're better off to do it yourself. But I think for for people like ourselves, we are IT oriented, where your problem solver in general. I think there's a huge value in doing it yourself. Because then, like you said, like you learned it, so you could create create your SOPs. But also, there's probably some of that stuff where you're like, hey, I can take this and I can do this little script or I can get this little application or whatever it is and do it for me. And then I don't have to hire somebody and I don't have to do it. I just kick it off and let a computer do it somewhere. Yeah. And then you can also call BS on people who charge you too much. What they do because I can't tell you how many times someone reaches out to me. They'll find one of my sites or whatever and they'll reach out and say, hey, you need to redesign your site so that it can appear better and SEO. And I'm like, dude, that's what I do for a living. It's SEO. But they'll say this and they'll say, oh, we charge you X amount of dollars. And I'm like, that's way too much. Come on. You know, but but they're trying to plague on people who, you know, don't know. They don't know what they don't know. And because of that, they end up overspending for stuff. So being able to do know what you're supposed to do or at least how to do it, you don't have to be an expert at it, but at least know the process that people are going through. That makes it better for you for when you do hire out someone else to do it for you. Yeah, that's it's that's that's a whole bunch of little funny things. Yeah, consulting. That's one of the things I do a lot of times when I put proposals out to people that they'll sort of say, hey, I need a I need a site to do this or I need, you know, I need to go build this thing or that thing. And one of the boilerplate basically things that I have essentially says, look, for where you're at and what you want to get to is not a simple step. And I've seen so many people screw that up. And then they they just dive into it. It's like, you know, they've got something like scribbled down on on a napkin somewhere. And it's basically like, oh, here, here's my here's my ID. Or it's my favorite one is like, just go build something like eBay or get go build something like PayPal. I say, well, no, it's not that simple. It's not. And then there'll be like, especially when they're like, and, you know, here's here's a hundred dollar budget. Go build eBay. It's like, no, that's not how it works. One, what do you want? I mean, I can put you a site that says eBay on it, but, you know, it's like you've got to you've got to think through this stuff a little bit. And you've got to understand that there's a lot of decisions to be made when you're building out some of these things that that you've got to do it yourself. You can tell somebody, you know, hire them and they're going to go do that. But if they don't understand your business, they're not going to give you that solution. And the SEO people are famous. I get so many of those, you know, those spam emails. Hey, we rent, we found your site and it's so awesome, but we can pay us a billion dollars and we'll, we'll knock you up a rank or something like that. It's just like, okay, I don't even want to deal with it. Oh, wow. The time has just been flying by. So before, so we'll sort of wrap this one up. That one thing that was really interesting from the start and connecting with you is that your email includes Benji's dad. And that's me. And I like I've done a parenting podcast years ago. But so, so is that how did that evolve? Is that something like from day one, you're like a dad and says, awesome. Or, you know, sort of how did that, how did that all evolve? So when I was, when I had the idea, okay, I want to start a website, you know, so I was like, all right, what are we going to do? So I knew that I wanted to jump into, you know, something that was going to be able to create some recurring income online. And what are we going to call the business is, you know, always a thing. And you got to be careful because you get stuck in what am I going to call a business for like months and then you never don't make a move. But I had a couple of fights and I remember my wife was like, hey, why don't you just call it like, you know, you're going to be a dad. Right. So, and then we stumbled across Benji's dad. I was like, wow, that's not bad because that's my son's name. And we went with it. So I remember I started the YouTube channel and everything with it and it ended up working out pretty well because then people immediately told my story right there in those two words. You know, and because of that, people would stumble across it, be like, Benji, what kind of a name is that? And then they'll start looking at it and they'll look at, you know, maybe my channel trailer or something like that. And they'll look at, you know, maybe my channel trailer or something when it comes to my home page and oh, wow, that's, you know, that's pretty good. You know, he actually has a story and, you know, I think I forgot what the old saying is specifically, but it says people don't care what you do unless they know how much you care kind of a thing. So going through that whole process, then people will say, OK, he's not just trying to show me how to do this. He's not trying to show me how to do that. He actually has been through this entire process and he's been through what I've been through, but he's just a little further along. And once that kind of worked out and then the name kind of stuck at that point. And so now I put everywhere, you know, Benji's dad, Benji's dad, and now I'm doing the Blogger Revolution, which is the podcast that I have. And it's still there, but I always make sure I put Benji's dad somewhere in parentheses somewhere so that people can see it for that. It's just like they can make the connection there. So that's pretty much how it started and probably going to be sticking with it. I don't think my son is old enough to appreciate that he has a whole business with his name on it. But maybe we'll figure out something once he gets a little older. Yeah, there you go. Give it a couple of years and maybe Benji's dad and Benji, you know, that'll be like, yeah, what you're involved in. Reason, you said you had a parenting podcast. Was it like was it with any of your kids? No, that actually it was funny. That was at the time that was one of the things that had been suggested a couple of times was to have my kids on and do interviews with them. And I had there were a couple because of that, I was sort of in that space for a while. I listened to several parenting podcasts and there were a couple that were like mom, mother, daughter, father, son and stuff like that. And I was always like, wow, that would be that would be pretty cool. And actually, that was my very first like regular blog that I did when my my daughter was born. I created like from day one, I like threw all the pictures out on a website real quick and said to the family, said, hey, here's here's all the pictures. And then when I started doing it, I would do updates like once a month or every couple of weeks. And I always had like a little mini blog that was written from her point of view. And it was funny because she was like, yeah, she was like a year and a half old and people are like, wow, she can type so well. And I was like, oops. And then she got to a point where she was old enough to do it, where it was like, you know, I think it's probably eight, nine years old or something like that, because I just kept it up, kept it up, kept it up. I said, well, would you like to write? She goes, oh, no, I don't want to do that. But I would talk to her and get like a little bit of her input. And so it would. Yeah, I started to adopt her her voice a little bit as I did it more. But it was just one of those. It was like it was it was it was a fun little thing to have that sort of almost like a dialogue with my daughter as that grew up. Yeah, a lot of parents and stuff do that. And I'm like a false sort of like, you know, I see a lot they kind of exploit their kids and I don't want to do that. Right. So I'm just kind of for a long time, I didn't show a picture of you on anything. And I remember people when they finally like would meet me face to face, they'll ask me, hey, is Benji real? You know, yes, he's real. He's real. They come, you know, but I didn't want to do that. But as he got a little bit older, sometimes he'll pop up on Instagram feed or pop up here or there. And people see, oh, he's actually a real person. But I've always had the idea of like, man, I wonder how cool it'd be to like maybe do a podcast or or something where I can get his point of view on something. You know, but it'll be when he gets a little older, obviously. But it is something that I've always thought about. Yeah, that's something I've thought about a couple of times now is because my kids are my oldest ones are grown and out of the house and such and professionals themselves. And I've thought about sometimes reaching out to them and have a conversation, particularly to get their point of view, because they're, you know, they're millennials and getting some of their their point of view of the millennial world and that and their work and their profession. So it is it's a neat little thing. So you never know what will happen. He may never want it. He may be like, yes, I'm Benji, dad, I'm that Benji. Or he may be like, you know, have like a little, you know, has it on his shirt and everything. Yeah, I'm Benji's dad. This is awesome. Yeah, you know, kids, they have no idea what direction they're going to go with stuff. So we'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. Is there like a ideal place to get a hold of you if anybody's got questions or wants to check things out? And then to do you have any parting thought or thoughts for for the crowd after, you know, spin? And again, I want to thank you for spending your time here. This has been a real fun interview and it's just time has flown by. Yeah, no worries. It's been super exciting for me as well, Rob. So I mean, I'm not too worried about it. But no, for sure. People can, you know, I have the podcast blogger evolution podcast. So be sure to go subscribe there, you know, and listen. I always try to talk about what people are interested in in terms of building up a passive income with a blog. But if you want to reach out to me personally, then you can catch me on Instagram as well. You can search Benji's dad and I'll be one of the first ones to pop up. And other than that, I guess some parting words, I guess. One of my favorite sayings is do something now that your future self will thank you for. So, you know, again, just the whole fearing, fearing regret more than you fear failure. And by going through the whole process, I want to be able to make it to the other side and thank myself from three years ago. Man, I'm glad I tried. I'm glad I did that. Otherwise, I don't want to be on the other side and thinking, man, I wish I could have, you know, you should have could have, you know, people will say. So I guess will be something now that your future self will thank you for. That's brilliant. That's that's nice, wise words. And I'm assuming you're thanking yourself quite a bit for what yourself did four or five years ago. So, hey, I'm still fighting, man. I don't I don't want to I don't want to settle. You're like your future self is constantly increasing what you should be doing today, right? It's like, hey, you got to get up your game. It's a blessing and a curse. Let's get a curse. All right. Well, I'll let you get to it then and say hi to Benji and the family and everything as you go out and enjoy your day. All right. Well, thanks a lot again. This has been a great, good time. We'll keep in touch and have yourself a good day. Enjoy hanging out with your son and have a good week and we'll talk again sometime, I'm sure. Thanks a lot. I'll see you. Have a good one. Bye. And that will wrap it up. I did warn you we did get a little bit off the rails talking about some other podcasts and parenting and things like that. However, I think the key was actually the parting thought really is one of the keys of this episode is do something today that your future self will thank you for. I think a lot of times we avoid doing something today and tomorrow or a week from now or six months from now, our future self is saying, I wish I had done it yesterday, last week or six months ago. There is no better time and it's that old saw there's no better time than today to start something other than 10 years ago. And I think a life that has, I guess we'll call it regrets, where there are things that you look back and say, man, I wish I had given that a shot is going to be very different from a retrospective where you look back and say, wow, I did a whole bunch of stuff. And sometimes it failed. Sometimes it didn't work out because you find that when it doesn't work out, those failures, those things, those missteps, they're really not that bad. It really wasn't a big deal. It's just like, oh, hey, that happened. I learned a few things and you never know when that's something as we talked about in a whole series, a season of mistakes. And sometimes those things are like a pivot point for you to move forward and a key to your future success. So hopefully this has been motivating for you as well as a little bit informative, a lot of little ideas, I think maybe that you can use to build your own blog, your own content, go find what you enjoy doing and share it with others and see how that goes. That being said, I don't want to stop you from, I don't want to get you out there. So your future self will thank me for cutting it off a little bit early. So go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week. And we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. Hi, this is Rob from Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. We're excited to be on Alexa now. You can enable us by simply saying, Alexa, enable Building Better Developers. And we will be there ready for you every time you want to listen to your now favorite podcast. Whether we are your favorite podcast or not, we would love to hear from you. So please leave a review on Amazon.