We're Every Further Mile!

We all have our go-to experts.

When we’re starting something new, whether it be a new fitness routine, new diet, new job, new business, we want to find those who are well seasoned to give us the best advice and set us on the right path.

But something that we tend to forget is that most of our experts started out as beginners. Many started by diving in and figuring out what they are doing by trial and error, by utilizing some of the skills they already have and by looking to others they thought of as experts.

Many of our experts started out with zero, zip, zilch email subscribers. No audience. No social media following.

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They had to build their own website (or pay someone to do it). They had to write a bunch of posts to begin to build up their blog. They struggled over what the best email offer would be. They may have even struggled and flip-flopped with the exact content and niche they were offering, wondering if it was the right choice. And finally, they all made mistakes on their journey to ‘expert’.

Our experts started from scratch just like us.

Why is this important to point out? Because it’s important to recognize that we all start from the beginning, we all start from scratch and there’s little to stop us from being able to accomplish what the experts accomplish.

With hard work, dedication and a desire for continuous learning, you can also achieve what the experts achieved.

Let’s take a look at 6 Millionaire Bloggers who started a blog before being an expert:

Expert Blogger #1: Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income:

Earnings: Approx $200,000 per month and $2.1Million in the last 12 months

Pat has been an expert to many, and mine for about 7 years. I’ve followed him as he started his podcast and has grown from approximately $40k to $200k per month.

Smart Passive Income is a blog that is dedicated to helping online entrepreneurs (bloggers, eCommerce, affiliate marketing, etc) become successful. He started as a blogger himself after finding success with his Green Exam Academy website, then branched out into podcasting and, now, vlogs on YouTube (when you’re done reading this, pop over and subscribe, he’s awesome).  

When Smart Passive Income began had only one successful website that had brought him in about $2k per month, but his knowledge had surpassed those just starting out, so he was able to begin offering advice to others. He was an expert in his own right, but my guess is that he would say he had a while to go before he could truly claim the title.

As he wrote his blogs, helped others, interviewed niche experts and built up his blog, Pat absolutely earned the right to become the expert.

One of the smartest things he did was to bring authenticity to online business and learning how to create your own online business. With so many out there with ‘get rich quick’ schemes, he insisted on telling his audience that it takes time and dedication to make money online. He is one of the ones to pave the way to real business online.

Lesson Learned: Pave the way for something new. Take a look at what’s being done and offer something better, honest and authentic.

Expert Blogger #2: Marie Forleo from Marie Forleo

Earnings: Net worth of about $4.5Million (this is an estimate)

Okay, so I’m definitely starting with the top experts that I follow. Marie Forleo was someone that was presented to me in a time I really needed her. While I love Pat Flynn’s advice, I also seemed to have a hard time finding a female entrepreneur to emulate. I kind of felt stuck in a ‘man’s world’ and really wanted to find a strong female expert to look to and connect with.

While I try not to stick to gender stereotypes, there are times that I just simply relate better to women over men (sorry Pat! It’s not you, it’s me!).   

Who is Marie Forleo?

She is a lifestyle and business coach with her own beautiful blog and online television show. Her approach to online business is to offer clean, elegant and interesting (and often quirky) content on business and life. When I watch her episodes, I am reminded of the approach Oprah has taken in answering hard questions, interviewing interesting guests, and offering meaningful advice.

Before she started her coaching business, she did have a Business Finance degree and had experience working at the New York Stock Exchange. When she decided to start her coaching business she had to moonlight as a bartender to make ends meet. Just like everyone else, she started at ground zero and worked her way into the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people across the world.  

Lesson Learned: Find your niche in your way and time; that reflects your personality and skills. Maybe you’ll come out with something as beautiful as Marie.

Expert Blogger #3: Michelle Schroeder from Making Sense of Cents

Earnings: As high as $240K in one month and over $1.5Million in one year

Expert #3 (Not in order of importance) is Michelle. She has been a finance blogger for many years and been showing her more than full time income, income reports since 2013. She keeps her blog fairly basic (not her info!) and makes her money primarily through affiliate marketing, ads and product sales. She’s the successful entrepreneur who created the helpful and thorough “Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing” course that I took to start making money on my blog. It continues to be one of her biggest money generators thanks to her excellent content that many bloggers like to share.

When Michelle began her blog she had already earned two undergraduate business degrees and an MBA in Finance and ended up with a total student loan debt of about $40,000.  Her blog began primarily with her desire to pay off her students loans.

Michelle began her blog as a finance expert indeed, but  she was not a blogging expert. She still had to work hard and long to grab the attention of her audience and build up her success. As her blog grew, so did the questions of how her readers could also make money online. And even though Michelle still didn’t feel like a blogging expert she began to share the advice she had learned.

Lesson Learned: Use what you know and as long as you are a few steps ahead of your audience, you have something valuable to share to help them on their journey.

Expert Blogger #4: Kimra Luna from Freedom Hackers

Earnings: Over $3Million in total (Just from Be True Brand You Course)

Kimra has perhaps the most inspiring story of them all. Before her blog began, she had intense financial struggles. She, her husband and two children lived with her in-laws and were on welfare. They could barely make ends meet.

While being a stay-at-home mom, she decided to try to supplement their income by taking an online job in sales and marketing for a skin care product line. During this time she became popular on Pinterest and learned how to use this platform well to promote her products.

Learning from other female entrepreneurs, she decided to jump into creating her own online business teaching other women (and men) how to utilize Pinterest like she did. With a small amount of credit available, she used it to buy courses, Facebook ads and tools. From this meager beginning, she built herself an empire. Now, Kimra is one of the millionaire online entrepreneurs that many people love to learn from.

One of the major things that stands out to me about Kimra and her approach to online business is her unique look. With bright blue hair, nose piercing and unique clothes, she stands out in the crowd of entrepreneurs in a fun and interesting way. This extends to her galaxy themed website Freedom Hackers where you get to play around with choosing some fun space crafts and characters. If you want to see a blogger who stands out among the rest, check out Kimra.

Lesson Learned: Stand out! Find your unique brand and use it to draw your audience, the one that will connect best with who you are and what you can offer them. 

Expert Blogger #5: Jeremy Schoemaker from ShoeMoney.com

Earnings: Approx. $10million (over a number of years)

Confession time: When I started this post, I didn’t know about ShoeMoney or Jeremy at all (well, perhaps I heard his name before), but I never looked him up. Now, I think I may have my latest blogger-crush. This guy has so much success it hurts my brain to think about it. Not only that, but he seems to be a pretty awesome guy (read on, you’ll see why).

When Jeremy got his start, it was because he offered content on someone else’s website, Digitalpoint, and had been suggested that he could likely put in the effort for his own blog and actually make money. Starting with the name GoogleNinja didn’t work out for him (as he got a cease and desist), he finally settled on the blog ShoeMoney.

It’s fitting that he shows people various ways to use your “skills to pay the bills”, since he actually doesn’t make his millions from this blog in particular, but rather his ‘side hustles’ (not really side hustles at all) that are connected to his blog. He made connections and began making money through events and the great online businesses that he created. All in all, he has generated over $10million. Jeremy sold multiple websites for millions EACH! And if you’re looking for a great guy to work for, think about applying to work for Jeremy, he apparently gave EACH of his employees $1million (maybe he only had 1 or 2, I don’t know, but still…).

This millionaire blogger didn’t start with everything figured out and it took him time to build up his network and his businesses to get to where he is today: Working from home on his BlogNinja and ShoeMoney sites with no employees and lots of family time.

Sounds good to me!

Lesson Learned: Make connections. Be diligent. Do your own thing and build your own business.

Want to start your own blog so that you can get on this road to ‘millionaire’? Maybe even just on the road to financial freedom and location freedom. That’s our goal! (Millionaire is just too pie in the sky for me right now!)

But, you can get started within minutes (not exaggerating) with only $3.95/month. Blogging is the cheapest business startup with the most to gain and least risk!

It’s never too soon to get started! Click here for my easy guide to get started and sign up here for my free email course to teach you how to fill your blog to be ready for your audience.