Don’t forget our Influencer Training Scheme is designed to help you build strong working relationships with brands – apply to join today.
Hi, I’m Rachel Evans, a behaviour change psychologist and award-winning health blogger who specialises in the psychology of eating and creating delicious plant-based recipes.
I completed the first round of the influencer training scheme in 2018 in preparation for leaving the world of academia and starting full-time with my blog and business (working with clients who want to create a better relationship with food and their body).
I’d love to share with you a bit about my blogging journey and how I got to be running my own business.
I started my blog Healthy & Psyched in late 2015 at the same time as I started my PhD in psychology at the University of Sheffield. I’d just moved to a new city and was starting to enjoy life, and food, again after a period of very restrictive eating. My initial idea for my blog was to share the latest health trends and reviews of restaurants/exercises classes / ‘clean eating’ products, but I quickly decided that I didn’t really like writing reviews and that I enjoyed creating recipes far more.
I focused on that content, with some extras thrown in, such as mental health tips and my series ‘confessions of a health blogger’.
In 2016 I won ‘Health Blogger of the Year’ at the Health Bloggers Community x That Protein awards, which really helped to boost my confidence in my ability to run a blog.
When did you begin to view your blog as more than just a hobby?
To be honest it’s only in the past year, since I officially registered my business, that I’ve seriously started to think of my blog as an income stream. When I first started my blog I viewed it as a way to connect with like-minded people and I was happy to get freebies from brands.
While I am still always grateful to the people who support Healthy & Psyched by leaving comments or making my recipes and I do feel excited if a brand wants to work with me, the blog has opened up opportunities for me in terms of creating paid content for brands and also advertising my psychological services to clients. I’m taking the plunge and running my business full-time from October 2018 and my blog is going to be a big part of that.
What skills have you learnt from the influencer training scheme?
Transparency and integrity are hugely important to me and the influencer training scheme taught me the best ways to be honest with my audience about paid content/ affiliate links and differentiating my own views or opinions from statements based on evidence.
I come from a science background and I’ve been in academia for almost 8 years now, so it’s important to me that I create credible content based on evidence.
I enjoyed the process of producing an editorial policy during the influencer training scheme to ensure that my content remains up-to-date or that I have the appropriate disclaimers in place on certain posts.
How has this helped you manage brand partnerships and negotiate fees for campaigns?
The influencer training scheme has definitely helped me to evaluate a brand’s level of professionalism and if I would like to enter into a partnership with them, be that for a single post or an ongoing relationship. I find negotiating fees for campaigns easier since the introduction of the influencer pricing guidelines; it’s great to have something objective and independent to refer to and brands can see exactly how I have calculated my prices.
What’s the biggest thing you have actioned since the training?
The biggest thing I’ve actioned is having a contract or written agreement before I start to work with a brand. That way expectations are clear from the get-go and I think it helps to avoid misunderstandings and bad feelings. I think this is going to be crucial when I am relying on brand partnerships as a source of income in the next year.
What is the most important tip when it comes to time management?
Realise when your work on a project (e.g. blog post, photo edits) is ‘good enough’. If you’re a perfectionist like me then you’ll always want to try your hardest at everything and get it perfect, no matter how long that takes. But if you’re running your own blog or business then it’s likely that spending too much time on one job will eat into the time that you’d allotted to do another. I think that knowing when to stop is super important so you don’t end up working ridiculous hours and your wellbeing suffers because of it.
What one piece of advice would you give to anyone wanting to make the leap into full-time blogging?
I would say make sure you have enough contacts and opportunities lined up for the next 6 months. I hardly ever mention this, but I really wanted to quit my PhD after 6 months and take my blog full-time (I think we can agree that creating recipes can be more fun than studying). I had a few contacts at the time and was making recipes in exchange for products for a few brands. But deep down I knew that it wasn’t really enough to make it feasible for me to leap into full-time blogging.
Two and half years later, I have learnt so much about blogging, promoting posts, editing my website, public speaking and so many other skills. Even now, I’m only planning to do my blog part-time, and the rest of the time will be spent with 1-1 consultations or workshops with clients who want to build a better relationship with food.
For now, I don’t think that either one would make me happy if I did it full-time, but who knows what might happen in the future!
Don’t forget our Influencer Training Scheme is designed to help you build strong working relationships with brands – apply to join today.
