Tag Archives: The Ashley’s Reality Roundup

Episode 61: Develop a Business Mind with Zeb Welborn

Develop a Business Mind Ashley Majeski The Ashley's Reality Roundup

Ashley Majeski

In my discussion with Ashley Majeski from The Ashley’s Reality Roundup, she explained how she first started writing about reality television and how much she enjoyed it.  She received encouragement from her family and friends, who loved her writing and suggested she do more of it.  She saw that as an opportunity to start her business.  She needed to develop a business mind.

Sometimes, doing what you love is not enough. Sometimes, you have to apply business principles to the things you love in order to turn your passion into a career.  I love being an entrepreneur because figuring out ways to build a better business, ultimately gives me the opportunity to help more people.  If you find yourself doing something you love, but you haven’t made a career out of it, you might need help to develop a business mind.

My wife, Cindy is very talented artistically.  She creates great pieces of artwork and truly enjoys the process of creating new art, but she can never do something she loves as often as she would want because she needs to focus on paying the bills.  But, if she would develop a business mind, she could do the thing she loves must and have a happy, fulfilling career.

A good friend of mine, Richie absolutely loves music.  I’ve never seen someone more passionate about a topic.  He even created a CD for a friend of mine for his bachelor party where the entire CD was personalized for his friend.  To do something like that . . . you have to love music.  He’s also extremely talented, but he hasn’t figured out a way to turn his passion into a career.  He is working on it though which I give him props for.  He just needs help developing his business mind.

Even if you do something you don’t love, but you’re good at, you can still create passive income from it.  My sister Lacey is very talented when it comes to website design, but early on she discovered that she didn’t enjoy it very much.  It was great that she discovered website design was not the career for her, but she still could have made more money from her unique website design skill.  She could have hired staff and trained them on website design skills and referred business their way, since people have come to respect her website design skills.

My Dad, Larry Welborn is the epitome of success.  In junior high school he knew he wanted to become a journalist and worked to get himself involved in a career he loved.  For 43 years my Dad worked for the Orange County Register and most of his time was spent in the courthouse as the court reporter for the Register.  He loved his job and was great at it.  He developed a business mind early on by connecting with the right people who could help him get the career of his dreams.  Once he found himself in his career he also began helping others who shared his same passion.

Larry Welborn Develop a Business Mind Orange County Register

Larry Welborn

I found something I love to do with Welborn Media.  Helping small business owners get more business through social media is the most rewarding thing I feel I could be doing with my time.  So many opportunities have come about because I developed my business mind to work to sell my goods and services so that I can grow my business and help more businesses thrives.  But, it hasn’t been easy.  Once I began to develop a business mind I really started to evolve as a business and it’s growing.  Even though my business mind isn’t fully developed, I’m working on it every day to try and develop new business and create more opportunities to help others.

Ashley figured out how to make money from something she loved.  She knew she couldn’t just keep writing for the fun of it, so she developed her business mind and created opportunities for herself to make a living from her writing.  The happiest and most successful entrepreneurs are those who have figured out how to make money from the things they love to do most.  Our economic system is geared to give us the opportunity to help people with our passions.

Develop a business mind in order to make a difference.

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Episode #5 – Having a Business Mind | Ashley Majeski from The Ashley’s Reality Roundup

Reality TV blogger Ashley Majeski tells us about how she got started in blogging and the opportunities it’s created. “It was random”, she says after watching an episode of ‘The Bachelor’ and her friends telling her she should write down all the quips she makes during the show. So she did. After googling her way through the startup process, Ashley began to figure out how to blog and how to have a business mind while doing it.

Ashley Majeski from The Ashley's Reality Roundup

Ashley Majeski from The Ashley’s Reality Roundup

Since she started writing at age 13, through to college where she covered sports and school activities, it seems Ashley has always had a pen to paper, only now it’s a keyboard but her drive has never dulled. She got an internship with the magazine Us Weekly and it was there she fine-tuned her writing toward celebrity journalism. Modeling her site after celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, Ashley narrowed her focus down even further to reality television.

So, you have your blog…now what? How do you get readers?  Ashley says that while trying to figure out this very question,  she discovered a niche of readers with the show ‘Teen Mom’. Every time she would write about this show, her hits would dramatically increase. Eventually, even some of the stars from the shows she was covering would read and generate even more traffic. Ashley quickly became the subject matter expert in reality TV, answering questions and fielding calls from major news outlets looking to her and her sight for information on the shows.

For Ashley, her blog has opened many doors, a far cry from the days of “googling her way through it”. She cautions however that this business is “ridiculously hard to get into” and once you’re in, you walk a very fine line between writing about people to poking fun at them. She says she never intends to be negative, rather she’s had the most success with keeping things positive.

Now people are reading your blog, can you make any money with it? Ashley admits she was spending all of her time working on the blog and decided to try her hand at making some money with it. She began to put ads on her blog and with a few key interviews with major news organizations, her readership skyrocketed and she started to see some positive cash flow. Ashley had developed a strong business mind when it came to managing her blog.

Ashley recommends using a self-hosted blog, meaning make sure you set up your own website with your own domain name because eventually you will be able to post your own ads on your blog page.

One of her favorite article’s was when she was working with the New York Post for a character on Teen Mom and it was picked up by outlets all over the country and it started the storm and because of the story it forced MTV to comment on the future of the show.  Ashley thought it was interesting to show how one story can have such a strong impact on our world.

She enjoys having reality TV stars contact her to post articles on their lives and how these people feel connected to these reality stars. And she’s able to help people to connect with others who they’ve found value in.  Ashley says in order to run a good blog, you have to be very consistent because people lose interest fast and so many other people are doing blog-writing now-a-days.  “Always be  prepared to work.”   Always be willing to ask for help and always give help when you’re asked.

When becoming a blog writer, it’s important to make a distinction for you blog.  Whether your blog is a for-fun blog or a for-profit blog because the strategy is entirely different.  A for-fun blog is a blog where you’re writing just for your own pleasure and a for-profit blog is a blog where your build readership and create things to sell.  Sometimes people post ads and in some cases they are trying to sell a product.

One of the biggest mistakes Ashley has made is being to brutal to some of the reality TV stars she’s written blogs about and she’s learned from her mistakes by being more light-hearted in her writing and does not resort to attacking a person’s character.  Her recent goals are to expand her writing to include more reality television.  All of these people say they are looking for love, but really they are looking for fame.  Ashley says the best reality TV show to watch now is the Bachelor.

Ashley believes that success is doing something you love to do every single day and that other people care about it.  She thought that if she could have picked any career this is what she would want to be able to do.  Success means you’re happy and Ashley is definitely happy.

To follow up with Ashley, go to www.theashleysrealityroundup.com or www.twitter.com/theashleysrr

Engaging Discussion Questions:

  • If you could write a blog on any topic, what topic would you choose?

Links to Great Stuff:

  • The Ashley’s Reality Roundup – I apologize for the mistake in the podcast where I said the name of the website wrong, but for those of you interested in following up with Ashley Majeski or learning more about reality TV shows like the Bachelor and Teen Mom, please visit www.theashleysrealityroundup.com
  • Welborn Media

Success Quotes:

“Always be prepared to work.” – Ashley Majeski

Special Requests:

 

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