We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tara Bench. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tara below.
Tara , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.
I enjoyed my education. I studied Culinary Arts and Food Service Management at Utah State University. However, I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. I knew what I didn’t want! I didn’t want to become a chef or caterer like most of my peers. I knew enough to know that wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted.
I landed an internship in the Martha Stewart Test Kitchen. After my internship I was hired as a freelancer, then offered a job as Recipe Developer. I worked my way up the ladder, getting a promotion every year or so until I became Senior Food Editor.
Opportunities slowly came my way in my career. After working at Martha Stewart I became the Food Director at Ladies’ Home Journal magazine. When the magazine was shuttered I had a new decision to make! Do I find another job in food publishing or just take my work freelance. I did the latter and worked as a food stylist and recipe developer for clients and food brands.
My business could have stayed that way, but I wanted to do more. I still wanted to share my recipes with people and figure out how to have a stream of passive income.
Scaling up to the next step took years, and lots of self education. I started a blog and slowly learned to monetize it, use it as part of my consulting business, and still maintain my freelance work that I loved.
For me, scaling up meant I needed to take time to learn new skills. I learned how to build a website and maintain it, how to research and use keywords online, and how to run my new business wearing all the hats of creator, author, publicist, accountant and manager!
My next steps in scaling up also took several years and some successes and failures in hiring help. I knew I needed help with some of the tasks that took me away from growing the creative and production side of my business. I started small! I hired interns, then a part time employee, then two, then three.
I found that a small growing business of course can’t bring on full-time employees, and so the level of employee, and commitment is less than if the employee is full time with benefits. I went through a lot of VA’s (virtual assistants) and finally decided to invest in a head hunter, specific to my creative and blogging business.
Investments of time and money have been very important to my growth. It’s hard to set aside time, or to allocate part of the few funds you have, but in my experience I have needed to make those sacrifices in order to grow all the parts of my business.
The head hunter found me a few part-time associates that have allowed me to take a lot of tasks off my plate, freeing my time for extra marketing, writing cookbooks to become a published author, and growing the consulting part of my business.
I had to project myself into the future and create the next steps of my journey.
I lost or spent a lot of money on some bad hires, small contracts for work I thought I had to take to get bigger ones, and supplies and services I’ve needed for various parts of my business. It hasn’t been pretty all the time. I do think that has been an important part of my business. I solely own my business and have full control. I have been able to maintain that ownership and independence through sacrifice and hard work. That was my dream as a business owner: to love what I do and be independent.
It is worth it to me! I get to choose what I do, and I love what I do!
Everyone’s business is different. Your journey will be different than mine. If you want to scale up, typically you have to set your expectations appropriately. Everything won’t happen at once. There will be set backs, and great successes along the way!
Ask yourself where you want to be in the future. Keep the dreams in front of you.
Even if the wheel turns a little or a lot, the tiny progress over time will turn into something big.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I have spent over 20 years in the food publishing and creation industry, and I love it. After an internship in the Martha Stewart test kitchen I became a food editor at Martha Stewart Living. Creating recipes and learning skills in food styling, photoshoot production, and publishing was a great place for me to start my career. From there I became the Food Director of Ladies’ Home Journal magazine, which was a fun shift of perspective in the food publishing arena. I loved the legacy of Ladies’ Home Journal (It was over 135 years old when it was shuttered!), and loved reaching people through the printed pages full of cooking expertise and recipes.
I started a blog while I was freelancing as a food stylist and content creator. After my time in magazines I chose to work with various food brands, businesses and other publications as a consultant. My blog was a way to continue to share my individual style of recipes and cooking as I had in my editor positions.
With both a blog and a consulting business I have found a way to make them work together as one business. I have created a content production studio, named Tara Teaspoon Inc, and I continue to produce content packages for food brands, as well as contribute to my blog website and write cookbooks!
The content packages typically consist of specially developed recipes for a particular brand or food product. Depending on their needs I will do everything from create the recipes, produced professional photoshoots for image assets, film and edit food videos specific to the client, and help with editorial and strategic planning for the marketing or PR departments.
With the combination of my brand and blog, I often have clients ask for both content packages and influencer work such as branded blog posts and social media campaigns.
I think the most enjoyable thing about keeping both arms of my business is that I have the skills to create all kinds of food content, and I don’t have to limit myself or niche into something super specific. I have a variety of clients and their brand needs are all very different. I can create the content they need, and still post recipes on my blog of the food I love and want to share!
I am so lucky that my business keeps compounding on what I have already done and experienced, offering me new challenges and adventures.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
After I left the magazine industry I was content just freelancing. I worked on other businesses jobs, created content for other brands, and the work was varied and interesting. However, I wanted a place where I could share my own recipes and expertise; I missed that aspect of publishing in a magazine every month! I started, what I called, a recipe website. I had it in my mind that I didn’t want to be a blogger, so I decided my site wouldn’t be called a food blog!
Fast forward a few years and a friend of mine saw potential in my recipe website that I did not. She helped me see that this site could become a side hustle and make money! She invited me to a blog conference and helped me create a brand identity, all while I pushed back and still rejected the term blogger. I did see that there was money to be made and I couldn’t pass up that opportunity.
I monetized my site and it slowly began to grow into a side hustle. The more effort, time, and money I invested in it, the more it grew.
The blog has become a main part of my business, and that still rings true: the more time, education, effort, strategy, and money I invest into the blog, the more I get out of it.
I hit small milestones at first, like the first $25 I made on ads, then a larger payout for a brand sponsored post, then more ad money and larger projects. As the blog grew I had more opportunity to strengthen the brand name and opportunities for other business.
A recent milestone was writing two cookbooks under my brand name! I’m now a published author and use my books as wonderful marketing tools to grow my blog and business.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
I had a few jobs in publishing where I learned what I didn’t like in a manager or boss! It’s sad to say, but I liked the work, and didn’t love the bosses for many years. I think this happens to a lot of us. When I became “the boss” and had the opportunity to hire associates I made a point of creating an environment I thought I would like to work in.
Positive feedback, careful, limited, and professional constructive criticism, and upbeat attitudes can make work much more enjoyable and productive!
As I’ve run my own small business and had some good and bad experiences with employees, I have also realized the importance of hiring with an open mind. Of course I am hiring for a specific position and have a need for specific tasks to be taken care of, but I also like to get the associates in, and see what they enjoy and excel in! Sometimes I have adjusted the job so it fits the hire better, rather than vice versa and trying to fit a hire into a specific job!
When an employee enjoys the work, can foresee growth, take on challenges and succeed the morale goes through the roof. This means being in good contact with the employee, having regular discussions and offering opportunities for brainstorming or agenda’d meetings so things stay on track.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tarateaspoon.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tarateaspoon/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tarateaspooninc/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-bench-7659021/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaraTeaspoonInc
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TaraTeaspoonOfficial
Image Credits
Ty Mecham