45: Growing a 7 Figure Blog Business with Will Hatton, The Broke Backpacker

Will Hatton went from 10,000 downloads to a million in SIX months and now runs a 7 figure business and blog, The Broke Backpacker. Will found a crack in the travel content creator space of no-one sharing true broke backpacker advice, filled the void and blew up.
 
It is an honor to have him on as a guest today and today we are diving into how he found such massive growth in SIX months time and how he built systems and hired teams for his new business. 

In this episode we cover:

• How will went from 10,000 downloads to millions in six months time 
• Why you should outsource to grow your content creation exponentially faster 
• How to track your stats and progress over the years to not give up when things get hard as a content creator
• How to differentiate yourself against the rest of the congested travel content creator space 

Connect with Will:
@willhatton_
The Broke Backpacker

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Transcript

 [00:00:00] Hey, travel creators. Welcome back to another episode. And this one feels especially exciting because I have with me will Hatton, who is the creator of the broke backpacker, which is. A blog that I use every single week. When I'm creating travel content for travel craters. So I can't really even believe he agreed to. Chat with me on the show, but I do what I can for you. 

Laura: So without further ado, let's learn everything will has for us on how he started. Blogging and eventually made seven figures. And still counting. Welcome to the show. Well, I can't break in, wait to show this episode with everyone. okay. one thing I want to know about the Rogue Backpacker is, looking back at your time building it, what [00:01:00] was one mistake you wish you could tell your younger self to avoid? in this process. And if you can't think of one, you can think of a few or something that you're like, dang, that I wish I wouldn't have done that.

Laura: Or I wish I could just shake my younger self and say like, stop doing this and or spend more time doing this and not this. 

Will: Yeah. I mean, I've been working on the Brokeback Packet for 12 years and it took a bit of time before I was able to Make a living out of that project. So I was doing other things on the side to kind of survive and keep it going.

Will: Um, but then when it did take off, it kind of exploded and I was in this position where I had this suddenly this, this massive site that had gone from like 10, 000 users a month to like a quarter of a million, then half a million, then a million in like a six month period. Whoa. It was massive. The growth was like insane.

Will: And I had, I had no formal training, no real idea about building [00:02:00] teams and about hiring people. And I also was coming from a background where I was quite anxiety prone and I really like wanted. To work with cool people. And I think now a lot of the time that got in the way of me, like listening to my intuition.

Will: So I think that when you're building something and it starts to get to that critical mass period of growth, you need to listen to intuition about who you let in and about who you choose to work with, because. You'll have a lot of opportunities to find the right people, but not everybody is the right person.

Will: And I ended up working with some people who were definitely not the right people to help me grow the site in a way that I wanted to. And then another thing that definitely springs out, um, Is is knowing when to outsource and when to not to outsource like really knowing what you're good at and what only you can do So i'm good at negotiation.

Will: I'm good at like client facing stuff. I'm good at building systems. I'm good at scaling terrible [00:03:00] at building websites Terrible at social media just not interested Not a very visual person, but I would previously I tried to do everything myself And I was like, I can teach myself how to do everything from YouTube videos, right?

Will: You could, but at some point, you've got to decide, well, you know, my special source is this. And this is where I need to be spending my time in the day. Not spending eight hours working out how to use Canvas so that I can design my own logo. Just pay somebody how to do it. But I think a lot of early entrepreneurs, they struggle to relinquish that control and they feel like if it's their business, if it's their face, especially, they feel like they have to do everything themselves.

Will: And that's like a surefire way to basically not move forwards and to burn out. And then I think the third thing that really kind of jumps out at me is like a mistake that I made was not being able to reflect on the progress I was making and [00:04:00] celebrate that. And just to, you know, to like my, my mood, how I was feeling changed on a daily basis based on like how much traffic I was receiving, how much engagement I was receiving.

Will: And I got a lot happier and got a lot more done when I stopped looking. And I just started looking at like a one month kind of timeline and I was tracking my progress. I was asking myself questions at the end of every month to see how I felt I was doing in different parts of my life, how I felt I was doing different parts of my business.

Will: And having that to look back on year after year, month after month was a very powerful way of me being able to quantify how far I had come. And I think that a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck and end up kind of getting depressed, giving up, running out of steam because they're unable to realize how far they've come.

Will: So I think that tracking is super important for that. 

 Well, okay, so many things to say here, I'll start with talking about when you [00:05:00] feel like you need to outsource. And I chat about this in another podcast episode, but. I would highly encourage you to start making a list of things you are doing and whether you enjoy doing them and whether it requires your expertise. Because there's a lot of things you are doing right now that don't require expertise that I can help you do, such as writing your next piece of content, editing your next piece of content, strategizing your next piece of content. So that you have more time to do the things that really do require your expertise, like finding the exact brands to work with or fine tuning your pitch so that you get more brands to say yes to you. 

Laura: Aye. Recommend starting with that list of the things that you don't need to be doing. Be really meticulous and tracking what you're doing every single day. It's really interesting because then you can see like where your time really goes. 

Laura: I also totally agree that most people, when they start think that they have to do everything on their own. that is one of the quickest ways to burn out is thinking you have to do everything by yourself or [00:06:00] not thinking you have to, but feeling as though you can. I know that you can, but it's not really necessarily smart. 

Laura: So figuring out systems in ways. And even tools, software, resources to make things you're doing faster. Is going to be so helpful in the long run. 

Laura: Okay. I also am obsessed. That will tracks everything. I mean, it's so inspiring. Like I really think I'm about to go rebreak out bullet journaling. Dragging my habits and mood. After re listening to this episode. But one thing I have on my desktop that I would encourage every single person who's listening to this to have is called a feel-good folder. 

Laura: You can call it whatever you want, but anytime somebody says something nice to me. Like, wow. That was so great. Or love this episode or. Keep doing what you're doing, any of that. I take a screenshot of it and I put it in a folder and I look at that Boulder when I need to. And it is so inspiring because. As you are working on building and growing this business some days, you're like, what am [00:07:00] I even doing? 

Laura: Like, why, why, why did I give up working 40 hours a week to work a hundred hours a week? And then you open that folder and you see all the things people have said to you. And it just helps you to keep going and reminds you that you've come so far because. He's so right. It's so often we don't give ourselves enough. Room to look at where we've come from. It is so hard to look back at what you've done, especially when there are so many other people who are trying to do what you're doing or in a similar way.

Laura: how did you deal with this massive growth that happened in a six month period? 

Will: Well, I think I always felt that the space that I was trying to occupy had a lot of opportunity because at the time the blogs that were out there were very much focused on people who had disposable income.

Will: And instead the angle that I was taking was, Hey, you can actually have whatever kind of lifestyle you want. You can [00:08:00] travel, but you've got to be willing to step far out of your comfort zone, that means hitchhiking, couch surfing, camping, you know, wild cooking, all of these skills that will make you into a more capable human.

Will: And so I was really leaning into that hard and it spoke to a lot of people. So I always felt like it had that potential to blow up because when I was looking for. That kind of content for my own journey, I couldn't find it. It was all like, here's how you travel the world for 50 a day and not including flights.

Will: And I was like, I don't have 50 a day. That's like a ton of money. So I felt that the growth opportunity was always there, but then when it did take off, I mean, it just took off in this way that I never even imagined. And it was challenging trying to try and to cater to suddenly having like a real business.

Will: That was bringing in like real large amounts of money, large amounts of people, large amounts of opportunity. And it was almost so much [00:09:00] opportunity that I didn't know what to grab. And I ended up starting so many other side businesses off the back of. the Broke Backpacker, um, some of which worked out, many of which were just crushed by COVID, unfortunately.

Will: Um, I, I did end up kind of drowning in like, at one point I was running like 12 things and it was, it was, it was full on. It was full on. Now I'm involved in five things and I'm much happier at five things for sure. So I think trying to, you know, when you find that success. It, it can really be overwhelming, and I wasn't particularly happy for some of that journey because I felt like there was so much opportunity there that I had to, I had to grab everything.

Will: And that was a very overwhelming feeling.

Laura: Yeah. Probably hard to imagine how that kind of all those feelings and all of those things because you do want to keep like, okay, you've [00:10:00] had one awesome idea and it worked.

Laura: Of course, there's a million other things you can do and angles you can take with that, but I think your advice of sometimes less is better. Doing less but better instead of trying to do all of those 12 things you're now doing five and a lot happier, which is great. 

Laura: You told me you are good at systems.

Laura: I want to know more about this. You also told me how this year you've revamped your old content using a specific system. 

Will: Yeah. 

Laura: I love repurposing content. That's like something I do for travel creators and I was so excited when I heard you say this. I felt like validated, one. But two, I'd love to know more about how you did this, what this process looks like, and maybe why it was a great thing that you chose to do.

Will: Yeah, for sure. So like when it comes to like systems in general, I'm a very visual person and one of the best tools that I can recommend for [00:11:00] entrepreneurs is static whiteboards. There's a company called Wizard Walls and they make these like rolls of static whiteboards and you can cover your walls and whiteboards and just get very visual.

Will: I also use Trello, which is like a free. Online tool where you can make lists and move cards around and just feel like a visual organization. It's very, very powerful. And when it comes to repurposing content, we have like 4, 200 and something posts on the Broke Backpacker. It's a, it's a massive site. Many of those posts are like 10 to 15, 000 words long.

Will: So there's huge amounts of content, but as you can imagine, a backpacking guide that I wrote five years ago, unless somebody goes in there, and updates it, it's out of date pretty quickly. Some of these countries, it's been like a civil war or it's been like an economic crash or whatever. So it's very important to keep stuff updated, which is, we're quite lucky because we have quite a large team who, who move around the world and we're able to kind of like spread out content amongst people who are [00:12:00] moving around to update stuff.

Will: That's cool. But, With like some of the less important posts, like, um, I don't know, things to do in New York, for example, we don't necessarily have to have someone go there to update, update that piece of content. So our update process, what we've tried to do is to take the load off of the English speaking editors as much as possible, because we found it more cost effective to lean some of that, Onto our Filipino VA team who have been with me for a really long time now.

Will: So they'll go through and effectively drag a lot of this old content into the 21st century. We've got like new buttons, new design, new templates, new tables, all this kind of stuff. They'll go through, they'll find broken links. They'll replace broken links. Um, and now I'll have an English speaking editor who will like rewrite the introduction, rewrite the conclusion, go through the whole thing and spruce it up.

Will: It takes quite a lot of time on a series by series basis of [00:13:00] content to work out what tweaks need to be made. Probably the number one SEO tool that we're using for this is Surfer. I don't know if you've heard of that. But, um, surf is really good when it comes to taking top ranking content and seeing, um, what, what those pieces of content have in common that perhaps your piece doesn't, and they can be like, okay, these four pieces of content are all ahead of you.

Will: And. In their introduction, they all mentioned this keyword. So that's like, okay, well, I'm just going to try that. I'm going to throw that keyword in there because why not? So surf is really, really powerful for that and definitely to be recommended. Probably though, one of the biggest changes that we have made over the last year is updating the site with as many of our own photos as possible.

Will: So previously, especially with some of our less specialist content, we were relying on Shutterstock, PixelBay, all of these other like things. Free stock photo, um, aggregators. But we've, we've found it really seems to [00:14:00] be the case that more and more having your own photos is a ranking factor. So we've sent our team out to get as many photos as possible and to try to put them all across the old pieces of content that we have, but yeah, I mean.

Will: It's cheaper to update old content than to create new content. At some point you kind of, you start to run out of content ideas. And at that point was around post number 3000. So we're at a point now where it makes sense to just keep updating. Um, I don't know how well this system would work across like social media type stuff, because that just isn't something that I'm particularly involved with, but like from an SEO point of view, new photos, fixed, broken links, new tables, new buttons.

Will: New introductions, run it through Surfer. That is a brief synopsis of the strategy that we're currently using. 

 Did you hear that? It's cheaper to update old content. Then it is to produce new content. Now will, and his team are physically sending [00:15:00] people out into the world quite literally to visit places and report back on them. But for you, this is also true that revamping old content is cheaper than creating new content. Because it requires less time. And time is your biggest fattest, most loved currency. 

That is extremely hard to get back. 

But repurposing revamping your old content is one way to get more of that precious currency. It's also cheaper because if you have people on your team, it will require less work for them. And hopefully in turn you having to spend less money. On network. Now, if you want to learn how to repurpose your content yourself. I'm actually taking my DIY content repurposing course and turning it into a program. Where I'm walking, travel creators through a six week program, right alongside you. To show you everything of how to repurpose your content so that you can get more time back and more of that currency that [00:16:00] honestly. We all need more of.

If you want to learn more on how to be one of the first 10 students in the DIY content repurposing course and community, you can head over to my Instagram at travel content writing, where I'm building the program live on my Instagram. You can send me a message there or reach me directly at my email, if you really, really want to.

It's Laura, a travel content, writing.com. 

Laura: That's awesome. That's awesome. I created a, a system in Asana that does similar things but for social media content, um, repurposing social media content, and that has been awesome, but that's so funny.

Laura: Good to know, Post 3000 is when you need to rethink it. 

Will: Yeah. 

Laura: what systems do you wish that you had? You had had or had used when you were starting The Broke Backpacker or could just recommend to a creator who is turning their content into a business that will just make their lives easier, even if it's as [00:17:00] simple as like, set up some tags in your email or different things like that.

Will: I think probably doing conversion optimization as you go. So messing around with different button colors, messing around with different calls to action, and seeing what performs better, because if you're collecting data from the beginning, you've got it, and you can start implementing it earlier. From a systems point of view, like, we're on Asana now, that's, that's where the team cooperates and collaborates, and before that, we were doing a lot of stuff over WhatsApp and email, and it was very easy for stuff to just kind of get, get lost between the cracks.

Will: I think this isn't really system orientated, but it kind, it kind of is because of how we approach it at the Bright Backpacker is like, we have a lot of our affiliate providers, I guess, if you weren't in the affiliate space, this would be like your clients, basically, we're pretty on it with trying to [00:18:00] chat to everybody once every three months, trying to negotiate new commission structures, trying to get free stuff, trying to lengthen our cookie durations, And that's like one of my, my biggest tips for people, especially in the affiliate space.

Will: Anyway, it's like, you'd be surprised at what you can get if you ask for it. And if you don't ask, you won't, you won't get it. Right. So on many of my affiliate providers, we're literally on three times better than some of my competitors because my competitors haven't asked, whereas I've gone in and I've been like, look.

Will: These are the kind of numbers I'm, I'm dealing with, this is what I've got to play with. And if you, if you will give me a tiered system of like zero to five hundred commissions is x, five hundred to a thousand is y, I will hit it. And I've had some of them give me pretty ridiculous Um, commission tears that they obviously never thought we would hit and then I'll, I'll change everything that we're doing with this one goal of hitting that commission to it will hit it.

Will: It will get [00:19:00] locked in and then we can kind of move on to the next one. So I think that remembering. To negotiate, to ask, to try to basically improve the value of a click. That is like one of the best things that you can do for your business. And really there's three ways to improve the value of a click.

Will: The first is improving how much money you get from. From where you're sending the click. So upping the commission up or up in the cookie duration is another good way of doing that. The second is increasing the lifetime of the click. So basically getting somebody into an email list, um, with a sexy lead mag, and then you're popping into their inbox every week and you're building up that brand loyalty.

Will: They know who you are. So if you want to launch something later, you've got a greater chance of being supported. Buy them. And then the third is conversion optimization. So increasing the overall percentage chance that somebody is going to buy something and you'd be surprised, like you'd be [00:20:00] amazed at how much difference changing a button color from like blue to orange.

Will: Can make, but whatever it's going to be, whatever the change is going to be, it depends on the niche, depends on the audience. It depends on the site. So there's no like cookie cutter response. You've, you've got to be collecting your own data and doing your own tests. 

 I've said it before and I'll say it again. The power of asking is unmatched. I think. Asking for what you really want holds a lot of craters back. especially creators who are just beginning to work with brands when you think, oh, I'll just do you know, 10 projects for free. Before I start to ask somebody for money in this UGC collab or whatever. Because you want to build your portfolio is holding you back from getting where you want to be. 

Laura: The power of asking has single-handedly changed everything for me and is something I still practice and I highly encourage you to do as well. 

Laura: The new year is coming and it's a great time to put into practice now. The power of asking [00:21:00] so that when January one comes around, you feel no weird emotions about asking for what the heck you want. I'm so happy you mentioned asking questions. That is like the, I feel like it's a secret weapon that not a lot of people really realize or really take advantage of. If you just ask, 90 percent of the time people just say yes or we'll figure out a way to make it work with you or for you.

Laura: It's like mind blowing. It's like, whoa, okay, what you really want is not that far away if we're just gonna ask. It's, Just a tool that I wish more creators utilized or realized wasn't so scary because the worst thing that can happen. Yeah, they say no And it's not that bad because you survived before the no be fine after So if 

Will: you craft like one really good pitch and you spend the time doing that And to get value from it, all you've really got to do is to send it to absolutely everybody you can think of, and somebody will say yes, and then it was worth writing.

Laura: Yes, [00:22:00] exactly, exactly. I'm so glad you also mentioned newsletters. Newsletters is something I also write for travel creators, and it is I will scream about email marketing. I'll die on that hill because I don't think people realize how important it is to have another place where their content lives that isn't just social media that can be wiped away.

Laura: Similarly, you've built this massive list. You have this incredible website that has literally thousands of, not only posts, but words. And is there any advice you could give someone or just urge them, encourage them to continue to either Give them a kick in the pants to start their email or to actually send something out.

Laura: And I always tell creators like. You don't have to send anything out now, but you need to be collecting the addresses. Agreed. What would you say, yeah, what would you say to somebody who is sitting on this task that's on their backburner to get it to the front of the list? 

Will: Yeah, I would say, you're 100 percent right, they should be collecting emails.

Will: They don't need to be sending out emails whilst they've only got [00:23:00] 20 subscribers, but it's worth picking a number. Maybe that number's 5, 000, maybe it's 10, 000, maybe it's 500, whatever it is. When you hit that number of subscribers, that is when you begin. Your email marketing campaign, uh, you got to start at some point and it's one of those things.

Will: It's quite easy to put off, but you can also like, it's one of those things that if you put the work in, it really pays dividends because you can build that you don't have to do much in the way of like actual daily broadcasts, you can build these sequences that are going to go out to all your new subscribers.

Will: You build a 20 email, um, sequence and you send an email every, every like two weeks. That's almost like a year. Uh, of emails that you've built for people. It's also way easier now to make good lead mags because there's loads of tools out there that will take an existing blog post or existing blog posts and consolidate them into a pretty sexy looking ebook.

Will: So if you've got a lot of different, if you've got say five well trafficked, um, [00:24:00] posts on your site, You could create a lead mag for each of them, which is just like, Oh, get the, get the rundown of the highlights, the top tips on this topic. Just give us your email address here. you send the lead mag and boom, done.

Will: It's done. So like, it's, it's actually gotten easier. I think when I started doing email marketing, like 12 years ago, it took me like a year to put my first lead back together. And it really took like hundreds of hours, but it's way, way easier now. So I think that you're missing a trick if you're not building an email list.

Will: And as you say, it's the only thing that definitely can't be taken away from you. So it's, it's well, well worth doing. 

Laura: what did you start sending when you started the email list? Do you remember what it was like? 

Will: Yeah, I mean, I was doing, like, really basic travelogues from my time in India. Like, coming at you from an Indian train station where I'm eating, uh, five cent chapati, you know, and [00:25:00] just, like, basically writing about the people I was seeing around me.

Will: And this was also before social media, really. So people were very engaged. People found it very interesting to just hear me like sitting in the corner. I didn't even have a laptop. I had an iPod touch, right? And yeah, I did. I did. And I would be writing about like, you know, the red turbaned guy that I was seeing over there and like just trying to.

Will: Really bring people to where I was sitting with quite sort of comical prose and people liked it. 

Laura: Wow. It is super interesting to think about how you started doing all this before we had to worry about, creating short form video or any of that junk, but it is a testament to the fact that social media can just be one pillar of your marketing strategy and it doesn't have to be everything.

Laura: And email marketing can be one thing. Setting up your website would be a great thing. learning what the heck to outsource, so that you don't spend your [00:26:00] time building something that It's just not gonna look very good and you know you can hire somebody else to do it cheaper and better and faster. one of the last questions I have for you, you had mentioned that there were a lot of, Blogs, maybe not a lot, but there were other blogs that were talking about how to travel on 50 a day or something that they thought might be cheap, which is not necessarily your version of cheap.

Laura: did you feel like you really leaning into the backpacking lifestyle was the biggest thing you did to differentiate just niching down into that? 

Will: I actually think that I was one of the first people to go to places. Like Iran, Pakistan, Venezuela, some rougher parts of the Philippines. And it made a big difference for a couple of reasons.

Will: Firstly, I did some freelance journalism pieces for the BBC, dailymailnews. com. au, etc, etc, [00:27:00] who would never have normally talked to me, but they didn't have anybody. on the ground in these places. So I was just emailing every email address I could find. Yeah. I was like, here's some stories I've got. Do you want them?

Will: And getting paid a couple of hundred bucks, but getting a backlink, from these titans of media, which made a big difference. And also when I was going, when I was like hitchhiking through Iran and Pakistan, I drive a rickshaw all across India, like before it was popular. And I snapchatted all of that back when I was doing a bit of social media and people loved it.

Will: And I was just like being myself, just like swearing on camera and smoking a joint and having like a weird ass time and people liked it. So I think that that being like more authentic, being like, Oh, I've got. horrible diarrhea right now and a dog just tried to bite me was like different to the kind of travel content that made up 95 percent of travel content back then of like girl in [00:28:00] bikini on beach.

Will: and that's a lot more popular now, obviously, there's lots of people doing, doing that now. And don't get me wrong, there was a few back then, but not many. And, um, I was one of the first that was in these kind of destinations. So I think that really helped build the brand and people connect with me.

Will: I was also like, quite authentic and raw about how I was feeling on camera. I tried to stay away. From bit, from like, you know, treading into vulnerability porn and like crying on camera and stuff like that. But I would express how I was feeling in very like real terms. And I think that enabled people to connect with me quite strongly.

Will: Um, I think it is important to be like raw and authentic and not to try to be too polished because at the end of the day, you want the average individual to be Who has anxieties and concerns and fears about [00:29:00] traveling. Are they going to meet someone? Are they going to be by themselves? Are they going to be able to afford it?

Will: Are they going to get robbed? We've all got these anxieties, right? And if I'm out there like, Oh, I'm just brave and confident and capable. I'm not very relatable. So, I think it's important to like, you know, like, share the things that are going wrong, share the things that are less glamorous, and I think people like that.

Laura: I always tell people I love to see them suffer on their travels in the best way possible. Like, if you have had a hell of a like, your five day upcoming trip, would love to know how that goes. Like, that sounds horrible already. Can't believe it's It's gonna be it's 

Will: gonna it's gonna be worth it. 

Laura: It will be worth it.

Laura: Luckily, you're going somewhere that will be worth it. Bye. I love to see the, the difficult because it makes you feel human. It makes you feel like, oh, okay, I know this person and here's how they deal with conflict or like, here's how they are dealing with this hard, horrible time. [00:30:00] Um, but it just makes it way more fun than, I'd much rather watch that content than seeing somebody's like, beautiful Greece villa.

Laura: I don't really care. I'd rather see what it looks like to sleep in an airport. 

Will: It's difficult for me, like to connect with people who. are basically being models whilst traveling. Like, you know, girl in flowing red dress at Machu Picchu, or dude with like, washboard abs at Everest Base Camp. I'm like, well, how did you get time to work out and be there?

Will: And how did you get that dress up to Machu Picchu? And was it practical? You know, like, I find it, I find it difficult to connect with that style of travel. And I also think that like, Social media, you know, we all know social media has got its pros and cons, but I feel that um, a pro of social media is trying to encourage people, trying to help people get past their fears, and to do that you've got to be accessible, you've got to be real, uh, you can't [00:31:00] look perfect because it makes it more intimidating to those people who are anxious about taking their own first steps.

Laura: That's so true, because a lot of the creators I see, they always say in their bios or say in their content or something, I want to inspire people to travel, and I'm like, great and cool, but if you're standing in Machu Picchu with a flowy red dress, how is that, how, how, I, how am I supposed to do that?

Laura: That's not gonna happen for me. which is funny, and True, and something that, I, when people say that they want to inspire people to travel, I always challenge them to say, but like, who? Because the way that you talk to a luxury traveler is clearly different than somebody Who is turning to the Broke Backpacker for resources.

Laura: So you need to understand who the heck you are trying to inspire, first of all. And then we also need to like, bring you back down to earth. It's fun to like, take fun photos, but like, this is not Let's be so real. The [00:32:00] thing is 

Will: as well, I like, something that I was always trying to like, hammer home with the Broke Backpacker.

Will: Is that I really genuinely believe that like raw, real travel in more challenging destinations, especially if you're doing it cheap, where you're having like more genuine connections with local people, you're traveling like a local, you're eating local, you're on local trains, etc, etc. These are the kind of experiences.

Will: that will give you so much in the way of personal development by pushing you out of your comfort zone and forcing you to learn communication skills, how to fix stuff as you go on the road, how to make stuff happen. And like, certainly when I started out like 12 years ago, like I said, I didn't have a phone, had a knife or touch.

Will: I had a roadmap of India. And that's like how I was figuring out where I was going. And luckily, it's probably for the best that you don't have to do that anymore, because that was kind of challenging, honestly. But I think that there's definitely still something to be said for getting out there and having those raw, genuine, adventurous experiences.

Will: So I hope [00:33:00] that more travel creators make that at least part of what they're doing. 

Laura: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Okay, last thing I want to know from you. Um, switching to your blog. If somebody was starting a blog, they're like, Will, I'm starting a blog. What do I do? What should I do? What should I not do in the next six months to, to get it started?

Laura: Maybe not necessarily to live off this blog, but to get it started so we can build some momentum. What would you say to them? 

Will: Yeah, it's a great question. So, and actually you kind of touched on like the, the seed that is the question that will lead to everything else, which is, which is, are you going to live, which is, are you going to live on it or not?

Will: Right? Yeah. Absolutely. So I, I think that starting a blog. or starting any kind of online business is probably a two year journey. And I also think that a very important question that you need to ask yourself when thinking about starting a blog is, do I want to be a blogger or do I want to be location [00:34:00] independent?

Will: Because if you want to be location independent, there are much easier paths than blogging. There are easier ways to make money online, 100%. So it might be the case that you do something that you're less passionate about. But which enables you to live the lifestyle of travel that you want, right? But if you are passionate about blogging, if you are passionate about creating content, if it's something you feel you have some flair for, then fair enough.

Will: I just think it's an important discussion that has to happen because a lot of people who want to be location independent, the most visible path to that is blogging. It's not the easiest part at all. So that's like part of the equation. If you're going to start a blog, if you're going to go down that route, I think it's important to understand that it takes a couple of years probably to get to a point where you're able to live off it.

Will: So therefore the goal actually changes from building this blog to surviving whilst you build this blog, because if you're going to be successful, you will need to put in [00:35:00] some major hours and that might mean. Moving to a cheaper country so that you can focus on doing this project on the side whilst also working 20 hours a week, maybe teaching English in a local school, maybe you go to China, maybe you go to Colombia, and you find out a way where you can survive but still have enough time to actually get that blog going.

Will: So I kind of think that that's got to be the foundation. Of of building a blog is working out how you're gonna carve out the time To survive whilst building it because it does definitely take time and then making sure that you've got A good idea and the fastest way to make sure you've got a good idea is just fucking start So don't spend a year Like preparing for a launch that may never come, downloading, you know, designing your logo 10 times, getting stuck into like micro influencing and like responding to [00:36:00] DMs and stuff like that.

Will: You just, you just need to start. So that's, that's a bunch of, you know, Not particularly coordinating the vice. 

 Ah, the art of the starving artist. But on a more serious, no. Have you ever heard of the sunk cost fallacy? Because what will is talking about here is incredibly important and we need to get really clear with ourselves on what we actually want. Do we actually want to be creating content? Or do we actually want to just reap the goals of what the internet shows us are the benefits of creating content? It's also like, let's be so real with ourselves. The internet can make it so easy to assume that if you just create content. You're going to immediately have six figures in your bank account in about a month. that is far from the truth. There are outliers, of course there's outliers in any career path you could choose. But the truth is that it will take a long [00:37:00] time and a lot of work to get to that six figures. 

Plus. Which is true of almost any entrepreneur or business owner you ask. No matter how many years they've been at it. 

But there's this thing called the sunk cost fallacy, which I believe holds a lot of creators back from just keep slogging along. And it's a reminder that we really need to check in with ourselves. Are we really doing what we want to be doing? Or are we just doing it? Because we like the outcome that we'll eventually get to after years of hard work and both are fair. 

Those are very fair. I can see and support both sides. The sunk cost fallacy. Is when you stick with a project or decision, even when it's not necessarily beneficial to you. Because you've spent so much time, money, effort, whatever into that investment. That could be a business that could be a strategy. 

Any sort of strategy is a content strategy. Is it a financial strategy? Whatever. People tend to stick with things because they've put in a lot of investment. So. Just another little [00:38:00] reminder. This is a great time of year to check in. With what's really going on. Between your ears. and figure out the next best steps to get you where you really want to go.

Laura: No, that's really great because that's something a lot of people don't talk about is you need to find the balance of how the heck can I still survive, but do something that I want to do. And because we just are like, Oh, just go out and make this, make this ebook and sell it, and all of a sudden you'll have 80, 000 overnight and nobody really mentions the reality of you have to figure out what you can do.

Laura: While this is building on the side because nothing happens overnight despite what everyone on the internet wants to make you believe. that is really good advice, and I think I agree. I mean you just have to start because you don't know if it's a bad idea until somebody's doing it. I was really nervous when I was starting.

Laura: I didn't see anybody who was putting together any sort of resources for [00:39:00] travel creators specifically. They were all like, here's how to grow your Instagram page or whatever. And I was like, well, that's like not really totally what I'm trying to get at. But, I always thought, well, if other people start doing it, maybe it's not a horrible idea.

Laura: And then, sure enough, a few years later, some sort Some people try and dabble in the same vein, but you just have to start and figure out, okay, this is what I'm doing now. And I've also realized, like, what you start doing is not always going to be the exact end product. Or you'll realize along the way, that What you really want, what you started doing, might not be exactly what you want to do anymore.

Laura: So you pivot and find the, your favorite places amongst, your niche or what you started doing to begin with. But that was really awesome advice. 

Will: I think you've also got to think about, like, are you blogging exclusively on a topic, or are you also blogging about your journey [00:40:00] as a blogger?

Will: Because this can be really interesting, and it's definitely worth considering. And like, what I was doing when I first started, with my blogging and backpacking journey is I was going to places like India and Nepal, and I was, buying leather satchels and colorful shirts and shiny silver jewelry and I was taking it back and I was selling it on eBay and selling it on the street and this was what enabled me to carve out the time to actually build my blog up but I also blogged about that experience and people were really interested in that.

Will: People were really interested in the, in the, like the grassroots level entrepreneurship I was doing, where I was taking 800, filling a backpack with stuff, turning it into 3, 000, and then going again. People found that interesting. So I think that not everybody wants to know about someone else's journey of building a trial blog, but the journey of how to find oneself whilst building a business.

Will: It's really [00:41:00] interesting. It's always unique. So consider sharing that with your audience because it's another way you can connect. 

Laura: That is really good advice. That's really awesome. And I think people don't do that, one, because they want they want people to believe that they've already made it or that they're already, selling out their whatever service or whatever.

Laura: But you're so right. People just want to connect with the other person it also gives it more reality, it's more realistic to understand, okay, here's what somebody else did while they were trying to build this thing. This is how they do it. I feel like I could do that thing.

Laura: Which is really cool. I can't believe you did that, actually. That's pretty crazy. I can't believe it. That's awesome. Would you do it again? Do you feel like there would be a better way to turn that 800 into 3, 000 or would you still do it? Purchase those things and bring them back to you.

Laura: Honestly, 

Will: I, I think that there are many ways to turn X into Y, but it's, it's a tale as old as time. Bringing something from one market [00:42:00] to another 

Laura: is almost a 

Will: guaranteed way of making money. If you, if you're buying colorful hippie shirts in Goa and they're costing you a pound, And even if you can only sell them for three pounds on the street of Brighton, you will be able to sell them for that.

Will: So you are, you are going to make money. You know, there's very little risk involved there. Um, I bought, it's funny, actually, on that particular topic, I've often thought like a good idea for a blog. And if anyone's listening. So I've always thought it would be to go around different countries and finding the best things to buy in these countries, like maybe you go to Iran and you buy saffron, maybe you go to Burma and you buy jade, maybe you go to India and you do, I don't know, colorful carpets or whatever.

Will: And you bring, you bring it back to Western markets and you sell it and you write about what your markups were and what your experience is getting it through customs. Anyway, I've always thought that would be interesting. 

Laura: That would be really interesting. Hmm. Hmm. I think someone should do [00:43:00] that and let you know how it goes.

Will: Yeah, let me know. 

Laura: Is there anything else you want to say on business building in the online space from your experience? If not, that's okay. But anything you want to get out there to feel good about 

Will: I will just circle back to something I said at the beginning, um, which is about effectively habit tracking.

Will: And checking in with yourself at the end of each month. So, um, I've got a whiteboard by my bed, uh, multiple habits on there. And I give myself a tick at the end of each day. And at the end of the month, I recall all of those digitally into Trello. And I've got questions that I ask myself at the end of each month.

Will: And I've been doing this for over 10 years, which means that if I'm feeling depressed, Or anxious or unsatisfied. I can go and look at this irrefutable stack of data that I've built over a decade that shows me that whilst my days, weeks, months, years might be up and down. Overall, I am moving [00:44:00] on a positive tangent and many, many times this has stopped me from quitting.

Will: It has encouraged me to feel better and to pull myself out of whatever rut I am in. So I think it's a bit useless saying to people, just think positive, be optimistic, but being positive and being optimistic is very powerful. So create a data based system that enables you to feel that way. 

Laura: Anything you can do to track your progress is going to make you feel amazing when you are hitting that pit of despair that comes with building anything in the online space. I think Will's strategy is amazing. And to have over a decade of data on yourself is really incredible. This might inspire you to go, you know, dream up an, a beautiful notion, Trello, a sauna page, whatever to track your habits. 

Laura: And that's cool. Highly encouraged. Sure. But just remember that don't create another system just to create it [00:45:00] because it's fancy and that's what will Hatton does? I would create a system that, you know, you'll actually use. If you're a pen and paper person, don't be creating a notion sheet to track your habits. 

Laura: Don't do that. Or if you're, if you are traveling all of the time, like you might be maybe the whiteboard method isn't necessarily the most practical idea. But I love this data collection and I encourage you to find a way to make it work for you. In a way that you. will stick with in the long run. So you can eventually have a decade of data.

Laura: That's genius.

Laura: Have you changed your questions over the years of what you ask yourself, or is it always the same? 

Will: Like, most, there are questions in there that have remained the same for like 10 years, like how do I feel about my relationship with my family, for example, or how do I feel about my relationship with my body, for example, but some questions change, some habits change, you know?

Will: But it's just so interesting having access to all that data and being able to see the scores that I've given myself on like finance, romantic, sick. Personal fitness and all of these [00:46:00] different things, like, it's been, it's been the best thing I've done for my mental health and I think that it's made a big difference, um, to the success of my businesses as well.

Will: So I would recommend trying it. 

Laura: Wow. No joke. Habit tracking. It is so, like, I can see how it's so beneficial because you can take the step back and see, You are not in the same place that you were a year ago, and that's a good thing and you're always growing That's really interesting. I love that Well, also one final 

Will: tip is everybody should read a book tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss And basically the premise is that he interviews over a hundred world class performers Just amazing people.

Will: Each person gets five pages. Each person gets asked the same questions. And then you can basically pick out all the correlations. Very powerful book. I've read it multiple times. Recommend it highly. 

Laura: Okay. I think you need to write a blog or have someone write a blog for you of your top book recs. I think that I [00:47:00] will.

Laura: That needs to happen. I'm requesting that. I'll do what I can. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate your insight. Um, and I will. There's just so many good bits to share with my audience and my community from here, and I really appreciate it.

 There are so many gems in this episode that I personally think I'm going to have to give it a little relisten and I encourage you to do so as well. You can fast forward over the bits where I talk. I get it. I know. You're here for well that's okay. So am I. 

Laura: You can find well on Instagram @willhatton_ There he is. You'll recognize him immediately. He has the sickest travel photos you could ever think of. You can also pay a visit to the broke backpacker on their website, and if you're going anywhere ever in the entire world, I guarantee you we'll have a guide for you. And my personal favorite section. Of the entire website that I use is I'll look up a specific country and I'll get A cost [00:48:00] breakdown of how much you anticipate to spend visiting that country. 

Laura: So you get a backpacker fee. A, um, sort of Mid range traveler. So if you're like, mm, maybe not a hospital, but also maybe not five stars, that's for you in the middle. And then they have a balling on a bougie budget. Section. Where you can see how much it would cost if you really want to. Spend everything you have. Highly encourage you to check that out. 

Laura: Just, just fantastic. And they also. Cover so many different blog topics. You can find something on everything. It's insane. Let me know on Instagram, what blog or guide you're reading on the broke backpacker. I would love to know it also love to hear from you. If you track your habits, please, dear God, let me know. 

Laura: Let me know how. @travelcontentwriting on the gram.

Laura: Happy creating us a you. next week.