![\"Brock](\"https:\/\/heartifb.com\/images\/Brock-McGoff-The-Modest-Man.jpg\")
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When Brock McGoff started The Modest Man<\/a> in 2012, his goal was to create a blog that would provide style tips and fashion advice for men who are 5″8 in height and under.<\/p>\n “I was looking for specific advice,” McGoff said, about seeking out fashion advice for men of shorter stature. “There are lot of great style blogs out there, but I couldn\u2019t really find anything specific [to my needs]. I kind of just started the blog I wanted to read.”<\/p>\n While McGoff admits that back in 2012 blogging was just starting to “blow up”, there were still many gaps in the niche markets that needed to be filled. He tapped into one and saw the potential early on but admits that, despite having business goals going into it, it “… was definitely an experiment” at the time.<\/p>\n Five years later McGoff is earning a six-figure salary as a full-time blogger. In addition to managing and creating content for The Modest Man brand, he also runs\u00a0Manored (an interior design blog for men) and Full-Time Blog<\/a>, a blog\u00a0devoted to helping bloggers make a living solely through blogging.<\/p>\n We spent some time chatting with McGoff about making the transition from the working world to full-time blogger, and the necessity of publishing quality content in today's saturated fashion blogging world. We also discussed financial transparency between blogger and audience – read on if you're interested in learning McGoff chooses to publish income reports<\/a>\u00a0for his readers to peruse.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Name:<\/strong> Brock McGoff I tried to go full-time with the blog a couple of times . . . Officially, I went full-time with it at the beginning of 2016. I left my job late-2015, but I had some freelance stuff on the side to help with the transition. Last year was the first year that I was just doing The Modest Man [and not working elsewhere].<\/p>\n At the beginning it varied widely. It\u2019s hard to put in the time outside of your job, especially when you\u2019re not really getting much positive feedback in terms of traffic, money, or just general attention from anybody. So\u2026 it varied. Some weeks it was a lot, some weeks it wasn\u2019t. And there were months of time [in the earlier stages where] weeks would go by and I wouldn\u2019t do anything on the blog. [Back then] I didn\u2019t have a consistent posting schedule.<\/p>\n It was probably ten or twenty hours per week [back in 2012 and 2013]. Now it\u2019s [a lot] more than that.<\/p>\n It took me three years to get The Modest Man to the point where I thought, \u2018Ok, I could make a living through this. Let me go all in on it.\u2019 But I think you could do it in a year in a half, maybe two years if you really work at it.<\/p>\n What I would do differently, in the beginning, is don\u2019t overcommit in terms of quantity; commit to the quality of content. If you\u2019re really busy at [your full-time job] and you can only post once every two weeks, make sure it\u2019s a killer post. Make sure it has awesome photos, make sure it has over 1000 words, make sure it\u2019s a solid piece of content. Commit to doing that at the same time [every week or month]. Even if it\u2019s once a month, make sure it\u2019s the same day of the month and just do that – and you can ramp up from there.<\/p>\n I think a lot of people get burnt out. They think, \u2018Ok, I\u2019m going to start a fashion blog and I\u2019m going to do daily outfits.\u2019 And it\u2019s six months later and they\u2019re just totally burnt out. I would say, at the maximum, do one post a week at the beginning and make sure it\u2019s excellent.<\/p>\n In these days, a lot of content is multimedia. If you\u2019re planning on produce a piece of content on, say, [the topic of] \u201cHow To Care For Your Clothes\u201d I wouldn\u2019t even really approach it thinking [should this be written] as an article, or a video or [a bunch of] images? I\u2019d think, \u2018Ok, what media lends itself to this piece of content?\u2019 If it needs to have text, a video and images that\u2019s fine to do all three.<\/p>\n You have to have written content for search engines, because they\u2019re not very good at interpreting pictures. That\u2019s the problem with the \u201cOutfit of the Day\u201d-style blogs. If you have a piece of content that is made up of fifteen awesome images and two hundred words, it might be really nice for the reader to experience those images; but to Google it doesn\u2019t look like a very valuable page because it\u2019s \u201cthin.\u201d<\/p>\n Every post that you write and produce on your site should be in depth. [And by that I mean] in depth when it comes to the content and media support. Obviously, the better images you have, the better [your post will be]. Video is great too, but you have to have the written content or else you\u2019re not going to get organic traffic.<\/p>\n Videos are tough to produce.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a whole different skill set [when it comes to producing video content] . . . [It was a] learning curve [for myself], but I think it\u2019s worth it. These days you can have your iPhone and a USB microphone, and you can make a pretty good video [with just that]. It\u2019s a steep learning curve, but it\u2019s not as steep as it used to be.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth investing in a decent camera (McGoff uses a Canon EOS Rebel T6i DSLR camera), but I think audio is more important. If you\u2019re going to invest in something first . . . invest in a nice lav mic or shotgun mic, to make sure your audio is good.<\/p>\n There were a few reasons. [Firstly] this stuff is kind of fascinating to me, the world of blogging and online business. It helps organize my thoughts about the finances [of the blog].<\/p>\n The second reason is I get a lot of questions [about blogging and my income]. When you tell someone you\u2019re a blogger and they ask, \u2018Oh what does that mean? Do you make money?\u2019 they really want to ask how much do you make (even if they don\u2019t). I decided to put it all out there since people seemed interested in it.<\/p>\n The third reason is a see a lot of fashion bloggers, or any other kind of blogger, who\u2019s blogs are underperforming. Maybe they don\u2019t even think that it\u2019s possible that they could be doing this full time; I want to help them realize what\u2019s possible. There are plenty of bloggers who are more successful than me, but . . . I think a lot of bloggers (especially in the fashion world) don\u2019t really know how big their blogs could be.<\/p>\n Maybe.<\/p>\n I think for some reason, in other [niche areas] like food blogs, there are [already] several blogs that publish income reports. [They even have] whole other businesses that help other food bloggers [to] make a living [through blogging].<\/p>\n For some reason, in the style and fashion community, it\u2019s a little more [closed off]. You would be hard-pressed to find an Instagram influencer who tells you how much they\u2019re making from a sponsored post.<\/p>\n Hopefully, it\u2019s moving in [a more open] direction. You [should] have to disclose if you\u2019re getting paid and it\u2019s good to be transparent with your audience. Especially because people are skeptical these days of any kind of content – half the time, you don\u2019t know if something has been paid for.<\/p>\n *All images from The Modest Man<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “I definitely had business goals going into it. I thought I\u2019d might be able to turn it into something.” When Brock McGoff started The Modest Man in 2012, his goal was to create a blog that would provide style tips and fashion advice for men who are 5″8 in height and under. “I was looking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":244525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7760],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Modest Man\u2019s Brock McGoff at a glance\u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nAge:<\/strong> 32
\nCurrent Location:<\/strong> Tucson, Arizona,\u00a0U.S.A.
\nProfession:\u00a0<\/strong>Style Advice and Menswear Blogger<\/p>\n![\"Brock](\"https:\/\/heartifb.com\/images\/Brock-McGoff-Menswear-Blogger.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMaking\u00a0The Transition from the Working World to Full-Time Blogger<\/h2>\n
When did you make the jump to full-time blogger?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
How much time did you put in during the earlier stages of The Modest Man, in comparison to the amount you put in today as a full-time career blogger?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
Do you have any tips for bloggers who work full-time, in addition to running their blog? Any advice for those who want to take their blog to the next level, but still need to hold down a full-time job to support themselves?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
![\"Brock](\"https:\/\/heartifb.com\/images\/Brock-McGoff-Style.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Importance of Quality Content and Varied Media in\u00a0Blogging<\/h2>\n
In a recent interview on\u00a0Extra Paycheck\u2019s podcast<\/a>, you discussed the importance of creating quality content to generate blogging traffic.<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
With so many style blogs being \u201cimage heavy\u201d in content, how important are the written aspects of a blog\u2019s posts when trying to cultivate a loyal audience and following?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
You started The Modest Man YouTube<\/a> channel in 2015. Were there any challenges you encountered when you began making videos? Any advice for those looking to branch out to YouTube?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
![\"Brock](\"https:\/\/heartifb.com\/images\/Brock-McGoff-Interview-750x514.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOn Publishing Income Reports & Financial Transparency with Your Audience\u2026<\/h2>\n
You are very upfront with your readers about how you earn your keep as a full-time menswear blogger \u2013 you even publish income reports on the blog<\/a>. W<\/strong><\/em>hy did you decided to do this?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
Do you see financial openness and, potentially, the publishing of income reports becoming a new trend within the style blogging community?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n