Rachel Sobel – Whine and Cheezits

Rachel Sobel is a mom blogger who writes about the real, unfiltered stories of motherhood, marriage and life on her blog whineandcheezits.com.

After two decades of experience in the world of public relations, both with an agency and in-house, Rachel decided to step out on her own in November of 2015.

Since then, she has been creating content and developing social media programs for her own clients in order to help them maximize reach and exposure in their respective markets.

In addition, Rachel is a freelance writer with a monthly column in Lifestyle Magazine and she has also been published in Suburban Misfit Mom and on ScaryMommy.com.

A quick word of thanks to Wendy Weiner for introducing Rachel to me.

RACHEL SOBEL’S CAREER JOURNEY

Rachel got her degree in public relations and communications and never looked back. After earning her bachelors and masters degrees, she was looking forward to starting her career in public relations.

Then she received her first job offer.

To say she was shocked would be an understatement. Like many of us coming out of school, Rachel had slightly higher than realistic expectations about compensation for her first job.

Fortunately for her, she had supportive parents and she quickly realized that compensation comes with experience. While college gave her a foundation to get started it didn’t come with “real world” experience which is how companies determine their employees pay.

Rachel took this “setback” in stride and dove head first into her public relations career. She worked both on the agency side and in-house.

She especially loved working with media. This is where she started to thrive.

GETTING STARTED BLOGGING

Much of public relations involves writing and creating content so it comes as no surprise, Rachel would gravitate towards blogging.

Being a new mother and carrying all of the responsibilities that come with the world’s toughest “job”, Rachel first turned to blogging as an outlet.

Initially, like all of us do, Rachel believed she was putting out some great content on her blog. Hindsight, however, now tells her the opposite.

As she looks back now, one of the things she points to about her first blog was how canned the content was and how she had hidden or masked her real voice.

This is something all bloggers go through.

We are afraid of rejection, we have unrealistic expectations for both ourselves and our audience, and we write in a tentative and passive manner. Rachel Sobel was no exception.

But just like her salary expectations out of school, Rachel accepted the gift of anonymity and used, this time, to practice and master her craft.

WHINEANDCHEEZITS.COM

Rachel had been blogging for over two years before she launched her current blog whineandcheezits.com. This time, however, Rachel decided to use her own voice.

She began to write about all of the real experiences she was having as a mom from her humorous and sarcastic perspective.

As she continued to write, her blog began to see more traffic and that’s when Rachel started to see the unfortunate side of blogging and putting yourself “out there”, haters.

At first, the haters really bothered Rachel and to some extent they still do today. However, she was given some great advice from a fellow blogger that helps her cope with the Haters.

In a nutshell, you need to be able to stand behind what you publish. No matter who tries to poke holes in your post, you have to believe in what your write and be true to yourself.

Being true to herself, Rachel’s blog started to gain traction. As it was beginning to become more popular, Rachel started to look for other avenues to get her message out.

This eventually led to Rachel Sobel earning a monthly column in Lifestyle magazine and guest posts on sites like scarymommy.com and suburbanmistfitmom.com.

In addition to being a mother, blogging and guest posting, and the monthly column for Lifestyle magazine, Rachel was also building up a freelance writing business.

All while still working a full-time day job.

It was after a year plus of writing, during which time Rachel had built up a pretty good readership, getting on average two thousand views per post (which is really good BTW), when she experienced her AH-HA! moment.

She had written a very personal post about her husband. The next morning she woke up to find the post has gotten eight thousand views!

It was then Rachel realized she was sitting on something with a lot of potential. All of sudden, her eyes were opened to the possibilities.

GOING PRO

Inspired by the success of her post, Rachel started to really assess where she wanted to take the blog next. This is where her skill and expertise in public relations really started to pay off.

Rachel Sobel put on her research hat and started to actively look at publications and other areas where she could expand her reach and grow her blog further.

She started to change her circles and network with people who could help her continue to build her brand.

She became focused on social media outlets for the blog and any chance she had to engage with brands, particularly wine brands, she jumped all over the opportunity.

Rachel also began to leverage her public relations degree and tapped into some of her past clients. Many of whom had left their previous companies to venture out on their own.

Realizing they probably couldn’t yet afford the bigger agency fees, Rachel reached out to offer assistance. She helped them with content development, manage their social media accounts, basically whatever she could help with, she did.

Rachel and I also spend quite a bit of time discussing how she determined her pricing structure and when giving away time for free is a worthwhile endeavor.

Rachel’s hustle, persistence and tenacity eventually paid off. In November of 2015, she was able to leave her day job and turn pro.