Exploring Life & Business with Sophie Sadler of dirndl kitchen

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sophie Sadler

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started publishing my recipes online on my blog dirndlkitchen.com after realizing that how I approached German cooking and baking was different. I couldn’t find any authentic German recipes that didn’t call for prepackaged ingredients then, creating a hurdle for anyone not able to get them easily. I wanted German food to be accessible to ANYONE. Because I just know how powerful it is once you can recreate those dishes at home that you once had in Germany and now miss so much. I only started realizing in 2021 that blogging could be a serious career path though. Before then, I had always done it on the side as a hobby. However, I quickly understood that in order to do it well.. and raise a family, I couldn’t just blog on the side anymore. Committing to blogging and learning proper techniques when it comes to writing SEO-friendly posts, working on my photography and videography skills and testing recipes more frequently with better, more reliable methods takes a lot of time! I now have turned my blog into my sole career path and have diversified my revenue through web-traffic ad revenue, brand partnerships via social media and the blog, online German baking courses and my paid membership, as well as my own physical products.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest struggle was getting the wake-up call that I can’t split myself between two career paths and perform well at both at them. As well as be the best mother and wife (I was pregnant with my second child during Covid when I decided to go all in on blogging). That’s when I basically taught myself to learn blogging ‘the proper way.’ I hired an SEO coach, read some photography books and started listening to photography podcasts, I hired a tech team to help with running the backend of my blog, switched web hosts and WordPress themes, had to manually rewrite code, and learned to write my blog posts in a way to be the most helpful and so that anyone looking for German recipes on Google could find me. It was a lot. I have been working on my first cookbook for the last 2 years and have quickly realized that it’s impossible to do it all on my own and somehow make time for the things that really matters the most for me: my family. I recently hired my first employee and am hiring an intern as we speak. Focusing on the things I love doing is what I am doing now while seeking help in the areas that struggle because I just don’t get to them (because I don’t enjoy doing them). Those areas for me are posting to Pinterest, reposting my content to social media (other than Instagram – I still like it… for now), putting my recipes into recipe cards for the blog and sending a second e-mail a week with German recipe inspiration to my growing email list. Life has already felt much more manageable since hiring help (probably because it inspired me to FINALLY invest in a task management software) and I don’t want to go back now.

As you know, we’re big fans of dirndl kitchen. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I create authentic German recipes for anyone missing Germany. I know how powerful it is to connect to German culture via food. In fact, I think it’s one of the best ways to explore culture besides traveling there. I moved from Germany to the USA in 2009 and since moving have felt this gap of not really belonging completely. I tried so hard to fill this gap, and cooking and baking German food has helped me feel more at home. At that point, I was curious to see if this strategy could help others too. And sure enough, people LOVED my German recipes once I started sharing them. The best stories are always the ones of people that were time traveling back to the last time they visited Germany and spent time with their friends and family there. “Your pretzels taste just like what we had at the German bakeries there!” It’s the most rewarding experience and what has kept me going and what has inspired me to go deep in my membership ‘The German Connection.’

https://dirndlkitchen.mykajabi.com/pl/2148597215

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
I was 3 months pregnant with my second child when Covid hit. Because of Covid, I was forced to take a break from hosting in-person seminars for my college financial planning business, and that’s when the idea of focusing on my blog exclusively surfaced. It was also what carried me during Covid, as I was still able to create and publish blog posts and work with clients to create content for them. People were cooking at home more than ever and had the time to lean into this newly found hobby. It made sense that I did the same by giving them more recipes to cook. During this time, I realized that money can be made by growing blog traffic, meaning I felt the urge to start blogging ‘the right way’ to get my traffic up. It took a good 3 years from that time on until I had grown my traffic enough to start qualifying for a major ad network. I was so proud when I did. If nothing else, Covid gave me the clarity needed to move forward in what felt like the only and the right direction.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dirndlkitchen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dirndl_kitchen/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/@dirndlkitchen/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dirndl_kitchen
• Other: https://dirndlkitchen.mykajabi.com/pl/2148597215