Modest Men’s Style Blog Nets Six-Figure Income

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

After a series of false starts, a fashion blog for shorter men grows into a six-figure hustle. Great story for you today. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Cytosol School. Now, let's talk about some lessons in advertising and sponsorship. This was a big lesson for me, actually, going back two and a half years when I started the program.

No one actually minds when it's done well. In fact, they may actually appreciate it. For many years, I wrote a non-commercial blog, which I still do, actually. It's called The Art of Nonconformity. I don't write there as much because I'm focused here on the show, but for years, I was proud of the fact that I had no brand partners, just didn't want to get into that whole world at all.

Then, in starting the podcast, I learned, "Okay, well, that's how it works in this industry, so I need to adapt." I was really worried people were going to complain. The short version is almost no one complained, at least as long as I did it well and didn't hit people over the head with it too much. Most people understand there's a balance between giving away a lot of free content and then also finding a way to pay for it somehow. I could say a lot more about that, but we're going to look at it through the lens of this story because this guy, as I said, he's got a style blog for men. He's earning six figures.

He also learned some lessons along the way. One of the lessons he learned as we'll look at is that e-books aren't everything. Going back a few years, a lot of people were writing and selling e-books, some of them doing really well at it. He figured that was going to be the best approach for him. As you'll hear, he found something else that was much better for him.

We will deconstruct this process, hopefully provide some inspiration and a practical tip for somebody out there, maybe even you. All right, stay tuned. That story is coming up after this. Shout out to our sponsor. Brock McGough was like many of us.

He'd come across affiliate marketing and saw people making money online. He was hooked on the idea of finding his own way, working for himself and having the freedom to build something of his own making. He started a few small websites, including one on modern decor tips, but was struggling to put real effort into them. Inevitably he'd look at the low traffic numbers, just a few visits per day, and burn out. So Brock decided to try something new.

Instead of creating a site and hoping to be the authority, he would take on the role of what he called the curious reader. He wouldn't write as if he had all the answers, but as if he was genuinely exploring his next topic. Because he was. The topic he settled on was men's fashion, but not just fashion for all men. Brock focused on short men's fashion, to be precise.

He himself wanted to be a better looking guy, but most fashion blogs were written for taller men with bulkier frames. As a shorter man, a man of modest height, you might say, that advice wasn't all that helpful for him, and he figured he wasn't alone. So he opened The Modest Man dot com at the end of 2012, and started to publish articles every week. He wrote about getting clothes tailored to fit better, having custom clothes made, and brands he really liked. There was no grand strategy or thought process, he just did what felt natural.

If he bought a pair of pants from Banana Republic, he would write a review. If he learned a new way to pair a coat and tie, he would share a guide. Brock can remember the first time he had 50 people read his articles in a single day. It was incredible. Of course, most days were just 10 to 15, but despite the small numbers, something felt different.

People, complete strangers, were commenting. Unlike earlier attempts to create a niche site, these readers were actually engaging with Brock's content. In 2013, he started trying to get readers in new ways. He went to the men's style blogs he'd been reading, and pitched article ideas to them. A lot of publications said no, or just didn't respond, but when he landed his first guest post at primermagazine.com, a mid-sized website, he also landed his first referral traffic.

That post also helped Google see that the modest man wasn't another fleeting hobby, but something with real potential and value. They began ranking his content higher, and organic search traffic slowly grew. Keeping a close eye on his analytics that year, Brock's intuition was confirmed. Readers engaged particularly well with content that specifically solved problems for shorter men, rather than general fashion and style advice. His narrow selection was working, and his authenticity as a curious learner, not an all-knowing guru, helped readers connect on a more personal level.

At that point, he had a small amount of income from Amazon affiliates, but nothing to write home about. The people who were making real money back in 2013 all seemed to be selling paid ebooks, so Brock figured he would try it too. He spent several weeks writing the Modest Man Style Guide, a comprehensive 84-page ebook that served as the complete introduction to style for men of modest height. He planned social media posts, wrote out an email sequence and put up a landing page. Was it a big success?

Well, not quite. It was a ton of work. It challenged Brock to learn a lot about digital and email marketing, but when he finally launched the ebook, sales didn't skyrocket like he'd hoped. He had several sales the first day and a slow trickle afterward, but nothing really took off. Soon after, he tried selling a paid course and one-on-one coaching via a webinar.

He had a list of 15,000 people, 100 people came to that webinar, and then 15 signed up for the product. Womp, womp. Now, 15 was more than zero, but with all the work he put into it, he knew it wasn't scalable. Then in May of 2014, Brock partnered with a style brand for the first time and sent out a sponsored email blast. He was skeptical of the whole thing, he didn't want to make his community think he was selling out, so he wrote a really thoughtful and valuable email.

A funny thing happened, his subscribers ate it up. Finally, after two years, Brock had his first $1,000 month, thanks largely to that email blast. From there, he started doing sponsored blog posts every couple of months. He made sure they were always among his best pieces of content, and his community loved them. In November 2015, thanks to a few sponsored posts and Black Friday, Brock saw his first $5,000 month.

Over the years since, he expanded to a YouTube channel and started making videos. He got his website approved on Adthrive, a premium display ad platform, and he joined affiliate programs with brands directly, rather than relying on Amazon. Each of these decisions boosted his bottom line, and as long as he implemented them thoughtfully in a way that would add to the site and not take away from the experience, his community didn't mind. In 2019, the modest man generated a profit in the low six figures, and Brock is not done yet. He's hoping to accelerate growth over the next six months, and is considering selling the site a year or two from now.

His dream of making his own way in the world has become a reality, and along the way, he's been able to help thousands of readers become more confident with authentic, practical advice. Advice from Brock on building a loyal following, he says, "Create an audience that can't find what you're doing anywhere else." For me, it was style for shorter guys. There were lots of men's fashion websites, but some of those websites had maybe one article about guys who were shorter. My whole site was about that, and that created a loyal, fanatical following. Now, let's go back to this thing about his first paid ebook.

Back in 2013, he says that's how people were making money, at least the people that he noticed. Everyone was selling e-books, so that's what he tried. At its peak, that ebook was making $800 to $1,000 a month, which is definitely real money, of course, but he was looking beyond. When he decided to explore that world of sponsored posts, doing it carefully, thoughtfully, deliberately, making those sponsored posts not something that was an add-on to everything else, and therefore, something his audience would ignore, but actually making it one of his best pieces of content each month, that's when the real money came, and as he learned, no one really minded. He liked those pieces because he put so much work into them.

So, a really good example here of a narrow focus, careful application, diligent work over time that has now become this real media property. So congratulations, Brock. Any shorter men out there, or anyone who knows a shorter man, might want to go and check it out. We're going to link up that site. And the show notes, of course.

Those notes are at www.sidehustleschool.com/1082, episode 1,082. All right, the end of the year is approaching, but we're still rolling along. Do come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.