Ep.402 ~ Using Influence to Build a Real Business from a Forbes Top Travel Influencer ~ Kiersten Rich

2019-05-22

Kiersten Rich ~ Forbes Top 10 Travel Influencer & Founder of The Blonde Abroad~ Current Series ~ 100 Interviews with 100 Major Influencers Kiersten Rich was named by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Travel Influencers in the world and has been featured worldwide on major publications for her photography and influence in the travel space. Kiersten's blog, The Blonde Abroad, started as an online journal where...

Kiersten Rich ~ Forbes Top 10 Travel Influencer & Founder of The Blonde Abroad~ Current Series ~

100 Interviews with 100 Major Influencers

Kiersten Rich was named by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Travel Influencers in the world and has been featured worldwide on major publications for her photography and influence in the travel space. Kiersten's blog, The Blonde Abroad, started as an online journal where she could share her travel stories and help inspire women to travel the world, and it has now evolved into a travel-focused media company with multiple brand extensions that is set to hit her first 7-figure year in 2019. Kiersten and The Blond Abroad are a perfect example of taking online influence and turning into a legitimate multi-faceted business.

Currently, The Blonde Abroad has over 550,000+ followers on Instagram, nearly half a million monthly blog visitors, 5 million monthly Pinterest viewers, over 200,000 Facebook fans, and over 2.5 million YouTube views. On the show today, we get the backstory of how Kiersten started this project and spent the time and effort over the years to become a serious entrepreneur and build a solid, sustainable business. We chat about how she handles priorities while traveling, where her traffic comes from, being an early adapter to social media platforms, and how she creates videos while travels. We also get into some fun chat about her favorite blogging perks, best travel experiences, favorite conferences, and of course, how to manage influence in a responsible way.

08:40: The Beginning of The Blonde Abroad

20:00: Finding Synchronicity After Many Years of Travel

25:33: Prioritizing When Running a Successful Location-Independent Business/Blog

30:25: Being a Good Friend and Analyzing Friendships

33:38: Becoming a Forbes Top Travel Influencer

37:53: Where Does The Blonde Abroad Get Their Her Traffic?

41:18: Moving from Blogger to Entrepreneur and Being an Early Adapter

47:38: Blending Influence w/ Entrepreneurship

50:58: Giving the Online World Boundaries

55:28: Creating Your Own Videos While Traveling

1:04:38: Top Blogging Perks

1:08:28: Top Travel Experiences