Welcome to Life with Loverly Grey

This podcast was transcribed using Descript. Please forgive any typos or errors.

Brittany: Hi friends. Welcome to Life with Loverly. I'm your host, Brittany Sjogren. I'm excited to share my heart with you beyond the 15 seconds we get on Instagram, grab an iced coffee and let's do life together. 

Hello, how are you guys? I am so so excited to be here for the first episode of Life with Loverly. My name is Brittany Sjogren and I am behind the blog Loverly Grey. On Instagram. we are @ loverlygrey. I have had this podcast on a goal list since about 2018, and I'm so excited to be able to chat with you guys in depth on issues, more than just what I would discuss on like an Instagram story. I think part of the reason I wanted to have a podcast and find a place where I can, you know, talk to you guys in more detail is because.

Instagram stories is only 15 seconds and you really can't get into the nitty-gritty on topics and go into detail on things like I'm super passionate about and find new ways to connect with you guys. So what better place to do that than a podcast? Everybody is listening to podcasts and audio books and everything is on the go these days. So I just felt like this would be a great little pivot and is something I've been wanting to do for a really long time. So I'm so excited and so happy that you're here. We will be chatting everything from fashion advice, styling tips, information on the influencer industry to beauty hacks all the way to mom tips and my favorite iced coffee recipes.

So we're going to cover a lot of really fun things and we've got some really cool events coming up that we'll be able to chat through. I just want this to be a fun place that we can all come and get to know each other and interact. You guys can get to know me even more than what you do know on Instagram.

So a little bit of background about me, Brittany Sjogren, and Loverly Grey. If you're new here, I started my blog back in 2016. So we're coming up on six years, actually, which is so funny. I am originally from Athens, Georgia. I went to college at Valdosta State University and moved to Atlanta after college started working for an IT staffing firm called Insight Global.

I was an account manager there for four years. That's actually where I met my husband, Chris. We worked together first and little love story in the workplace. We got married in 2015, and right after our wedding, I decided to potentially start some type of like online blog. I was like heavily into Pinterest and looking for styling tips and influencers and bloggers were kind of just starting to like become a thing.

It wasn't as popular as it is now, but there was a lot more I felt that you had to do to get into the industry. And one of my best friends was like, you really need to start sharing your styling advice. You dress so well. People are always like coming to you for this type of thing.

Like, why don't you put it out there? Like there other people are doing it. You could too ,so I decided to take a little leap of faith. We had just gotten married and I had spent so much time wedding planning after work that I was sort of bored. And I was like, I need a hobby. I told Chris, I really want to start a blog and share my sale tips and advice and fashion, style details somewhere. And so he was like, good for you. I can't wait for you to start this hobby. Little did he know that he was going to become heavily invested and involved in the blog against his will, probably for the first few years, but that's a story for another time. 

I started Loverly Grey in January, and I was also working full time in sales and one reason I really wanted to start was because no one was really covering workwear, what to wear to work. What is business professional? What is business casual? Where can you find a great suit? Where can you find outfits that could work to wear during the work week, and then how can we repurpose that same blouse to wear, to brunch or to wine tasting or to church on the weekends?

So I felt like that was something I really loved doing, and I also loved sharing sale alert. I have been a sale shopper my whole life, my mom and I, we'd go shopping when I was younger and we were there to find the deals, the sales and the sale rack was like my favorite place. That just became something that why pay full price, if you can get it on sale?

 I would always find these really great deals and share them with the girls in my office. I would go to Loft on my lunch break and pick up something during a 50% off sale and head back to the office and be like, you guys all have to go to loft after work. If you want a new pencil skirt, because they're 50% off.

 Little did I know that would turn into me sharing with hundreds of thousands of women, these amazing sales that brands do and styling outfits. I'm just so excited that this little passion project turned into what it did, but it was a lot of hard work in the beginning. I always tell people that Chris traveled internationally for his job that first, like really our first two years that we were married, and I was able to spend a lot of time after work, working on my blog because he wasn't there. Was able to prep for blog posts for the future weeks, come up with content ideas, take photos. Even on the times that he was home we would get home from work, cook dinner, watch a show, do whatever, and then he would go to bed and I would go back downstairs and keep working.

So it truly was like, I was working two jobs at first just to see what this could be. So that first year I worked my full-time job and ran my blog. Then I was starting to see some traction. At first, I really wasn't making an income. I was just kind of seeing where this could even go. Then I started gaining commission and working with brands to share Instagram posts, and I was seeing that there was a lot of potential for growth and potential for me to make this a full-time business. I guess I didn't really know I was going to do that when I started it, but once I got going, I started seeing like, this is where my true passion lies. And so I talked to Chris in October, November of that same first year and was like, I really think I could quit my full-time job and do this full time and see what it could be. And that was a conversation. 

You know how sometimes you need to have that conversation four or five times with your spouse to really butter them up? Make sure they're like hearing it. That's what happened. So I started like planting little seeds, like what are your thoughts if I do this, you know? And then eventually I was like, let me just try this. Let's give this a go. So I quit my job and started doing Loverly Grey full-time, and it just started rolling. I was able to hire my first employee a year later. So in the summer of 2017, I hired my first employee, which was so exciting.

I just felt like I was going to be able to accomplish even more with somebody's help. Then fast forward, here we are in 2021, and we have a team of seven people working at Loverly Grey now, which is amazing. I've got four girls who work with me in person every day. Then Chris left his job in January of 2020, and he runs the business side of everything finances or taxes. He does everything like business-related on the backend of the blog and it's just become this really amazing business that I absolutely love waking up every day and showing up for my followers and continuing to share advice. And you know, we now have two children. We've moved back to my hometown. There's a lot going on in our personal lives, and it's just so cool that we've got this amazing brand, associated with us, and I'm just really excited to continue to see growth. And can't wait to share a few ideas of where Loverly Grey is going in the future. But back to the podcast and why we are here.

That's a little background about me for you guys. I will dive into lots of different topics. I've got some really fun ideas for guests I want to have on the podcast. My brother is somebody that I can not wait to get on. He is a Paralympic athlete and right now, as we're recording this, he's actually in Tokyo running, in the Paralympics, which is so amazing.

I'm so proud of him. I want to have him on here. So you guys can hear his story and just hear how much he's overcome in his life to get to where he is right now. So we're going to be sharing about a lot of different topics. You know, I am a fashion blogger. I think there's a lot that I know about the industry. There's a lot that I know about styling. You know, I'm a mom, I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but you know, I've got a few mom hacks and tips and maybe we'll have some actual experts on the podcast that can give you guys some advice.

So I'm just really excited for this to be a place where we can come and be our true selves and be open with each other, and I just can't wait to see where this takes us. You can find me on Instagram @loverlygrey. My blog and website is loverlygrey.com and we are so excited that you are here on Life with Loverly.

Thanks for listening to today's episode. I can't wait to continue these conversations with you over on Instagram at life with cleverly until next time.

Nichelle: That was perfect.