715: The 10 Best Side Hustles of the Year

0:00:06 The 10 best side hustles of the year. What’s up, what’s up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the
0:00:12 Side Hustle Show. It’s the entrepreneurship podcast you can actually apply. And the end
0:00:17 of the year is upon us, which means it’s time to reflect back on the side hustles that stood out,
0:00:22 the ones that got people talking, the ones I was most excited to share, the ones I was most
0:00:27 inspired to try myself. Now, the mark of a good episode for me is when I hang up the call thinking
0:00:32 like, dang, I got to drop what I’m doing and go do that, whatever it was that we just talked about.
0:00:36 And now I try and exercise some level of restraint, some level of discipline, because
0:00:43 the shiny object syndrome is real when you’re sitting in my chair as the host. But when the
0:00:48 shiny object shines for me, that’s when I know it’s going to be a hit episode. So I’ve selected my top
0:00:53 10 for the year. If you’re new to the show, I will do my best to reference the episode numbers so you
0:00:58 can go back and check out the ones that you’re interested in. I’ve also put those, all of them,
0:01:03 into a Spotify playlist that I will link up in the description for you. And if you’re a long-time
0:01:09 listener, check out and see if your favorites made the list. These are in chronological and
0:01:13 numerical order, starting from the beginning of the year, not from best to worst or anything like that,
0:01:17 but from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. And I’m going to try and highlight a mix
0:01:22 of online and offline businesses. And we’re actually going to start with an offline one
0:01:31 in vending machines. This was episode 662 in March. We met Anthony Kolodziej, and we learned how in just
0:01:38 16 months, he took his Chicago area vending machine business from zero to over $50,000 a month. And now
0:01:44 by the end of the year, he’s already over $100,000 a month, just over two years into the business now.
0:01:48 So this guy is moving a lot of snacks and drinks and actually other products as well.
0:01:54 He’s creating an income, he’s serving the community, and obviously filling a big hole in the market with
0:02:00 modern vending amenities. And it’s kind of funny because people in the business, apparently you
0:02:06 really don’t want to say vending machines anymore. You know, it’s AI eating everything, right? So they’re
0:02:11 not vending machines anymore. They’re AI smart markets. But the end result is the same. Finding the
0:02:17 right locations, buying the products in bulk, and then selling them at a markup. And you know, the more
0:02:23 volume, the merrier. Now that whole episode, number 662, with Anthony, he’s super open. He’s really
0:02:29 transparent about his margins and his mistakes. And honestly, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in
0:02:35 debt that he’s taken on in financing the machines. And so if that doesn’t sit well with you, then maybe this is not
0:02:42 the business for you. But essentially getting those machines for free, because the sales that they make
0:02:48 cover the debt service, and then some really fascinating operation ended up hiring a driver to go and stock the
0:02:54 machines to, you know, play sales business development instead of delivery driver, ended up securing a warehouse
0:03:00 space. But here’s how he described getting a foot in the door with the property managers at his target locations.
0:03:08 What I have found out in this business is extremely archaic. All these property managers, majority of them had
0:03:14 operators in there, but they just couldn’t get a hold of them. Or they weren’t stocking it. So what I do is when I
0:03:19 go into an appointment, I tell them, hey, I’m local. You could call me, you’re going to call this cell phone
0:03:24 number, you’re going to get me. Okay, and I’m going to get back to you right away. When you’re dealing with these
0:03:28 property managers, these people that have decisions they have to make, they don’t want another headache of
0:03:32 chasing you down as a vendor, you know, and that because already doing that and dealing it with all
0:03:35 these other fires that they’re dealing with through the building, they’re dealing with the painter, the
0:03:38 scaffold or the window company, the, you know, all these other different trades that they’re dealing
0:03:44 with. If you just call and you give them a nice experience of customer service back, it’s refreshing
0:03:49 to them. So when I go look at a property, I put a proposal together, I send it, I take pictures and
0:03:54 video, I send it over to my mock-up guy. He gets it over to me within 24 hours and I send them a
0:03:58 proposal within 24 hours. And every single time when I do that, they are floored away of how quickly
0:04:04 they got that proposal. So get back to people quickly, you know, set expectations from the
0:04:08 beginning. A lot of these, like I said, a lot of these property managers, they are, they’re, they’re
0:04:12 worried about when is it going to be stocked because it hasn’t been regularly stocked. So I, I go in that
0:04:18 first meeting and I set up the expectation. I tell them, I go here, when I’m, when we sign up, I’m going to
0:04:23 let you know what day your property is going to be stocked on. So then that way, if you’re getting
0:04:28 down to like four Cokes or three Snickers, I don’t, I don’t need to have 30 property managers texting me,
0:04:32 Hey, it’s getting low. I’ve already set the expectation of knowing that, Hey, your machine
0:04:36 is going to be filled up on Tuesdays. So if it’s Monday or Sunday and it’s low, I mean, we’re going
0:04:40 to be refilling it shortly. So they know I’m coming, setting that expectation. And I let them know
0:04:44 after the first month, if you, if I feel like your machine needs to be stocked twice a week or three
0:04:48 times a week, we’ll make the adjustments in our route schedule. We’ll make sure that it’s going
0:04:53 to be filled. Okay. So you find a lot of time you’re conquesting market share from some legacy
0:05:00 providers that have gotten, um, you gotten complacent or, you know, they’re not answering the phone.
0:05:06 They’re not performing the way that you would like for somebody who’s new to the business, who’s young
0:05:10 and hungry, who wants to go out and get it with a, with a more modern experience or more modern
0:05:14 machine. A hundred percent. Okay. Because a lot of the locations that I go into, some of them had the
0:05:18 same machines that I had in, but the other half, you know, they had maybe the old school coil machines
0:05:22 that maybe when me and you were growing up that we would see. Yeah. I remember, you know, banging on
0:05:28 the track. Come on. Yeah, exactly. You know, it was like, so now I go in and I show exactly now this
0:05:34 new machine, these new machines that I have and, um, you know, they’re blown away. Super inspiring
0:05:41 episode again, number 662. So much. So we actually did a follow-up with Anthony later in the year. That was
0:05:48 episode 703. And in that episode, he drops this line about waking up in the morning and showing his wife
0:05:53 his phone and showing her, Hey, we literally just made $25 in our sleep or whatever it was. And they,
0:06:00 they share this aha moment of gratitude and excitement and start to think, well, what if we had 10 of these
0:06:05 machines? What if we had a hundred? And it was off to the races after that. So Anthony’s vending machine
0:06:10 business is first on my list of the top 10 side hustles of the year. One that very much turned
0:06:16 into a full-time focus and a full-time income pretty quickly. Number two is definitely more of a
0:06:20 traditional side hustle. One that can be done completely online. And that’s Cody Berman’s
0:06:27 printables business, which we featured in episode 665. So Cody’s been doing printables for years,
0:06:32 but the story in this one goes in, in response to some skeptical comments on the internet,
0:06:36 tell you what, I’m going to start a brand new Etsy shop, no sales proof, no outside traffic
0:06:42 and prove to you that it still works. And he gets it to $1,000 a month in four months. So what kind
0:06:46 of products can you sell? Uh, here’s how Cody recommended getting started. If you’re already
0:06:52 a side hustler, look at what you already have and what you’re already using. So some easy examples,
0:06:57 if you’re someone who’s in the personal finance niche and you already have this amazing debt pay down
0:07:00 tracker, or you already have this amazing net worth tracker, or maybe you have a tracker
0:07:06 for your side hustles, you can very easily just kind of white label it, templatize it and flip that.
0:07:11 And now instead of just a product that you’re using for yourself, like a random Google sheet,
0:07:15 now you can actually go and sell this thing on marketplaces like Etsy. And I’ve seen this work
0:07:21 so many times over. We’re both podcasters, Nick, I’m sure you have a media kit or something that you
0:07:25 can send to potential sponsors like, Hey, here’s my downloads. Here’s my stats. So a couple of years ago
0:07:30 for the financial independent show, my podcast, we put together like this really extensive media kit.
0:07:34 And I’m like, well, I just spent all this time on Canva making this like awesome media kit. What if I
0:07:41 just white label it and resell it as an editable media kit? And it sold a bunch of times. So there’s
0:07:45 so many examples that side hustlers like us, people who are already doing something entrepreneurial,
0:07:50 you might have resources in your own life that you’re using that you can just easily repurpose,
0:07:56 turn into a template and then sell to other people. I mean, there’s been six and seven figure businesses
0:08:00 built off this stuff. I was actually on a real estate show a couple weeks ago talking about digital
0:08:05 products and printables. And you look at a company like BiggerPockets, and they’re selling all these
0:08:09 different calculators and spreadsheets and things like that. I mean, that’s probably adding six or seven
0:08:13 figures to their bottom line, just basically taking one template for a thing that they’re already
0:08:18 doing, and then white labeling it and then reselling it to hundreds of thousands of people in
0:08:23 their case. Yeah, it’s an interesting selling your sawdust type of example, where it’s like,
0:08:29 I already created this thing. And the ideas I’ve kicked around and like a habit tracker or a podcast
0:08:35 production checklist planner or sponsorship tracker, there’s all sorts of these different tools that
0:08:40 you may already be using, maybe an incremental revenue stream to the business that you already have,
0:08:44 the side hustle that you already have. Or it could be a completely new thing that is kind of a
0:08:51 standalone entity. So it sounds like the new shop was more of that standalone type of variety.
0:08:55 Yeah, the new shop was more of a standalone. I just wanted to mention the use what you already have,
0:08:58 because that’s often the easiest place to start. Now, if you’re someone who’s listening, you’re like,
0:09:02 well, I don’t already have a side hustle, I don’t have any awesome spreadsheets or any cool tools that
0:09:08 I’m using myself. For this new shop, here was my basic strategy. So I would just brainstorm a giant
0:09:13 list of potential ideas. This would be for my own head, I would also use chat GPT to come up with ideas,
0:09:18 although it’s hit or miss. And then once I would have like a massive list of product ideas,
0:09:22 and these could be anything from I should probably define what printables are digital downloads,
0:09:26 just so people aren’t just thinking abstractly about this. So printables and digital downloads
0:09:32 is basically a digital file that you create in a program like Canva, you’d then upload that digital
0:09:37 file into your Etsy shop. When someone buys it, the digital file would automatically be delivered to
0:09:40 the buyer. So I already mentioned some of them like a media kit template, for example,
0:09:45 other ones like checklists, planners, calendars, games, invitations, there’s thousands of different
0:09:50 types of printables. So just wanted to set the stage what printables are. So I create this massive
0:09:54 list, like literally 250 different printable ideas. Again, these are just things that I think maybe
0:09:59 could make good printables, or things that chat GPT thinks could make good printables. And then once I
0:10:04 have that monster list, that’s when I start to plug them into like a keyword research tool.
0:10:11 So for Etsy specifically, ones I use, E-Rank and Everbee, if you aren’t as familiar with Etsy, or even if you
0:10:16 want to sell outside, like let’s say you want to open up a Shopify store or WooCommerce, you can use other
0:10:22 keyword research tools. Maybe you already have Ahrefs, or maybe you already use Ubersuggest, or maybe you’re
0:10:27 using some of these other tools. Like you can use any keyword research tools, what I’m trying to say. I will plug
0:10:32 those 250 different ideas into the keyword research tools to see one, if there’s search demand, are people
0:10:39 to create? And two, is there a ton of competition? Because the last thing I want to do is compete with
0:10:44 everyone and their mother on some generic digital products that I’m probably not going to stand out
0:10:49 with because again, everybody is selling it. So that was kind of my general strategy, my 10,000 foot view
0:10:56 of my strategy for this new Etsy shop. Again, that’s Cody Berman from Gold City Ventures and episode 665 of
0:11:01 the Side Hustle Show this year. The other line that stood out from that interview with Cody was where he
0:11:07 talked about going after these relatively low volume search terms, sometimes as low as 50 searches a
0:11:13 month, but the ones where there was almost no competition. He said, look, if I can scoop up 10
0:11:18 sales a month for a $5 product, that’s $50 a month in passive income. And if I can start to stack up an
0:11:25 army of these little mini digital evergreen assets, it can start to be a pretty serious operation and one
0:11:30 that’s time leveraged. Create it once, sell it over and over again. That is a business model that I like.
0:11:35 And so that’s number two on this list, the digital product business through the lens of selling
0:11:41 printable files on Etsy. I believe Cody’s course is closed for enrollment at the moment. Don’t quote
0:11:45 me on that, but if you hit the show notes, I will make sure to put an opt-in so you can get notified
0:11:54 about that. Number three was a brand new to me Side Hustle in 2025, and that is UGC, User Generated
0:11:59 Content. Now here’s the interesting part. This isn’t about being an influencer. This isn’t about
0:12:05 hundreds of thousands of followers. This is about brands hiring individual creators like you and me
0:12:10 to help them fill their own social feeds with authentic looking content and maybe even using
0:12:18 your videos to create as ads or to run ads to. So in that sense, the UGC Side Hustle is a rebrand of
0:12:24 freelance content creation just with a specific short form video first spin. And creators like
0:12:30 you are earning hundreds of dollars per video that are usually less than a minute long. This is Megan
0:12:34 Collier from episode 666 on how she got her start.
0:12:39 The portfolio was the main thing that I sent to brands though when I was reaching out. And I was
0:12:46 reaching out to brands two ways. One is Instagram DM. I would like literally just scroll Instagram,
0:12:52 look at the ads that I was seeing on Instagram, and then go and follow the brand if I wasn’t already
0:12:59 following them. And then I would DM them and say, Hey, I’m Megan. I’m a UGC creator. I’ve been seeing
0:13:05 your ads. Your product looks like something I could totally use myself. And I’d love to be connected with
0:13:10 the person in charge of handling partnerships. And I got several responses from that. That’s how I
0:13:18 landed my second UGC deal. The first one though that you mentioned, the $750 deal, was like 10 days
0:13:23 into my UGC journey. And that was with an app company that I just ended up emailing, cold pitching
0:13:30 via email. And yeah, they ended up hiring me for three videos initially. And then I wanted to make more
0:13:35 money and prove that I could actually do this and make a good chunk of money for my first UGC deal.
0:13:41 And so I ended up, I didn’t tell them, but I made five total videos for them. And I was like, Hey,
0:13:47 I ended up having a ton of like ideas for you guys. And I have five videos if you want to buy the other
0:13:51 two. And they were like, Oh my gosh, yes, a hundred percent. We need all the videos that we can get.
0:13:52 Oh, okay. Okay.
0:13:55 So then it ended up being about $750 for those five videos.
0:14:02 Okay. So step one, create the portfolio. Step two, start doing the brand outreach. And it sounds like
0:14:06 I’m just going to scroll my feed and show who’s showing up in the ads. Like I know they’re
0:14:11 investing in user acquisition and growth marketing. So they’re, they might be more receptive to this.
0:14:16 Because my, my approach would have been like, well, what are the top 25, 50 brands that I already
0:14:21 know, like, and trust and I use, and I’m going to start there. It sounds like, uh, you know,
0:14:22 maybe that, maybe that comes down the road.
0:14:29 Honestly, I think that what works is the only way to land the deal is literally by connecting with
0:14:33 brands. So it doesn’t matter if you’re going to DM, if you’re going to email, if you’re just going
0:14:38 to start with the brands that you already like, because that also is super powerful because you’re
0:14:43 coming to the brand saying, Hey, I’ve been using this product for X amount of months or X amount of
0:14:48 years. They’ve already got that. Like it’s, it’s a bonus for them because they have a real customer
0:14:53 that’s going to be willing to make some really authentic, genuine content. So yeah,
0:14:57 a hundred percent. You can start with brands. You already know you already like, you can quite
0:15:02 literally, this is what I tell people if they’re kind of having a block on who to reach out to is
0:15:08 take a pen and piece of paper or take your notes app on your phone, go walk around your house and look
0:15:13 at all the products that you have that you’ve purchased that you use on a consistent basis.
0:15:21 I can almost guarantee most of those brands are posting consistently on, on social media and probably
0:15:26 a lot of them are also working already with UGC creators. Yeah. And it’s not just, you know,
0:15:33 I’m thinking of like the closet and shoes and clothes, but also food and snacks and toys and games,
0:15:36 like all sorts of stuff. So much. And even, and even software, like you said,
0:15:41 the first deal was a, was an app company. Yeah. I’ve worked with so many apps,
0:15:46 software companies that I’ve used for years and just, you know, they just hired me to do UGC. So
0:15:52 whenever people ask me like what kind of brands are using UGC creators, it’s truly a mix. It’s,
0:15:57 it’s across the board. I’ve worked with fashion, like clothing companies, software tech companies,
0:16:03 like you as a, you doing podcasts, like I’m looking at your, your headphones, right? Your mic, like
0:16:08 you, what, whatever you’re using as a podcaster, so many brands are, are using, you know,
0:16:12 user generated content and their marketing strategies. Okay. That’s what they’re getting
0:16:19 out of the deal is we’re going to hire Megan or a hundred people like Megan to fill out our own
0:16:23 content feed. Like this, it’s, there’s always another day coming around. There’s always going
0:16:28 to be need, needing more stuff to post. And so this is a way to kind of crowdsource that in
0:16:34 an authentic looking way or, or, you know, from actual users of the thing. And so that’s their
0:16:37 benefit benefit to you is obviously you’re getting paid to do it. And so it sounds like from your
0:16:44 Instagram DMS, it’s like, could you connect me with the, you said the person handling content
0:16:49 partnerships or is like some, is that an official job title that I want to like be on the lookout
0:16:54 for? Yeah, it’s, it’s going to be different for every brand, right? So what I like to tell people
0:17:00 is, you know, typically when you’re reaching out to medium, you know, from medium to large sized brands,
0:17:06 the person that’s looking at the DMS of the brand, like on the brand’s Instagram account is not
0:17:11 typically a decision maker, right? It’s going to be a customer service person that just wants to answer
0:17:19 questions quickly. So that’s why I say always ask to be connected with the brand partnerships, or it could
0:17:24 be an influencer manager, manager, it could be a partnerships director, it could be a creative director.
0:17:32 So you could ask it in a specific way more, like, can I be connected with the person in charge of
0:17:37 handling partnerships? So you don’t have to say a specific title, but just whoever’s in charge of,
0:17:39 you know, working with content creators.
0:17:44 I’ve heard from a few listeners who took action after hearing that episode with Megan. And if you did
0:17:50 as well, be sure to let me know again, episode 666 on making money as a content creator, even
0:17:55 if you don’t have a following. Pretty cool stuff. Although I wonder what the impact of AI video is
0:18:01 going to be on that space as brands can crank out short form videos with AI influencers, probably for
0:18:06 quite a bit less, but I know not all brands want to go that route. So, so far we’ve covered vending
0:18:11 machines, we’ve covered printables and UGC, but we’re just getting started. The rest of the best side
0:18:14 hustles of the year are coming up right after this.
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0:20:39 side. We’re back and we’re working our way through the top 10 side hustles of the year. And we’re shifting
0:20:46 back offline for number four. And that was Tim Carstensen’s mobile foam party business. When we connected,
0:20:51 Tim was still working full-time as a PE teacher, but running this business nights and weekends and
0:20:56 over the summer. And he had hired helpers as well after the demand grew to the point where he couldn’t
0:21:02 be two places at once to host two different parties. But one of the reasons it made the list was the
0:21:09 creative and relatively low risk way Tim started the business, pre-booking the parties months in advance
0:21:15 and using the save the date deposits that the customers give him, gave him to fund his equipment.
0:21:25 So I’d found pretty much any daycare, summer camp, park district, library, elementary school within
0:21:33 about 35 or 40 miles. I made a list and I sent the same postcard to all of them. Now I kind of break
0:21:39 it up with individual marketing for the different types. So I might, I would send a different postcard to
0:21:46 schools than I would to churches or libraries and things like that. But back then it was just the one
0:21:53 postcard, Vistaprint, send it all. Hope we get some responses and definitely worked to get the first few
0:21:53 responses.
0:21:56 Yeah. How many, how many did you send out?
0:22:00 I want to say maybe 700 total.
0:22:01 Okay. Okay.
0:22:04 So, you know, you’re putting a little bit of money into it at that point.
0:22:10 Yeah. Casting a wide enough net to kind of know if you are shooting completely blank after 700 and
0:22:12 maybe, maybe the messaging needs, needs some tweaking.
0:22:16 Might be time to turn it around, right? Yeah. So, and at that point I thought, well,
0:22:21 if I needed to, if, if it wasn’t going to work, I could sell the equipment back and I wouldn’t really
0:22:23 be all that much of a loss.
0:22:26 Yeah. Relatively low risk. What did the equipment cost?
0:22:33 The foam cannon itself, I use a professional grade model that cost at the time about $2,500 for the
0:22:38 cannon. And then I would say for other things that are in the foam party set up, we have these
0:22:45 barriers, uh, like PVC and some vinyl with our, our marketing on their barriers to keep the foam
0:22:49 from coming back at the person shooting the foam. And.
0:22:52 Okay. I’m picturing like a medieval, like a shield.
0:22:57 Yeah. In case the wind shifts. So it’s, it’s kind of like a little wall about four feet high,
0:23:01 maybe, uh, with our marketing on the front that they see. And then it keeps the foam from blowing
0:23:07 back at us and getting on our equipment. And then just little things like, well, we have a five by five
0:23:13 tents with our branding on it. That just kind of makes it look professional. And then a lot of little
0:23:20 things like tools that you might need and, uh, hoses and electrical cords and, uh, speakers.
0:23:28 Yeah. So you just need a water source and, you know, BYO bubbles basically. And then in this,
0:23:30 this professional cannon at a bare minimum.
0:23:36 Right. Yeah. So we, we do need a water source, uh, just a regular hose hookup works. And then,
0:23:43 uh, an electrical outlet, a regular outlet works, uh, if it’s just for one foam cannon, if it’s
0:23:47 multiple foam cannons, or if you’re not close enough to an outlet, then we bring a generator
0:23:51 in that situation for most of like the smaller events, daycares, summer camps and stuff like
0:23:58 that. It’s just one, one foam cannon. And so, yeah, I started off with one, got a few bookings
0:24:04 before I even did any foam parties, even though I had some booked, uh, I bought a second setup
0:24:07 and it’s just kind of kept on rolling.
0:24:10 What did the postcard say? Was there pricing on there? Was it just like,
0:24:14 but you know, booking now for, you know, summer 2023 or whatever it was.
0:24:20 It said like, we bring a foam party to you. And then it said like, foam parties are great for,
0:24:25 and then I tried to hit summer camps, daycares, school events, church events,
0:24:31 library, summer reading, kickoffs, block parties, birthday parties. And then it says like foam
0:24:37 party packages include, you know, foam cannon, a foam party leader, which is you showing up and
0:24:38 leading the thing.
0:24:42 Right. Which at that point is just me. I’m the only guy that’s, uh, that’s available.
0:24:43 Okay.
0:24:48 And then, you know, book now at our website. Uh, we did have pricing on our website for,
0:24:53 for basic, like, you know, one hour, one cannon, or, uh, we also do something called glow
0:24:58 foam, which is, looks like the foam is glowing in the dark for night events. So we had pricing
0:25:02 for that on the website, not on the postcard. Okay. What’s it cost to get you to come out
0:25:05 for a one hour, like a birthday party? It’s three 75.
0:25:10 It’s 375 bucks an hour, not including your setup and take down to travel and all that,
0:25:15 but it was a really interesting business. Tim struck me as a very methodical guy. He said he was
0:25:20 originally looking at party inflatables as a side business, but got turned off by the high
0:25:25 insurance costs. It was during that research though, that he stumbled onto the foam party
0:25:30 idea and found almost no competition in his area for it. So kind of a little bit of a blue
0:25:36 ocean there. So just an illustration that sometimes ideas and inspiration strike once you’re already
0:25:43 in motion. So that’s number four, the foam party rental service episode 676 in your archives.
0:25:49 For number five, we’re going into the e-commerce world with Chris Gray’s bald buck barbecue
0:25:54 seasoning business, which was reported to be doing around $300,000 a year in sales
0:26:01 on the side from his day job. But the interesting thing is while Chris enjoyed smoking meat as much
0:26:05 as the next guy and definitely enjoyed eating it, he wasn’t a professional chef. He didn’t even invent
0:26:11 this seasoning as his own personal recipe. Instead, he found a product that he knew already tasted great,
0:26:14 already knew people liked it, and then just applied his own marketing to it.
0:26:20 I just saw an opportunity, right? I, like most entrepreneurs, I probably suffer from chasing too
0:26:26 many things. But I saw here was an opportunity for something that I’m passionate about, which is
0:26:33 smoking food, barbecue, and then I’m also passionate about marketing. And so I chose to go sell the
0:26:38 seasoning itself as opposed to opening a restaurant because the overhead was going to be lower and I could
0:26:45 work more digitally than having to commit a bunch of money to buying a space and getting staff and
0:26:48 having rent and all the overhead that would come with having a barbecue joint.
0:26:55 Okay. So step one, delicious chicken, maybe step zero. Step two is, I assume, going to your brother
0:27:01 and say, well, where did you get this stuff? How can I build a distribution channel here? What’s going on
0:27:01 there?
0:27:05 So this is what I love. I tell people I sell this barbecue seasoning and they’re like, oh man,
0:27:11 did you come up with your own special blend? And how long did it take? And did you have a lab? And
0:27:16 none of that, man. I just found out who made it. And then I called them up and I’m like, hey,
0:27:21 I like your seasoning. Do you white label it? Meaning do they give you the rub and allow you to put your
0:27:22 own brand on it?
0:27:26 Yeah. And the white labeling happens all the time. If you go to like Costco has Kirkland’s,
0:27:30 which is a white label of something else. Walmart has great value, a white label of something else.
0:27:33 And so Amazon does it. Everybody does it.
0:27:33 Yeah.
0:27:36 And so I called them up and said, hey, can I just white label your season? They’re like,
0:27:42 yeah, we have a program for that. And I was like, great. So then I had to go and create my own brand,
0:27:47 my own coloring, my own, all that stuff, which was easy to do. I was lucky because my business
0:27:52 partner, we have a business partner in several businesses. He’s a graphic design guy. And
0:27:57 we were going over all these different names on what we wanted the seasoning to be. I had a list
0:28:03 of 20 different names. One was Bald Buck. We chose Bald Buck because it was funny. Plus I’m bald. My
0:28:07 nickname with my friends is Buck. They would call me Bald Buck. So I found, I thought this would be a way
0:28:14 of like getting back at them. Like, hey, you made fun of me. Now I have a brand. And so we did that.
0:28:18 We came up, he drew the, he made the logo. We came up with the name. We gave it to the company.
0:28:24 They label it, they can it, and they just ship it to us. So all I got to do now is push it,
0:28:29 which is kind of scary, Nick, because when you get sold or when you get shipped 5,000 units of seasoning,
0:28:33 you better, you better figure out how to move it or you better cook a lot of chicken.
0:28:38 Okay. So the seasoning company had this system already in place and they say, hey,
0:28:41 you can totally do that. Just send us your graphics, send us your seasoning,
0:28:45 send us your branding package and we’ll put it on the bottles for you. You don’t even have to do that
0:28:45 yourself.
0:28:50 Yeah. They, they can it. They put it on enough. I want to save money. I got to do that myself
0:28:55 eventually, but they do it all. And a lot of places do this, Nick, and a lot of different things.
0:28:58 It could be microphones. It could be art. It could be shirts. Like a lot of people
0:29:03 do most of the work for you. All you have to do is go push it. And that’s something I wish I would
0:29:08 have understood a long time ago. I don’t have to create everything. A lot of the work can be done.
0:29:13 I just need to find something that works and then find a way to sell it. So in this case,
0:29:19 this seasoning worked. My family loved it. Friends loved it. It was already popular in a different
0:29:23 state. I just had to take it, bring it and wrap a different story around it. And that’s what I did.
0:29:29 I think that’s a really great line. I don’t have to create everything from scratch. A lot of the work
0:29:33 can already be done. If you can find something that’s already working, find a different way
0:29:37 to position it, different way to sell it. Really powerful episode. And then to get his initial
0:29:43 sales, Chris turned to influencer marketing, targeting big barbecue channels on YouTube,
0:29:48 barbecue influencers, and then offering to send them the seasoning and even to run some giveaways for
0:29:52 their audience. So that drove quite a bit of business. And then Chris turned to kind of a unique
0:29:58 storytelling and content marketing and retargeting strategy on social media to sell. The other
0:30:02 interesting thing, you know, to sell what might be considered a commodity product, right? You can go
0:30:07 get barbecue seasoning for probably a tenth of the price at the grocery store, but then to sell bald
0:30:15 buck at a premium price online. So that is episode 678. Number five on our list, we’ll call it white
0:30:21 labeling e-commerce. Number six is one that definitely had me looking for acreage nearby. And that was Garrett
0:30:28 Brown’s glamping business from episode 686. So here’s what struck me. He did such a good job of
0:30:33 building up the experience surrounding staying at his property an hour outside of Houston, kind of
0:30:39 middle of nowhere, that he was able to command four star hotel prices like 400 bucks a night without the
0:30:45 four star amenities or even without the expectation of four star amenities. It’s a tiny house in the woods
0:30:50 or it’s a geodome out in the middle of nowhere. But people came for that Instagram worthy shot to get
0:30:57 away from the city, to have that kind of unique, memorable experience. And it costs a whole lot less to set up
0:31:03 than trying to run a four seasons hotel or something like that. So his return on investment math was really
0:31:09 strong. Now, here was his advice on what to look for in starting a potential glamping site or a potential
0:31:12 short term rental business near you.
0:31:18 I’m in Houston, Texas, and I was looking for something within the vicinity of Houston, Texas,
0:31:23 that was a little more rural. I have something I like to call a 60-30-10 rule.
0:31:29 Now, I’ve coined it that, but at the time, I knew that I needed to be 60 minutes from a major
0:31:35 city. And so I found some land. I didn’t want to go three or four hours out from a major city because
0:31:41 I figured people wouldn’t want to drive that far. I thought of the 30 portion was 30 minutes from some
0:31:49 type of national, regional, or state attraction. The land I ended up finding was about 10 or 15 minutes
0:31:53 from a lake. It’s called Lake Livingston, which is the second biggest lake in Texas.
0:31:59 But it was also near a state park. It was also near a national forest. And so there was a few like
0:32:05 attractions. And then the 10 of the 60-30-10 rule is you want to be 10 minutes from some type of
0:32:10 civilization, you know, a Dollar General, gas station, Walmart, anything like that. Because
0:32:16 I knew that if I was, you know, in a beautiful place, but 30 or 40 minutes away from civilization,
0:32:21 I was like, how am I going to get people to come out there and clean for me? How am I going to get
0:32:25 people to come out and, you know, operate the facilities for me when I’m not there?
0:32:26 There’s such thing as too remote.
0:32:32 Yeah, exactly. And I was, and I see people, they’ll see really cheap land, you know, like a really,
0:32:36 you know, remote area. And I’m like, well, there’s a reason that land is extremely cheap, because
0:32:41 you’re, you know, you’re going to have a hard time turning that into anything for, you know,
0:32:46 a million different reasons. So I ended up, you know, researching a lot of places. I found a house
0:32:51 that was on a little over 10 acres. And so I knew that having that house on the property,
0:32:54 it’s very hard to get a loan for land.
0:32:55 Just, just raw land.
0:33:01 Yeah. A lot of people have to buy it with cash. You can, you can probably get a loan for like 50%
0:33:06 down, which, you know, a lot of people, 50% down, even if you’re buying a piece of land,
0:33:10 it’s still going to be, you know, maybe a hundred thousand dollars or something that’s really
0:33:15 expensive. And then you, then you have to spend the money to actually develop the site. So I found
0:33:21 this house on about 10 acres in a, in a unrestricted area. It wasn’t in, you know, it wasn’t in a
0:33:27 neighborhood or an HOA or anything. And so I sold my townhouse that was in Houston, took
0:33:31 a little bit of the money I made off that and put this into this new house, which I only had
0:33:38 to put 5% down on, which it’s, it was a $500,000 house, $550,000 house to be exact.
0:33:44 Okay. On 10 acres, on 10 acres, it came in appraised at 600,000. So I already had some
0:33:50 instant equity when I went into it, but the cool thing I had the 5% down, but I also was able to
0:33:58 negotiate a 3% seller concession into my offer. And so what that did is I almost went into the property
0:34:05 for about 2% down because I had a 5% down payment that I needed to put down. But within my offer and
0:34:12 my negotiations, that seller agreed to pay back 3% of the price. There’s even opportunities out
0:34:18 there that you could get a, it was called an FHA loan, which could be 3.5% down. You could even
0:34:25 possibly get a USDA loan, which is a government loan and getting into it that wants to develop
0:34:30 rural areas. So with all the money that I was able to save upfront, I only ended up having to put about,
0:34:36 I think it was about $12,000 down that money, the money I saved, I ended up building my first tiny
0:34:45 cabin on the property. So looking for five plus acres following Garrett’s 60, 30, 10 rule that
0:34:49 already has a house on it. That’s going to make your life a little bit easier in financing and making
0:34:54 improvements to the property. Now, the other interesting thing about Garrett’s project, the first thing that
0:35:00 really surprised me was that the majority of his bookings came direct as in not through Airbnb,
0:35:05 not through VRBO. I would have assumed the opposite, but that was a testament to the strength of his
0:35:11 social media presence. And he did a really good job documenting the journey of building out the property,
0:35:17 got enough people following along that people wanted specifically to stay there. And in some cases,
0:35:22 they were willing to pay a premium to do it. So he wasn’t just, you know, competing against every other
0:35:28 Airbnb that might pop up in that area. The second interesting thing was that he was able to negotiate
0:35:33 kind of a unique financing deal on this mirror house, cool looking tiny home on the property,
0:35:39 where if I remember, he essentially got it for free and just paid, you know, paid it off with the
0:35:44 proceeds from renting it out, which I guess is similar to Anthony’s vending machine financing. Oh,
0:35:48 I’m going to pay for it with the sales that it generates. In any case, super inspiring episode
0:35:56 kind of at the intersection of real estate investing, hospitality, and online marketing. Episode 686 in
0:36:02 your archives for that one. Number seven is one of those plug and play side hustles that continues to
0:36:08 get outsized feedback and support from listeners. And that’s ShareTown. This is the return reselling
0:36:14 side hustle. If you’re not familiar, ShareTown is the quote unquote reverse logistics arm for a lot of
0:36:19 online retailers in the, you know, direct to consumer furniture, mattress, exercise equipment
0:36:25 space. It’s basically big bulky stuff that’s difficult to return. ShareTown in turn then partners
0:36:31 with local reps, often side hustlers like you and me, to facilitate these pickup requests when a customer
0:36:37 says, no, on second thought, I want to return this item. But the companies can’t really take the items
0:36:41 back and they would prefer that it stay out of the landfill and they want to try and recoup some of
0:36:47 their costs. So this is where ShareTown comes in. The reps pick them up and list them for sale on
0:36:53 Facebook marketplace. And then once they sell, send a portion of the proceeds back to the company,
0:36:59 back to ShareTown. And the reason it makes the list is just for its simplicity. Yes, it’s labor. Yes,
0:37:04 you need a way to transport and store the items, but you got super low overhead. It’s one of these
0:37:08 side hustles where you don’t need to build an audience. You don’t need to create a product.
0:37:13 You don’t even need to do any sort of exercise on what are you an expert in? What are you passionate
0:37:19 about? You just need to do the work. And that sentiment was echoed by Matt and Hannah in episode
0:37:26 687. Look, it’s not that we’re particularly passionate about this business, but if we’re targeting $200 per
0:37:31 flip, it’s been a meaningful chapter in our lives. It’s been a meaningful extra income stream at a time
0:37:36 we really needed it. The biggest surprise was, and I think that that can be true for a lot of
0:37:41 side hustles is just that you don’t ever know what it could evolve to. We thought that it was a side
0:37:46 hustle and it was something that, I mean, Matt worked nine to five and even traveled for work.
0:37:51 And then in the evenings drove into San Francisco and I just feel like we were willing to do something
0:37:57 different because we had some goals. And it’s not that I’m like crazy passionate about selling
0:38:02 mattresses. I have learned like ever since you were a little girl, you wanted to sell mattresses.
0:38:06 No, it’s not that I’m crazy passionate about selling mattresses. I have learned to really enjoy
0:38:11 the interactions and those sales and get a lot of satisfaction out of helping people that way.
0:38:16 And it makes it hard to ever consider working for somebody again, because we work together and we have
0:38:22 flexibility. And I think that that can be the beauty of a side hustle is it helps you to achieve your
0:38:29 goals. And it gives you the flexibility to kind of live life on your own terms, you know, the way
0:38:34 an extra source of income does. Yeah. It’s really powerful. That line of we were willing to do
0:38:39 something different to get out of this situation. People that are willing to do something different
0:38:43 and work at it, even when it’s hard or even when it’s not yielding results. Unfortunately,
0:38:49 ShareTown, I feel like is a pretty results driven gig. It’s hard to fail at, I feel like,
0:38:54 but I feel like it’s that willing to work hard and willing to fail, you know, willing to try
0:38:59 willing for things to not work out and then willing to pick yourself back up and keep trying until it
0:39:04 does. And that’s what we found with your, you know, business too, is just trial, a lot of trial and
0:39:10 error and not giving up. So number seven was the return reselling side hustle highlighted by Matt and
0:39:15 Hannah. Yeah. As you heard in episode 687, sidehustlenation.com slash ShareTown is my direct
0:39:20 referral link if you want to learn more and maybe give it a try yourself. But stick around. We’re
0:39:26 rounding out our top 10 side hustles of the year coming up right after this. We’re heading back
0:39:31 online for side hustle number eight, a business model that I’ve got some level of experience in and one
0:39:37 that’s proven to be a bit more AI resistant than some other online businesses. And that’s informational
0:39:45 directories. So in episode 692, we met Frey Chu, who specializes in what we called near me directories,
0:39:49 helping people solve problems and find information about businesses near them, kind of a local
0:39:56 directory model. We gave the example of thrift stores, RV parks, splash pads, stuff like that,
0:40:02 and then layering on some value added information that maybe Google Maps doesn’t have or couldn’t find for
0:40:06 the breadth of different services that they offer, like something, you know, answering a specific
0:40:10 question that would be relevant to that specific thing, but you know, they’re not going to include
0:40:19 it as a data field for, for every little thing. But you can become the go to expert in that space. And I
0:40:23 think you can get rewarded in the search results when you build it out. And so what makes a good topic to
0:40:29 create a directory about. So here’s Frey on his initial niche research process.
0:40:37 When I choose a good niche for a directory, I typically try my best to have that be 70%
0:40:42 data based. So the keyword research is good. There’s high search volume, low competition,
0:40:47 there’s clear bounty, like a website directory that’s already successful, that probably isn’t
0:40:52 the most optimized or kind of old and clunky. And then 30% of it will be more passion based interest
0:40:57 based kind of like what you mentioned, I’ve tried directories where it’s 100% kind of interest based
0:41:04 hobby or passion based. And for me personally, it didn’t work out. So I think the way I landed on the
0:41:13 thrifting idea was, I just audited my life and where I like to go and where people like to go. And I
0:41:18 combine that with a framework where I’m like, okay, what saves people time earns people money or saves
0:41:24 people money. And those are kind of like the three umbrella frameworks that I tried to combine when I
0:41:29 was socially observing where people were going in the world. And that’s when I landed on this very
0:41:34 specific thrift store that I built my entire directory around. And people love it because it’s so cheap.
0:41:41 It’s like a warehouse style thrifting experience where everything’s by the pound. So you don’t get
0:41:46 markups from regular thrift stores. Interesting. Okay, I’ve never heard of that. Yeah. Okay, so I
0:41:52 like this. So 70% we’re gonna we’re gonna let the data kind of steer where we want to go. And bonus
0:41:57 points 30% of this decision is gonna be based on well, if I’m gonna work on this, I at least got to
0:42:02 care something about it. Otherwise, you know, what’s gonna separate me from everybody else trying to do the
0:42:07 same thing. You mentioned having a clear bounty. This is somebody else who has paved the way for you.
0:42:14 This is a site that is maybe a little outdated, maybe a little clunky looking, maybe the data isn’t
0:42:19 as cleanly presented as it could be. But they’re doing okay, you can tell that they’re ranking,
0:42:24 they’re getting traffic, they say, I can do better than that. And that’s how we’re going to try and
0:42:28 stair step above that site. They’ve, they’ve already proven out the concept. And now we instead of
0:42:33 reinventing the wheel, we’re going to go after what they did just do it better. 100%. I think it tells
0:42:39 you so much, especially with a lot of concern around SERPs changing, right? There’s so many
0:42:44 more forums and social media websites. And it just really depends if you whatever you type into Google,
0:42:50 you can get a completely different looking search engine results page. So if you see a bounty someone
0:42:56 that’s successful, and yeah, I mean, it’s basically proof that you can take the structure of their website
0:43:02 and just improve it. I clearly Google has chosen that, and has left that there on page one rank one
0:43:07 for some time, because it finds it trustworthy and matches user intent and search intent to some extent.
0:43:12 Yeah, it’s like one of the most important factors that I actually look for when I’m building a new directory
0:43:15 is a successful one that’s come before me.
0:43:21 And what’s interesting is you seem to prefer location based queries or location based directories,
0:43:26 not to put words in your mouth, but we did an episode with John Rush late last year. And it was
0:43:33 almost it was like online service providers, it was best, like all GPTs, or I think was the one that
0:43:37 he mentioned, was like a directory of software tools. It was like kind of the opposite approach.
0:43:44 I just personally think that local queries, local SEO is way more protected, kind of going just talking
0:43:49 about certain keywords and informational blogs that were destroyed. Local SEO is a totally different beast.
0:43:54 And if you go on ChatGPT or any LLM, and you look up a local query or local keyword,
0:44:00 like barbers near me, it’s arguably worse than Google Maps right now. So yeah, and the SERPs looks the same,
0:44:05 which is great. So that’s really all an SEO can ask for anyone building one of these directories relying
0:44:12 on SEO as distribution is, I don’t want any surprises. I think this challenge is still not entirely solved,
0:44:22 even if LLMs can catch up, because there are certain niches, like daycare, or anything legal or finance, where the
0:44:28 consequence of choosing the wrong vendor or local business service is too high. Like with the daycare, you’re handing
0:44:36 your child to some random people. I’m not just gonna one prompt ChatGPT and ask, hey, where are the nearest daycares and be like,
0:44:40 okay, cool. That’s awesome. There’s also price sensitivity, there’s so many reasons why someone
0:44:48 would go beyond just a simple one shot ChatGPT prompt, and look elsewhere on the internet for more
0:44:52 information around things that they need things that where trust is inherent.
0:45:00 Again, that’s episode 692 with Frey Chu. Really cool episode, one of the businesses I would be most
0:45:04 interested in starting if I had to start over. We talked monetization in that episode, which in his
0:45:09 case was primarily display ads, but it could be affiliate partnerships, it could be selling featured
0:45:14 listings in the directory, or it could be selling your own products. Actually, I think Frey was selling a
0:45:20 digital product related to the thrifting niche to some of the visitors on his site there. So that’s number
0:45:26 eight, the directory business or online directory side hustle. Number nine is a brand new income stream
0:45:30 for me, one that I’ve been spending admittedly a lot of time and attention on trying to get off the
0:45:38 ground, and that’s the Facebook content monetization program. Like YouTube, Facebook is paying creators who
0:45:43 can post engaging content, get people to stay on the platform longer. The downside is they don’t really
0:45:49 have any clear guidelines like YouTube does on what it takes to get invited into the monetization
0:45:53 program. And as of press time, it is invite only, unfortunately, not something that you can apply
0:46:00 for. However, if you’ve had your page for a while, even a somewhat dormant and neglected page like mine
0:46:05 was, you might find that you have an invite waiting for you where it was just a toggle or, you know,
0:46:12 check the box and turn on monetization. But after months of seeing Jeff Rose’s good financial sense at
0:46:18 the top of my feed, I finally had to call him up to learn more about, well, how does this all work?
0:46:23 There’s no way he’s posting this much stuff and not getting paid for it. And sure enough, he was making
0:46:31 like $1,000 a day posting memes, posting screenshots of tweets, stock charts, all loosely related to his
0:46:38 niche of personal finance. And one of the strategies for sourcing content, he explained, was to look at
0:46:44 what’s performing well on other social platforms and then try and repurpose it to Facebook. So here’s how
0:46:46 Jeff explained it in episode 706.
0:46:52 It’s been fun to test, you know, like, obviously, I’m looking at other pages, I’m looking at even going
0:46:59 like to X or threads and seeing what is going viral over there. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to
0:47:04 translate over to Facebook, but there definitely have been times where it has. And I’ve tested, you know,
0:47:08 what’s really worked. Actually, I was just looking at this, they now share with you, like in the
0:47:14 analytics, when you post something, how many new followers did you gain from that post, which is a
0:47:20 very interesting metric. And what I discovered, actually, this past week was anytime that I took
0:47:28 like a screenshot of gold or Bitcoin or the S&P 500 or a certain stock and had some caption to go along
0:47:33 with that. It definitely seems like my audience resonate with that. But the weird thing too is
0:47:37 like, I’ve done like parenting stuff. You know, I’ve done marriage stuff, like I’ve done marriage
0:47:43 humor. And that’s also done well, not always, right? Like not everything hits. I’ve had stuff where I
0:47:47 thought, man, this is going to take off and it just completely flop. Some that are really disappointing
0:47:52 too, because like, I really spent some time, you know, crafting the message, obviously using ChatGPT to
0:47:57 kind of help write the story. You should know that this is very much a volume game, very much a game
0:48:02 of throwing a lot of digital spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. I’m currently posting like
0:48:07 eight to 10 times a day and trying to increase that volume, but do it in a, in a sustainable way,
0:48:12 because the more you post, the more chances you have to have a winner on your hands, to have something
0:48:16 take off. I think it takes time. I think the most common question I get is like, how many times
0:48:20 should you post? And I don’t think that there’s a set number, but you definitely have to be
0:48:26 consistent. And I did not get any serious traction until I started committing. I think it was like
0:48:32 I was doing eight posts per day. So when I started scheduling eight per day, like that’s when I
0:48:37 noticed one, the income and also the views and everything just started trending upwards. From
0:48:41 there, I just started increasing it, you know, from eight a day to 12 a day, 12 a day to 16 a day,
0:48:46 16 to 20 a day, 20 to 24 a day. I did get up to 31 a day and I was, it was too many. It was too
0:48:50 much. So I’m not, I was kind of scaled back a little bit, but basically like that 20 a day
0:48:54 is kind of been at least a sweet spot for me. Do you have to do 20 a day? Heck no, absolutely not.
0:48:59 Especially if I get a brand new page, but I would definitely commit to doing like five to eight a
0:49:03 day. And that’s a combination. It could be just text posts. It could be images. It could be a reel,
0:49:09 you know, whatever you enjoy doing a little variety to, to do that. But I’ve had text posts,
0:49:13 which is just funny to me, right? Like just a text post. It’s just text, no images. You know,
0:49:18 you could add the color background behind it that have done really well. So it’s just a matter of
0:49:24 just testing out. That’s number nine, the Facebook content monetization program. One that I’m actively
0:49:29 testing myself and trying to build some sustainable systems around and getting some help from my team
0:49:34 on. Can I get it to a hundred dollars a day? Could I get it to five or 10 grand a month? We’ll see what
0:49:40 happens in the coming year and potentially some ancillary benefits in my case. And maybe this is wishful
0:49:45 thinking, but the Side Hustle Nation Facebook page does highlight the Side Hustle Nation Facebook
0:49:50 group as like a connected entity, which may or may not help lead people back to the podcast,
0:49:55 back to the email list. So there’s a case to be made, an argument to be made. If the impressions are
0:50:01 big enough that Facebook becomes a point of discovery for the broader brand ecosystem, if I can attract
0:50:07 people who are interested in earning more money and have a proactive spirit about it. So that remains to
0:50:13 be seen. But be sure to check out the full interview with Jeff to learn more. Number 706 in your feed.
0:50:19 Number 10 is arguably the most creative Side Hustle that we featured this year. And this was
0:50:25 Cheyenne Bullock’s public domain radio repurposing business. I don’t even know how to describe it. So
0:50:32 the raw material is these old, free, available to everyone radio shows from the 1950s. She gave the
0:50:37 example of Dragnet, if you remember that one. Zero cost of goods sold. Great. Then what she does,
0:50:42 and the branding is amazing if you check out Domestic Daydreams on social, it’s her handle,
0:50:48 is she sprinkles in her homemaking advice and these cleaning routines into the audio and then charges
0:50:54 $25 a month or $45 a quarter for a subscription that gets you six new episodes a week. It turns keeping
0:51:00 your house clean into this pleasant, entertaining routine with some familiarity to it. Now, it’s such
0:51:06 a unique business model to address the problem of a dirty house. It’s an example I’ve given about the
0:51:11 different ways to solve that same problem. You could solve it with a product, right? You could sell cleaning
0:51:16 products, new Swiffer mops, stuff like that. You could sell a cleaning service. We’ve done episodes on starting
0:51:24 cleaning services, domestic or commercial or otherwise. And then the third category is creating content to solve that
0:51:30 problem. And I think Cheyenne’s business falls under this content category. When we recorded, she had over 500
0:51:36 paying members. And those members all had the same pain point, right? I’ve got a dirty, disorganized house. It really
0:51:42 bothers me. Now, my guess is they probably didn’t know that old school radio programs could help them solve it until
0:51:49 they discovered Cheyenne on social media. So here’s how she described her Instagram to a lead magnet to
0:51:58 offer strategy in episode 708. Every single post on Instagram needs to go to the lead magnet, which captures
0:52:06 their email. And that has grown my email list to around 30,000 subscribers in two years. And like in the last
0:52:12 month, 8,000 of those. And I’ve cleaned out my email list. So it’s been more than that. But I make sure that
0:52:18 every single Instagram post, it says, you know, comment, homemaker, and I will send you some free
0:52:22 episodes of the cleaning routine to try so that you can get started tackling that mess. You know, I make
0:52:29 a pain point oriented Instagram caption that calls out their pain, tells how these episodes are the
0:52:35 solution. You can try some free episodes. It takes them to the opt-in. They put in their email address
0:52:41 and information and it redirects them to a page with the free episodes on top. And then tell them, hey, if you
0:52:46 want new episodes six days a week, then join the membership and has like a sales pitch below that.
0:52:51 Okay. So it’s really, really tightly aligned with the core offer. It’s like, in fact, it’s like,
0:52:55 it’s a free sample of the core offer. Like I’m going to send you some sample episodes. If you like this,
0:52:59 hey, there’s more where that came from. Come on in. So that makes a lot of sense. I think that’s
0:53:06 really smart. And this is a many chat automation to reply to the homemaker comments.
0:53:13 Yes, exactly. And many chat was such an incredible game changer because when I was doing my first
0:53:20 business, I started doing the comment. If you want the link thing before there was anything like many
0:53:25 chat out there and I would sit there and I would have reels go viral and I would manually be sending
0:53:28 these and I’d get blocked by Instagram. Have to wait a little while.
0:53:34 You’ve sent a hundred messages. Yeah. Yes, exactly. And so many chat has been amazing to be
0:53:39 able to use that over the last couple of years. And luckily that was in place by the time that I
0:53:44 started this business. So it just directs them through many chat. I know people build out their many chat
0:53:50 with like follow-ups and stuff. I haven’t done that and I’ve still seen great results just keeping it
0:53:56 simple. Okay. So they get the sample episodes and then there’s a follow-up sequence that goes out,
0:54:01 you know, a week later it says, if you like that, there’s more once you join the membership and talk
0:54:05 to me about the sales cycle or the sales funnel, so to speak, after that.
0:54:12 So I follow up via email because I want to train them to really connect with my brand on the email
0:54:17 side. Going through Instagram or any social media platform, you’re building your business on rented
0:54:22 land. So I learned the hard way through my first business that you need to make sure that you have
0:54:30 them somewhere you kind of control like an email list, but also that you make sure that you train them
0:54:35 and teach them that there’s value there so that they will actually look for you in their inbox.
0:54:40 So I have an automatic email flow that will send them an email like every four days or so.
0:54:45 Originally, I followed a book that said, okay, this is what your welcome sequence should have in your
0:54:51 email flow. And then over time, as I was sending out consistent weekly newsletters to my audience as
0:54:56 well that were outside of that welcome email flow, I was able to get data on which ones converted
0:55:02 highest for sales. And I turned those into my welcome sequence. Okay, so it basically just it’s
0:55:08 heavy on the email side following up with people, I give them some more free episodes via a one week
0:55:15 challenge. Usually by then people are pretty warmed up. But now I do run ads as well retargeting ads.
0:55:21 And that’s been what the huge game changer is retargeting people on the email list or people who have
0:55:27 clicked. I mean, I guess it’s all through the meta ecosystem, you can target followers on Instagram
0:55:31 or people who’ve seen your post probably and saying, hey, remember me? Do you still have this problem of
0:55:34 the dirty house? And here I’m still here to help you.
0:55:40 Yes, exactly. And so when I first got into ads, because I did pay a coach to teach me,
0:55:45 they always recommend you do what they call top of funnel ads. And those are the ones that go out to
0:55:50 strangers. And then you do retargeting ads. And those are ones that go out to basically the people that
0:55:55 found you through those top ads. But what was different with my business that actually kind
0:56:01 of blew their minds a little bit, and we had to adjust that strategy is I get so much at the top,
0:56:07 so much attention, so many new people knowing about my brand through my Instagram, through my Facebook,
0:56:14 I get millions of views every single month through my blog, I basically do organic content marketing at
0:56:20 the top. And that’s what gets new people in. And I only do retargeting ads. And I retarget anyone who
0:56:27 has interacted with my website at all, my blog at all, my Facebook at all, and my Instagram at all.
0:56:31 And it retargets them with the membership offer.
0:56:36 Just a really well done, really creative online membership business, episode 708 with Cheyenne.
0:56:42 And that rounds out our top 10 side hustles of the year. Did your favorites make the list? Did I make
0:56:47 a glaring omission? You gotta let me know. Hit reply, reply to my email, let me know. And of course,
0:56:53 I owe a big thank you to all of our amazing guests this year. Without them, the show wouldn’t exist.
0:56:59 A couple honorable mentions that I think are worth mentioning. One is Eric Dingler, who we did this
0:57:04 episode about local SEO. And he gave this line, and I’m probably going to butcher the quote,
0:57:09 but he said, the fastest path to $20,000 a month is with a local marketing service. And then he laid
0:57:16 out kind of step-by-step how he would go about getting there. And that was episode 684. 684 with
0:57:21 Eric Dingler. You know, hey, can I charge $500 a month for this service? Okay, stack up this client,
0:57:26 this client, this client, and ultimately, you know, hire some other people to deliver the work. And you
0:57:31 got yourself this kind of location-independent agency. Pretty cool business. The other honorable mention
0:57:36 that is worth throwing out there was Harrison Knott, who holds the title as the youngest
0:57:43 side hustle show guest ever. 15-year-old e-commerce mogul, you know, mastering short-form video to sell
0:57:50 these cooling towels. I think it was cooltowel.co.uk or something. We’ll link up his website. But really
0:57:55 cool episode on influencer marketing. Perhaps more inspiring. Harrison, at 15, told me, well,
0:57:59 this is like my eighth business. It’s not my first time. It’s not my first rodeo. I was like,
0:58:04 dang, you’re a serial entrepreneur as a teenager, but doing a lot of TikTok shop and really transparent
0:58:10 about some of the expensive mistakes that can befall a new entrepreneur. So I’m going to link
0:58:15 those up as well as honorable mentions. Really cool, inspiring stories. So to recap, we had vending
0:58:20 machines through the lens of Anthony and really scaling up that business and financing the machines
0:58:25 with the proceeds from what they’re moving and finding the right locations. We did an episode on
0:58:29 printables, selling digital products, create something once, sell it over and over again,
0:58:35 target these really low competition keywords, stack up an army of evergreen digital assets going out into
0:58:39 the world and doing your bidding. And you have this little passive income army working for you.
0:58:46 Number three was UGC, really interesting business where you can get paid to create content,
0:58:51 even if you’re not an influencer. We had a local foam party rental business, which I just thought
0:58:56 sounded like a lot of fun going out and doing kids parties and kind of a low risk way to validate
0:59:02 that business that Tim shared. Number five was Chris Gray’s white label e-commerce business. Look,
0:59:06 I don’t have to create the thing. I can just find something that’s already popular, that’s already
0:59:10 working and put my own marketing and branding to it. Kind of an interesting angle. Number six was
0:59:16 Garrett’s glamping business, four star hotel prices without the four star hotel and without the four
0:59:20 star hotel startup costs. Really interesting business and one that definitely had me looking for nearby
0:59:25 acreage. Although, I don’t know, it’s still a hospitality game that you’re going to have to play
0:59:30 there. Number seven was return reselling through our partner, ShareTown, sidehustlenation.com slash
0:59:34 ShareTown is my direct referral link for that. And of course, we’ll link up some of the interviews that
0:59:41 we’ve done with various ShareTown reps over the years. Number eight was Freychu’s directory style
0:59:47 websites. Information and kind of value added layer can you create for these near me style directories
0:59:53 and compete in an SEO world there. Number nine was Facebook’s content monetization program, my newest
0:59:59 income stream for the year, one that I’m looking to scale going into the new year. And number 10 was
1:00:04 Cheyenne’s, we’ll call it repurposing public domain content. We talked through the lens of doing it with
1:00:10 audio content, but there’s a lot of different public domain content out there. And could you use that as a
1:00:15 building block or as some, you know, primary ingredients to building a business around? I
1:00:19 thought she had a really creative way of doing that. But if you want to learn more about any of these
1:00:25 individual businesses, I of course encourage you to check out those specific episodes. For the sake of
1:00:31 convenience, I put them all into a Spotify playlist for you, which is linked up in the show notes. Just
1:00:35 follow the link in the episode description. It’ll get you right over there or sidehustlenation.com
1:00:41 slash best of 25 will also work and appreciate you. Thank that is it for me. Thank you so much
1:00:46 for tuning in. Happy new year. If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to
1:00:50 share with a friend. So fire off that text message, let them know you’re thinking about them and sending
1:00:55 some positive financial vibes their way. Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
1:01:00 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle show where we’re talking about
1:01:04 how to have your best year yet. I’ll see you then. Hustle on.