The Simplest $10K/Month Business Most People Miss ($0 to Start) - Ep. #327

Rachel Smith (0:00)

We're on track to do 200,000. So we are at about 10,000.

Chris Koerner (0:03)

Okay.

Rachel Smith (0:03)

10,000 revenue. We've seen up to 15,000.

Chris Koerner (0:06)

And how much of that is profit?

Rachel Smith (0:08)

85%.

Chris Koerner (0:09)

Wow, that's incredible. And how much money does it take to start this business?

Rachel Smith (0:13)

Zero dollars, and very minimal time, because once you set it up, it's just doing its thing. The boards are fantastic for a side hustle. How many people out here could have a different life if they made $3,000 every single month?

Chris Koerner (0:26)

Are you paid per month or per year?

Rachel Smith (0:28)

All up front, yeah.

Chris Koerner (0:30)

How do you design the ads?

Rachel Smith (0:31)

We'll either do Canva or ChatGBT.

Chris Koerner (0:33)

Yeah, ChatGBT Image too is amazing.

Rachel Smith (0:35)

Oh my gosh, it's so good. I work way less than I would at a job, and I have so much more fun.

So I wouldn't trade it. All of our services are lined up to move them to the next step so that they go, well, now I've got this problem. It's like, well, we can solve that too.

Chris Koerner (0:50)

Yeah, oh man. We're still early for just about everything. And if you try to convince yourself that we're not, then you're probably just thinking of excuses to not do the thing, to not start a business. What do you have to lose? Worst case, you don't sell any, you just put it in a different restaurant.

You ever walk into a restaurant and see that sandwich board next to the host stand that says like, when their happy hour is, what the discounts on appetizers are? My guest today, Rachel, found a way to monetize that. She gives restaurants that board for free, and then she sells ads on that board for $3,600 a year. Finding the restaurants, the place it is not hard, finding the small businesses to advertise on it is not hard. But the genius of what she's doing is the upsell. She upsells them to something much more profitable that has nothing to do with restaurants or local businesses whatsoever. This is a banger, please enjoy. So by the end of this episode, will people have enough information to start this kind of business that they run in their part time that makes them thousands per month?

Rachel Smith (1:50)

Yes, absolutely. One board placed, and you can make $3,000 a month.

Chris Koerner (1:54)

Okay, so we're not hiding anything.

Rachel Smith (1:56)

No gatekeeping. I love to lay it all out on line.

Chris Koerner (1:59)

Okay, so you're both full-time employees a year and a half ago, right? Where was the first restaurant where you saw a chalkboard that gave you this idea?

Rachel Smith (2:07)

It was in Montana.

Chris Koerner (2:08)

Now, was this sign outside or inside?

Rachel Smith (2:09)

It was inside.

Chris Koerner (2:10)

Okay, so you walk in, and like right near the host table, they have a sign, a chalkboard that's like, you know, two-for-one fajitas or whatever. And you saw that, and you were in the mindset at this moment of like, what business should we start?

Rachel Smith (2:23)

Is that right?

So we already had our agency, correct. And then we were looking for ways to generate leads. For the agency. Correct. And so, you know, of course, like after watching your show, we're always looking at opportunity. And we were looking at, because they had one right by the host stand, and people are looking at it, trying to decide if they're going to pick something off of the specials. And we're like, how do you put something on there where you can sell advertising space? Yeah. So we didn't replicate the chalkboard thing, we didn't dry erase. So that is like the liquid chalk markers.

Chris Koerner (2:54)

Okay.

Rachel Smith (2:55)

And the ads are just printed directly on there. So after having that idea, we started exploring that. And then it sort of led into, hey, we can use this as that lead generation piece that we were looking for, that is also going to make us money.

Chris Koerner (3:08)

Yeah. You foot in the door.

Okay. Now, that's so interesting, because there are places where ads are already, and then there are places where ads could be and then places where ads aren't. Yeah. So I've been to restaurants every now and then where there are ads in the table. Have you ever seen that?

Rachel Smith (3:26)

Oh, yeah.

Chris Koerner (3:26)

Like underneath plexiglass or something?

Rachel Smith (3:28)