Journalist Gets Paid to Host Outdoor Activities

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

The world of traditional newsroom journalism isn't what it used to be, but that doesn't mean all is lost for reporters and editors. Over the years, we have had several stories of journalists who have applied their skills in different ways, learned to find a way to succeed in the new economy, including, for example, episode 691, National Pi Championship Judge sells off inventory. That was a reporter who became a National Pi Championship Judge, shocking. Episode 779, Piggy Bank Disaster Turns Millennial Into Money Master. That featured a woman in the UK, and in 987, foreign correspondent launches Career App.

Okay, so different examples. Today's story offers a new example. Faced with a wave of newsroom layoffs, a journalist in Maine launches a membership community of readers who want to participate in outdoor activities. She now gets paid to go hiking and play with lightsabers. True story like always, I'll tell you how she got the idea and how she made it happen.

Dream jobs are only great until they aren't. For 10 years, Shannon Bryan got to write for a major news outlet in Maine. She covered popular happy hours, brunches, and the best hills for sledding. But layoffs rolled through the newsroom every couple years, wages froze, and some of her bosses didn't seem to value what she brought to the table. Shannon was frustrated.

So in early 2015, she decided to create something that she had more control over. She started a small website where she wrote about paddleboard yoga, cross-country skiing, and lesser-known sports such as lightsaber combat as aerobics. Basically, the thing she did with her friends on weekends. I feel like we have to have a whole episode on lightsaber combat as aerobics, but that will be a project for another day. Shannon's followers on social media were already asking questions like, "How hard was that class?", "Do they do it every Thursday?", and "Can I use rechargeable batteries for my lightsaber?".

Shannon suspected that if active people in Maine were asking these questions of her, it meant they were probably searching for this information as well. And there wasn't a single website that answered them. So she created fitmaine.com. $150 bought her a domain, hosting, and a WordPress theme. Her only other expenses starting out were the cost of taking the classes and attending the event she was writing about.

This ranged from an additional $40 to $150 a month, and she was occasionally able to work out deals from the studios. At first, Fit Maine was just for fun, and she didn't intend to make it profitable. It was something she worked on a few hours here and there whenever she could squeeze it in. She would schedule a day or two each week to go to classes, and then write up the content. But seven months after she launched the site, another round of financial woes hit her dream shop, and the company offered Shannon a moderate buyout.

She took the buyout and picked up some freelance gigs, including editing a women's magazine and guiding bike tours around Maine. In her mind, those were just temporary gigs. She was ready to grow her website into something that made real money. Maine didn't attract many local advertisers, at least at first, so she moved to Google Ads to start generating revenue. That also didn't make much, but it was something.

The real change happened in January 2019, when Shannon launched the Fit Maine Social Club, a paid membership club that ventures out to do all of the fun, adventurous things she writes about. When Shannon launched the club, she mailed a knit hat embroidered with the phrase "Maine is my gym" to every person who signed up the first month, early adopters, so to speak. Of the 20 or so people who paid to hang out with her and be part of a club that didn't really exist yet, Shannon didn't know half of them. That excited her, people who didn't know her signed up because they thought it was a good idea. But it was also scary.

What if they didn't like it? What if they hated the events? Shannon almost hoped they didn't show up. But they did, and they kept showing up. The club was growing beyond her network, but she still needed to get the message out to more people.

She did that by going to the places she knew her potential customers would be. She attended public events where she'd find active locals, paddle races in 10Ks, costume bike rides, boot camps, and even goat yoga. Although as far as I can tell, there was no goat yoga with lightsabers, which would be even more amazing. Someone needs to do that. Shannon would show up early to every event with a pocket full of Fit Maine stickers.

She'd walk up to people and ask if she could simply take their picture for her website. A lot of people said yes, and most of those wanted a sticker. Afterwards, they'd visit the site to see their photos, and hopefully find more content they liked. Shannon spent about $75 on those stickers, which she designed herself, and they directed a significant amount of traffic to her site. These days, fitmaine.com receives around 7,000 page views a month, but way more engagement happens on social media.

She sees a bump in social shares and page likes whenever she writes an especially good story or review. And she's gotten better at assessing what sort of story will get attention. That's what currently drives the most engagement, but she still hands out stickers all the time. The front end of her business comes easily for Shannon. Content creation, meeting people, interacting online.

But when it comes to money, that's been a learning curve. And figuring out her rates, undercharging or not charging at all, was a problem for a long time. Currently she charges $15 to $20 a month for that membership. Shannon still struggles with translating the value of her work into a dollar amount for sponsors and advertisers. This barrier has been her biggest, and she believes it's held fitmaine back from being as profitable as it could have been by this point.

She's looking to friends and colleagues who work in marketing to give her advice, and she recently started working with a coach. Still, fitmaine has seen progress, especially in the past year. She's now comped Shannon to cover classes and events, and between the club memberships, which are now up to $84, content and event promotion, and selling a bit of swag, fitmaine is bringing in around $2,500 a month, and her aim is to grow considerably before the end of the year. If you find yourself in an industry that has evolved and no longer offers the same opportunities as it once did, how are you looking out for yourself? A side hustle isn't just for your needs today, it is a long-term career security fund.

Even if you have your dream job, it's something that will protect you and give you options. In this case, Shannon's membership income is recurring income, which is especially important to a journalist transferring away from a traditional career. So congratulations to her, and what about you? What are you working on? Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1134. I also want to give a shout out to John Lee Dumas, host of the long-running podcast Entrepreneur on Fire. For years now, he has talked with literally thousands of startup founders, authors, other personalities, and he produces these conversations over and over. So his podcast, like mine, is totally free, you can check it out wherever you listen to shows. Again, it's called Entrepreneur on Fire with John Lee Dumas.

If you've got a question, send me a note at sidehustleschool.com/questions. I'll be back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.