This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Beware the Ides of March. It is in fact the Ides of March, the 15th of March, the middle of the month. So you gotta look out for that. You never know when the Ides are gonna come out around the corner. The Ides are gonna come up from the floorboards.
The Ides are going to attack you in the middle of traffic, but you just never know what the Ides are going to do. That's the weird thing about the Ides of March. You just have to beware. What should you also be afraid of? Well, all kinds of spooky things are coming up because Halloween is just around the corner.
Actually, it's not. That doesn't really make sense. Halloween, here we are in the middle of March. Wait a second, what happened here? Wait, maybe it actually does make sense.
Okay, okay. I'm kind of surveying the notes here. Yes, it looks like our caller today, Rachel from Dallas, has a spooky idea. And she is in fact thinking of Halloween, even though Halloween is many months away, for many of us at least. She wants to create a haunted house attraction this coming Halloween, but of course she has to plan ahead a bit, so she needs some guidance in bringing it to life.
All right, are you brave enough to take on this challenge? Let's see if we can help her out. How might you plan in advance to have a haunted house attraction? And what does that mean in terms of a seasonal side hustle, et cetera? All that's coming up in just 30 seconds.
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Greetings, this is Rachel calling from Dallas. I discovered your podcast through a search for a small business on Apple Podcasts. So I have experience in theater and I'd like to make a haunted house attraction this Halloween, but I need help in getting it off the ground and what to anticipate. What do you think of this idea? And how can I turn inspiration into action?
I'd like to do it cheaply, but I also want it to be successful. Thanks, Chris. All right, Rachel, what do I think of the idea? I think it is the kind of idea that comes around only once a year, right? Well, I guess that's kind of self-evident.
It is a seasonal side hustle. So that means a lot of things, okay? It means it's important to consider the amount of time and effort that goes into setting up and running something like this. You're kind of like fully immersed for a brief period of time. So you need to be prepared for the physical demands of setting up and tearing down the attraction as well as the time commitment of running that during the season.
You really want to maximize during the limited time that you're open. So this can be good or bad, right? Your marketing plan should begin at least a few weeks out during the first few days the house is open. You really want to push hard. You want to pitch local news.
You want to come up with some kind of viral stunt. Use local networks like Nextdoor to announce, maybe Craigslist, maybe whatever is in your area. You really want to basically kind of go all in because you have to get as many people as possible to attend. That's the business model during the brief period of time that the attraction is open. So I think overall, when I think of ideas like this, I think maybe it's a good experience to help you then run other events or otherwise build into something that you could do year round if you want to.
But of course, everybody's got a different goal out there. Some folks, a lot of folks are trying to create sustainable income month after month. And I think probably like a bigger group of our audience wants to do that. But we also have people that are like, I'm not necessarily trying to replicate my day job income. I just like to do fun projects and it's nice if they can make money.
So if you fall into that second group, then this is the project for you. Otherwise, you want to use it as an experience to, as I said, eventually do something else. So that's what I think. Rachel, let me know when the Haunted House opens in Dallas. Maybe I'll come by at some point.
Listeners, if you've got a question or an idea of your own, www.sidehustleschool.com/questions, we do this podcast every single day, seven days a week. It's all completely free. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
