SHP #2: Putting In The Reps

"There are no shortcuts—everything is reps, reps, reps." ~Arnold Schwarzenegger

As I mentioned in last week's Side Hustler's Progress, inconsistency has plagued my five-to-nine for a long time.

This is a open book of my workings towards better consistency: playing the long game, showing up, and putting in the reps.

Learn from one Side Hustler's Progress!

Here we go!

1. ZIP code bills on eBay: Not many views

This past week I added eight more listings to eBay for ZIP code serial number bills, as promised.

Here's the listing for my Catalina, Arizona ZIP Code bill.

Less that half of the listing have any views at all. One bill out of 40 listed has a single watcher.

I'm thinking I'm setting the price too high. When I search for active "zip code serial number" listings, my listings are among the most expensive. For four and a half pages containing about 1,000 listings, mine appear in the middle of page 4 when sorted by price, lowest to highest. In other words, kinda buried.

For sold listings over the past 90 days, only 6 out of 67 had a sales price $15.00 or more.

The question then becomes how long I stay at this price. I would profit nearly $10 per bill if I sold them at $14.99. But how long would it take to sell them? No idea.

I do have other digital properties that I could list the bills for sale on, like my Cool Serial Facebook group or my CoolSerial.com website.

The eBay listings are free up to 250, so it's just taking time right now to list them rather than money.

For the coming week: I'll upload another eight listings to sell.

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2. Monetizing a YouTube channel: Consistency likely will help

This past week I uploaded two more videos to my Cool Serial YouTube channel, as I said I would.

This channel focuses on cool and fancy serial number on currency. The two videos was a market report video on a particular $10 serial number, and a behind-the-scenes for how I created the listings I mentioned above.

I was encouraged by Mark Thompson's report on his own quest to monetize a YouTube channel. He found through experiment that "content dumps" as he puts it actually hurt his view count. Things went much better with a more measured frequency, like 2 to 3 times per week.

By coincidence, this is what I'm aiming for each week, so I'll see how this plays out in the coming weeks and months.

Mark also mentions other low-effort actions he's taking to move the needle more:

• Testing thumbnails. I have uploaded some thumbnails I designed in Canva on some of the videos, but not all of them. I haven't done any A/B tests yet for any thumbnails.

• Timing the uploads. Most times I upload my videos in the wee hours of the morning. As he mentions in the linked report, YouTube tells me when my audience is online, so why not schedule them to go live during that window?

I'll work the coming week to test some of these for quick wins.

On a related note, I uploaded a Short to another channel. It was a brief review of a coffee maker I bought some time ago. I embedded the video to a post on my blog reviewing the coffee maker, in an effort to increase that post's positioning in the search engine results pages (SERPs). The video has only gotten five views over the past few days.

For the coming week: I'll upload another two regular videos, but schedule them this time when my audience is online. I'll also add five thumbnails to my current videos, and do A/B testing on five of my highest-traffic videos.

3. Solid Cash Tips newsletter: Culling the list

I use Kit (formerly ConvertKit) to manage my minimalist Solid Cash Tips newsletter.

I scheduled issues 89 to 93 which went out at 8:40 each weekday morning, so another win for consistency.

A bit surprisingly, I didn't get any unsubscribes this week. Looking back briefly at the times when I did get a few, it was because I hadn't posted in weeks.

Actually, that's not quite true. I did get some unsubscribes, but I was the one doing the unsubscribing. About 11% of my list hadn't opened a single email in over 9 months. I sent out one last check and then unsubscribed them when they didn't click on a link in the email to stay on. I'm going to do that for the next group that hasn't opened anything in six to nine months. Doing this will increase my average engagement rate, which should help with deliverability and any algorithmic promotion.

Related to this, I'm setting up the start of an evergreen weekly supplement email to people who expressed an interest in cool serial numbers (which is about a quarter of my list). This would help me to justify the expense of Kit a bit more to myself, and potentially help with the YouTube monetization if I link to videos in these emails.

For the coming week: Get out an issue every weekday again, and write six emails for the Cool Serial evergreen sequence. I'll also cull my list of the second group of inactive subscribers. Bonus points if I beef up my welcome email for new subscribers, and even more bonus points if I make the evergreen sequence live.

4. Creating long-form content: First on a blog, then on Medium

Being a longtime blogger, I've seen too many cases with people getting into trouble not owning their platform. It's taken me a long time to post on Medium and now Substack, but platforms like these are where readers are. It's comparatively more difficult to get a new reader on a standalone website than it is here.

So my balance for most of my long-form content (i.e. articles) is to post it on one of my websites first, then onto Medium. I'll likely start cross-posting things to Substack soon. This way I maintain clear ownership of my work.

For reference, here are the mechanics of how I cross-post from my blogs to Medium.

This week's subject was on workplace stress, posted to JohnWedding.com.

For the coming week: Get out another long-form piece (two for bonus points).

5. Posting notes on Substack: Then reposting to social media

Posting a note a day on Substack is a gateway to growth. Doing things more deliberately and consistently should pay off at some point. I'm grateful to Jamie Northrup for putting together several Substack Notes challenges for encouraging this habit. I got a note out each day, as promised.

I then repurpose a number of these posts for social media using Publer. Publer has a neat feature that schedules delivery to several different accounts in a staggered fashion. To my eye, that looks better than blasting it everywhere at the same time.

For the coming week: Get out a note every weekday.

Summary of how I did, and what I'm going to do

This past week I was five for five. Gotta say that feels good!

• Upload another eight listings on eBay - DONE

• Create and upload two more regular videos to Cool Serial (bonus points if I get a Short or two up) - DONE

• Send a Solid Cash Tips newsletter each weekday - DONE

• Publish a new long-form article - DONE

• Post a Substack note each weekday - DONE

For the coming week:

• Upload another eight listings to sell

• Upload another two regular videos as scheduled videos

• Add five thumbnails to my current videos

• Start A/B testing of thumbnails on five of my highest-traffic videos

• Send out a Solid Cash Tips issue each weekday

• Write six emails for the Cool Serial evergreen sequence

• Publish a long-form piece (two for bonus points)

• Post a Substack Note each weekday

What kinds of input are you doing for your side hustles?

Let me know in the comments!

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