Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to the Doug Show. My name’s Doug Cunnington, and today I’m gonna talk a little bit about side hustles, just a tiny bit. Was inspired from a comment over on the YouTube side, and I’ll give you a couple little updates on things that I have been, uh, working on and I put that in air quotes, but I actually have been working on some stuff and part of it is this podcast, right?
And then my other podcast and a few, you know, updates. So. If you’ve been paying attention to the show, which I think you have, if like what I’ve done with the content is, um. I’ve, I’ve distilled it down to just exactly what I want to cover. So that has, uh, essentially pushed away anyone in the audience that, uh, is not interested in me personally or just the stories that I tell.
So it’s kind of interesting, and as I have explored the idea, you know, you could reference the recent episodes, explored the idea of. Stopping the show when I looked back at the stats, even though I’m doing nearly everything that I can to annoy the listeners and viewers out there and not actually teach you anything, but just be, uh, entertaining that, uh, that there’s still several hundred of you that listen or watch the show.
Which is fantastic. If it happens to be an okay topic, then there can be, uh, potentially thousands of viewers over on the YouTube side just from an algorithmic perspective. So anyway, I’ll give you a few little updates. One theme that is, um, the same or something that I said. And have been doing is to have shorter shows.
So that was always, um, a desire to have shorter, tighter shows, slightly better planned and less rambly. But typically the episodes were like an hour long, but I’m aiming probably more for like 20 minutes. And here I’ve burned nearly, nearly 10% of that just on the intro part. So. Let’s talk about my other show that is, uh, the Mile HiFi Podcast.
So it’s doing great. It’s really not growing in, uh, any big sense. It’s getting plenty of downloads on the audio side and again, on the video, YouTube side. If something takes hold of the algorithm, if something is interesting, it’ll actually do a little bit better and. I have been putting some more affiliate links in the descriptions.
I was sort of far ahead on the schedule because my producer Chris was taking some time off over the summer for like a month. I was gonna be out doing other shit. So we got pretty far ahead and. It has been like a month or two since I started talking about putting affiliate links in, but the episodes that are coming out may have been recorded months before that, or like a month before that.
So in my head, I should be getting more affiliate revenue and stuff, but I haven’t been seeing it. And. It was kind of interesting ’cause I was chatting with one of my friends who’s getting started with her online business and her email list, and I think she may have, you know, close to a thousand people on her list now, which is pretty good in the specific niche that she is in.
And she had a friend who was like, oh yeah, you should put some affiliate links in your emails and like, you’ll really make a lot of money that way. And I’m, I mean, I came from the affiliate marketing world, so I know the power of that. But I also know that I have, um, probably an audience of say, 7,000 people for mile high five, fairly consistently, I would say 7,000 people.
I’m just estimating about 7,000 people per month. Probably check in at least on. One or two shows, something like that. Right. So that’s a decent number. It could be, it could be much higher. Um, but probably not. I mean, seems about right. That said, it would only take a handful of people to buy something every now and then.
If they were just like, oh yeah, I will, I’ll get the. A pair of shoes that Doug recommends, or I’ll hop over on Amazon. I actually need to buy something anyway, so I’ll, you know, I’ll get the supplements that Doug is talking about. All that said, hardly anybody is buying anything. So I mean, it’s, it is interesting, again, a show that has like a fairly big audience, but it’s sort of general where, you know, this show.
Uh, like it has never been huge. I think maybe in the, the biggest years, um, it was probably, you know, the middle of COVID say 2020 to 2022, something like that. Maybe 2019. I started the show in 2019, right? Yeah. So 2019 to maybe 20, 22, 23, something like that. Like there were probably a couple thousand people that would, um, listen on the audio side, maybe a thousand.
It always varies again, depending on the topic. On the YouTube side, again, it could be tens of thousands, but the point being because of the niche that this was in, people would actually spend money. And I think there’s that buzzing. I want to eliminate that if I can. I think my phone’s too close. Sorry about that.
Let me pause for a sec. On this show, I was able to like recommend a product and like a few dozen people potentially would buy it and it potentially was like 50 to a couple hundred dollars per conversion. So it was actually a significant amount of money. You are getting value as um, a customer. Of either a product or service that you would probably earn money from.
It’s just a different audience over on Mile Hi-Fi and my friend’s, um, email list. So she’s not trying to make a, like a ton of money. It’s a travel situation, so she plans trips, she brings people on them. There’s no programming, but she just kind of does the heavy lifting of planning. So I’m just. You know, one of her trips coming up is to Turkey.
I wouldn’t have to know anything. I’d just have to like get to Turkey and she maybe would even, um, her friend. So she would maybe recommend flights to take and actually hold my hand through the process and I’d just show up and she would book the tours, the meals, and just any kind of thing that I would need handled.
She would be able. To point me in the right direction or say like, you’re on your own for these meals. Um, you have a couple days off or whatever, but like basically she plans all the stuff and it’ll be in a group and there’ll be guides and all that kind of stuff. She loves planning it. I don’t like doing that kind of stuff.
The point is like she doesn’t need to make a ton of money. She just essentially wants to like, travel with some friends, probably have her cost, um, either completely covered or um, reduced dramatically. So she could take this huge. Awesome trip. Go with her friends and essentially get it for free. So that’s her goal.
She does, she doesn’t need to like replace her income or anything like that. It’s just that’s the situation. That said she might actually be able to convert more of the affiliate recommendations because she could say. Hey, here’s the carry on that I use. I’ve been using it for years. You can get it through my affiliate link, and it’s directly related to a thing that people are probably interested in doing because they signed up for the list.
So kind of similar in that way, like she may be able to convert a little better, but on my side I’m like, ah, you know, the audience is not as interested. Like a lot of people that were on this. Um, feed In the past they were interested in starting niche sites. You’re probably still interested in online business or entrepreneurship, which is relevant.
However, the products that you might wanna buy, they’re much different. And I said, I talk a little bit about side hustles, like as we transition into that area. Someone mentioned, uh, I, I can’t even remember which video. So someone said like, ah, you know. There’s some side hustle videos or content out there, and people are still talking about blogging, they’re talking about niche sites, they’re talking about things that are like completely irrelevant now.
And it’s interesting. I Googled it and just said, Hey, side hustles. And of course we have search labs, the fucking AI overview, which, you know, I don’t, I don’t love this stuff. Sometimes it’s okay, but most of the time. It’s nonsense. So side hustles online, ’cause I am looking for online specific and they list a handful here.
Of course it’s distilled down, they have links. So I, if I wanna learn more, so they say freelancing, I think that’s probably relevant. Content creation. So that could be a YouTube channel. They mention a blog record, a podcast that could be any social media. So they listed it in a general way. And I think that’s okay.
Selling products, so they mention drop shipping, handcrafted goods, digital products or courses. They mention affiliate marketing, online tutoring, social media management, virtual assistant, kind of general virtual assistant. So they mentioned, uh, admin, technical or creative assistance. They talk about online surveys, which I think that’s probably bullshit.
I don’t, I, I imagine you probably can’t really earn money from that. Or it’s not worth your time, probably not worth your time at all. Photography. So they talk about stock photography. I think they don’t mention video, but I imagine like video, um, stock videos would probably be the same thing. They talk about graphic design as well, so I mean, I think on the surface.
Most of these are okay. When you dive in and you look at the content creation and they actually mention a blog. I don’t think that’s really viable these days. I think if you have a blog, if you had a blog in the past and you still had a lot of like readers that checked it out. I have some friends that are like prominent bloggers in the financial independence space if they publish something.
People are gonna go check it out because they’ve had a following for like 10 to 15 years and they’re very well known. So people care when they actually publish something, they go and look and maybe set alerts like, Hey, did Mr. Money mustache publish something recently, or 1500 days? So those are just a couple blogger friends that I have, and those are very big blogs and people read those, millions of people read those blogs for many years.
So I. It could be viable for them, but not if you’re starting out, I don’t think. And the others, and this is a short, uh, sort of truncated list. A few months ago I took a look at one or two of the top results. And some of them like, don’t, don’t make sense, like these days at all. But the, one of the issues that I do have with the AI overviews typically.
Is if like, if you don’t know much about the topic, it can be a decent intro and you won’t realize that the information on there is bad. But if you happen to be an expert, or at least well aware of the specific thing that you’re looking up, the AI overviews, you’re gonna be able to sniff the bullshit here.
Because if you’re listening to this, you probably know. That the AI companies, they like scraped the internet and hopefully they got decent websites. They looked at books and videos and other stuff depending on what they had access to, maybe they were able to scrape through Reddit as well, but. Again, if you’re, if you’re listening to this, you know how the sausage was made.
You know that for many years a lot of us were writing content on things. Maybe we weren’t experts on, or we all did this. I’m guilty too, right? Like we hired people to write content about things they didn’t know anything about, and they had a title. If they were lucky, they had an outline with some keywords and maybe some research, but.
You essentially had people that didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about, writing something, um, that was supposed to be authoritative and if it was like an intro text or whatever like more specifically, if it was just someone. Learning their first little bit about this topic, it would probably be fine, but it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny if you are looking at it from an expert perspective.
And that’s where a lot of this stuff falls apart. And again, if you’re listening to this, you, you already know this, and when you really need information, well, it’s fucking hard to get the information out. You have to maybe go to a YouTube channel so that you can like find someone who’s like. In depth, like in the weeds for that topic.
And it’s easy to see like the listicles. So I, you know, I said I, I Googled side hustles online. I looked on YouTube as well. And you end up with like listicles, you end up with people that clearly like, haven’t tried that thing. They’re just like regurgitating stuff. However, they’re good content creators, so they’re able to like, get views and, and do all that kind of stuff.
So it’s kind of interesting. It’s interesting overall, and I don’t know what advice I would give people. So someone contacted me. We have a few, I think mutual, uh, contacts or acquaintances and basically, um, someone who is in, uh. A, a great university in the journalism department. I think she’s getting a grad degree or something like that in journalism.
She wanted to interview me about SEO and online marketing and like how the changes in the industry have impacted small business, which is what I have so. We chatted and one of the questions, or one of the answers that came up, she’s like, oh yeah, is this viable? If someone wanted to start a website, what would you tell them?
I would tell them, don’t do it, like find something else to do. It’s pretty much a waste of time. Even if you got some traction, it is not worth your effort anymore. Like find something else to do. And I also prefaced by saying I kinda lost interest in the area. I have about a five year, uh, span, uh, attention span, and then I kind of get bored and start layering on something else or doing something different.
So those five years passed, I started like not really caring as much about starting websites, and then it kind of coincided with all the changes in SEO. Niche sites, uh, falling outta favor in a general sense, and then AI sort of taking over. So I did let her know that I’m not, like, I don’t pay attention to SEO anymore.
I think it’s probably still viable in a necessary thing for businesses. But for side hustlers, I don’t really, I don’t really know, like I, I’m a little bit outta the loop, so. I haven’t been looking for like side hustle ideas other than like things that uh, end up like falling on my desk because I’m literally like having a conversation with someone and they’re like, oh yeah, I’m doing print on demand.
So it ends up on my radar and I’m interested in it. There’s a lot of other stuff that probably could work, but I’m not interested or I don’t trust the people that are trying to pitch it to me. ’cause I. I’m very skeptical these days. So yeah, with side hustles, it is interesting. I actually will, it may be tomorrow, but I’m talking to Alex Cooper from WP Eagle.
One of my friends, and I haven’t chatted with him in a while, but he’s putting together a, um, kind of a, what are they doing now? Video, sort of a greatest hits thing. And so I think I’m gonna chat with him tomorrow. He’s gonna catch up with other people. I don’t know when the video’s coming out. Hopefully I can mention this.
Um, but that’s out there and there is a, another mutual, um, acquaintance of ours who was a very big. Prominent, uh, producer of content, especially on the YouTube side. They had big courses. They pivoted. Um, they haven’t published anything for like six months, which is kind of crazy. But then they had another channel, which is more, I’ll generally say it’s like social media related, YouTube related, and they were shutting down.
At that channel or not publishing there either. And I was like, oh, I wonder if they’re just like closing up shop. But a lot of like so many changes and like the fact is, um. You know, if people tried to patch up whatever system they had before, like, I retired my course, um, and sunset it about a year ago. I stopped even selling it over two years ago.
So like, I wasn’t, I was like, I’m not trying to patch this thing up. I’m not trying to create a new system. I don’t know what’s gonna work. I don’t think anyone does. Things are moving too quickly after, you know, 15 ish years of fairly sta like you could kind of follow a business model and it would mostly work most of the time.
Like that’s completely changed. So when people were trying to like take their old blogging system, content system and then like. Rejigger it for ai. Like it just, it doesn’t hold water. Like they weren’t able to do it. And then the other thing is like you, you build this audience or whatever, you have a ton of subscribers and interest and you have an email list and then all that viewership goes down, the interest goes away.
You kinda have an issue. So I think these people are running into issues, but. And we will be able to catch up and chat with Alex soon. So looking forward to that. And I was like, oh, I wonder if Alex has been publishing lately. ’cause like YouTube hasn’t been recommending the videos. And then I, uh, haven’t chatted with Alex in a little while, so I kind of, I was like, oh, I wonder if he’s published anything.
So I need to go look and check that out. Alright, I said about 20 minutes, so let me get to it. Couple other things I, and then I’ll report, report back next week, so I. Have my other podcast a mile, Hi-Fi, and I try not to pander to the algorithm. However, in some of my, uh, monologue earlier I mentioned on YouTube, sometimes you can get a lot more views if you have like a good title and.
Thumbnail and this stuff that matters. The content needs to be good, but let’s face it, a lot of it is the title and the thumbnail. And then as long as you don’t completely have a train wreck, you’re gonna be okay. The other thing is like, I’ve consistently not tried to pander, so I ended up with, uh, these long videos.
So I did a mailbag episode with my friend Pete, Mr. Money, mustache. Again, prominent blogger. The thing is, he doesn’t blog that often anymore, so when he’s like sharing his thoughts, it usually does really well. So one thing I’m gonna do that is pandering to the YouTube algorithm as I’m, I’m gonna divide it into segments probably.
Let’s just say seven minutes or so, something short, and try to boost the views because the thing is, it’s an hour long total, which is totally fine. Over on the audio side, people expect a one hour long podcast. It’s pretty standard. It fits their, their day and their schedule and their attention span.
However, on the YouTube side, an hour is a long time, so I’m gonna test it out. It’ll take me a little bit more time. I’m actually gonna. Produce this one myself, um, and divide it up. But like I said, I’ll probably try to make it, um, you know, 10 minutes or less in the, the total length for each video. So I’ll have a handful of videos.
I will report back. We’ll see how it goes and because Mr. Money Mustache is on there. It stands that it, it would probably get more views and I’m probably just gonna do like a quick little, like a ten second, um, outro where it says, Hey, if you like this video, be sure to check out the others on this playlist.
And then just point people to the playlist. Keep it simple. Make it easy for people to find, have pretty much the same thumbnail with like just the topic on there and not too fancy. Just keep it simple, but stands to reason that it will probably get a lot more views and someone might not click on a video that’s a one hour long video, and if they do, maybe they stick around for.
Let’s say 10 minutes. Maybe they skip around a little bit, but they stay on for 10 minutes or so. That’s not bad. Much more likely for someone to click check out one of the videos that say it’s six minutes long. Maybe they get recommended these other videos and they’ll watch four, six or seven minute videos, and then their total watch time.
As many times as great as the, you know, six or 10 minutes that they maybe would skip around and watch. So that’s, that’s what I’m gonna give a, a try. Summer’s weird also, especially in the middle of the summer. People are on vacation, they’re doing other stuff, kids are at home and all that. So I, I think, um, maybe it won’t be as impactful as if I do it, uh, in a few.
Weeks when school’s back in session or, uh, when does school start? Depends on your region, but we’re right in the middle of summer. Alright. And then the final thing here is I have been testing live streams on that channel. I do enjoy live streams. I’ve invited a couple friends on roughly had I think about 25 to 40 people on for one hour to an hour and a half.
It’s a good way to have the community involved. There’s some back and forth. We can cover a specific topic. Those videos actually did pretty well. They got more views than a standard video on the, on the channel, and I’m not sure if it’s because they were live stream, if it’s the kind of format. The title, all these factors do play a role.
I ended up like being busy like the last Wednesday, and then I was a little tired and just catching up from something else, which I’ll update you on a future episode. But essentially I was like, okay, we, we did a, a run of five live streams that went really well. I enjoyed them, the audience enjoyed them, they got views, everything that I imagined and hoped for.
And I may take a little pause over the summer and maybe do like one every couple weeks or check like there is a little bit more planning ’cause I have to schedule things and I have to, you know, make sure I’m around. Obviously in in town, I wouldn’t wanna try and do this on the road so much, but. The, the whole point is I may wait until the fall and maybe do seasons of them where I could actually line up some good or, or not good.
They’re all good guests, but I could line up bigger names and have a schedule like, Hey, we’re doing a fall season. I’m gonna do 10 live streams in a row, and it’ll be like. This sort of format, this sort of flavor, and it’ll be sort of standardized and I can have like different guests coming in and different guests, um, promoting it.
And that could be a way to like grow the channel more. At the end of the day, I do need to look at like, why am I doing this? Do I care if the channel grows more? I have some other friends that, you know, they’re like, oh yeah, the podcast is growing consistently and. So on and so forth. I think they actually partnered, uh, like they joined a network, so kind of sold their soul a little bit.
There’s no free rides, right? The luxury I have is like, I’m totally independent. I don’t even have any fucking sponsors right now. So that is the key. I’m like, oh, if I grow the show a little bit, maybe I can get sponsors. But the thing is like, I actually don’t want sponsors ’cause it’s a pain in the fucking ass to deal with.
And. Yeah, the, again, there’s no free ride, so I’m like, oh yeah, it would be good to have a sponsor if they just let me do whatever I want and I say, Hey, check, check this stuff out. But ideally, going back to the main topic of the, you know, having affiliate links and just, alright, like if you like the show, just please support, like buy something occasionally.
Just support the show. Like the for mile Hi-Fi, I have like some t-shirts. It’s just like. Yeah, there are prints on demand. They’re a little pricey. No one knows, like the design, like if, if you don’t wear it to like a financial independence conference, like no one will kind of know what it is at all. Um, it’s not that big of a show and it’s very niche.
But the thing is like, it supports the show. And the thing is like, people are probably like, oh, you’re making so much money from selling these shirts, or you’re recommending these products. And I’m like, man, I’m, I’m spending a decent amount of time. Talking about it on, on the shows and like, no one’s buying anything.
So again, it goes back to, okay, if I don’t have to do this, like, like why am I doing it? And um, yeah, it’s, it’s fun. It’s interesting, but I’ve been podcasting for a few years, been doing YouTube for a few years, so it’s like, okay, the novelty is not there anymore. So I have to really like it because it does come down to opportunity cost and what I wanna spend my time on.
So anyway. Thanks for listening a little bit longer. I will continue to have the, we’ll call it like, um, well it’s, it’s high five from the quality of video and the audio. However, uh, the editing in the post-production will be minimal and ideally there will be none. Alright. This is like the old days and we’re, we just, we roll it.
If you fuck up, you just keep going and you know my phone made the buzzy noise. Sorry about that. But you just pause it, you move your phone, you come on back. Everything is fine if you have any, uh. Suggestions, comments out there about the show, things that I said, send me an email feedback at Doug show. I read all the emails and I actually have like a voicemail number, like it’s always at the bottom of the description.
So if you want to leave a question, I’m not saying everybody gets on guarantee. There have only been. Few where I was like, this is, uh, it doesn’t make sense. But anyway, you could leave a voicemail that would actually give me a topic to talk about. So if you have any ideas, let me know. Have a great week out there.
We’ll catch you on the next one.