Welcome to Ghost Business 👻 Your Tuesday & Friday email, where we turn $1 into thousands building these weird but simple side hustles

Hustlin Trees

We’re back… Sorry I’ve been away! I’ve been cooking up something VERY special that I hope to share with you in the coming months. But for now, back to our regular program 🤝 

The only way I know inflation is real is through the cost of Christmas Trees. And hot news for you:

IT’S VERY REAL 😳 

According to the National Christmas Tree Association, the average cost of a natural Christmas tree last year was about $70. This year, the Real Christmas Tree Board, says it's expected to climb to nearly $100.

If everyone in the National Christmas Tree Association doesn’t look like Santa (or elves), are they even Christmasing?

But this got me thinking, how can we capitalize on this market (right now) and make some sizable income selling Christmas Trees?

The MVP (Getting your first customer)

Naughty or nice… Now we know there’s demand for these trees during the holidays but how can we test the market before buying thousands of dollars of Christmas trees?

Turns out people love a good Christmas tree deal. To do this I would set up a Facebook page and a landing page. Buy some ads for my neighborhood and share the deal.

Might look like this:

“Christmas trees usually go for $125, but not for you. Pre-order your tree now and it will be ready for pickup for only $75.”

See if you can get any bites doing this.

WAIT, I need to backtrack a little. BEFORE getting all of this started you’ll want to talk to a few tree farms to get an idea of how much buying in bulk will cost you and also find some locations for you to set up a tent to sell said trees.

Phew, okay now that we have that out of the way let’s start dealing with those inbound leads.

So far how much has this cost to set up:

• Website: $30

• FB Ads: $100

All in $130

Getting Your Next 100 Customers

Order up… Once you can get some pre-orders in, it’s time to make the bulk order from the farm.

Have them sent to your location to set up shop and you’re in business.

I like having the pre-order option for a couple of reasons. This allows you to test out the market before putting a bunch of cash down. It also lets you use customer funds to order inventory which means less up front cash needed by you.

This is also a good time to turn up your ad spend whether it be digital (fb ads) or print (vinyl signs), or both!

Hire some high schoolers to help move trees for you and customers, to alleviate some of the labor on your end.

So how much can we make doing this?

• The average 9′-10′ tree

• Cost $40

• Sell For $120

• $80 profit per tree!

If you order 300 trees to sell, that’s $24k in profit!!

You can always make more selling:

1. Cider at your tree booth

2. Wreaths from fallen branches

3. Tree stands for customers

Viability:

1 [building spaceships] 🚀 to 5 [easy peasy] 😊 

Money grows on… Hustle. This is VERY viable, especially this time of year. The best time to get order your trees is the weekend BEFORE thanksgiving 🦃 

This can be labor intensive, if you aren’t able to lift and move heavy trees for hours at a time, this may not be for you 👎.

(As usual each business will have it’s own setbacks, and it’s all about the execution and consistency rather than just having the idea 😉)

It’s a great day to be great!

Love, Mike 👋