Billboards are timeless.

And they remain a successful advertising strategy even with the rise of digital technology.

With that said, you probably never imagined that a solopreneur could rake in $30,000 a month from it (part-time!).

But that’s exactly what Chris Brown from Signs of Good and wantmore.org has done for the past decade.

Chris retired early at the age of 42 and now owns approximately 30 billboards around Bentonville, Arkansas.

Tune in to Ep 608 of The Side Hustle Show to learn:

how to find billboards for sale
find places where you could put one
how to fill that ad space
how passive it is once you’re up and running

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Stumbling Upon a Billboard Side Hustle

Chris, broke after college and struggling with debt, has also just gotten married.

While only earning $8 per hour in an unstable pharmaceutical job that could lay him off anytime, Chris realized something wasn’t working with his finances and started how to build wealth and get out of debt.

After driving past the same rundown billboard every day, he sensed an opportunity.

He looked for the property owner, made an offer, and bought the neglected billboard (plus the land) for $75,000.

Maybe he got lucky because the owner was near bankruptcy, but they both benefited from it anyway.

With a prime location among neighborhoods and schools, he priced each ad face at $600, totaling $2,400 per month.

It became profitable and a true passive income stream as some advertisers stayed for over a decade.

Scaling Up: More Billboards, More Upfront Costs

With the success of the first billboard, Chris had the itch to keep growing his inventory.

Chris’ next project involved the construction of two double-stacked billboard structures on a 3-acre commercial lot he acquired.

Between the land purchase price and construction costs, the total upfront price tag was around $200,000.

However, Chris can generate over $8,000 per month in billboard rental income from the 8 ad faces available.

“That math works pretty well all day long,” Chris said about the sweet potential gains, even after considering the hefty upfront investment needed.

Why Billboards Are a Limited Commodity

While the initial costs of building or acquiring billboards can be steep, billboard owners enjoy a major advantage—there’s an extremely limited supply of these advertising assets available.

This scarcity is thanks to the Highway Beautification Act passed by Congress in 1965. The act severely restricted where new billboards could be installed along federal highway systems.

“About a hundred years ago, billboards were not banned anywhere,” Chris explained. “You could put them up anywhere you wanted, which made them worth not very much at all.”

So when you have a lot of supply, the demand goes down because there’s not much price to be discovered on that.

Of course, that same legislation made it much harder to get approved for new billboard builds nowadays. The permitting process requires clearing multiple regulatory hurdles at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels.

Attracting Advertisers and Maximizing Billboard Revenue

One of the simplest methods is simply plastering your phone number or website across any vacant billboard faces with something like a “Your Ad Here!” call-to-action.

“People will drive by those signs, see them. And by default, they’re going to call or be interested in if they have a business or they want to run it.” Chris said.

Posting temporary banners or vinyl wraps makes it easy for any interested businesses to inquire about the available inventory.

Pricing Models: Terms, Traffic, And What’s Available

For pricing, the typical billboard lease is at least 12 months to offset the upfront costs of printed vinyl wraps and installation. “Some get shorter in the 1 to 6 months just depending on the location,” Chris noted.

The most significant factors influencing monthly rates are the traffic counts and the number of ad faces already active in a particular area.

You can get higher rates on a billboard that’s the only one for miles on a highway stretch, even if the raw traffic counts are lower than in more congested areas. It’s a classic supply-and-demand game.

State highway traffic counts are publicly available data points used to estimate the potential number of impressions. Still, factors like commercial density and competing inventory affect the pricing.

Also, the industry standard is for advertisers to cover the printing and installation costs separately.

Static vs. Digital Billboards: Pros and Cons

There are also key differences between traditional static billboards and newer digital/LED screens.

Static billboards are basically large printed vinyl wraps displaying the same advertisement 24/7 until a lease expires or an advertiser makes a change. They have low ongoing maintenance costs but require reprinting expenses with any new creative ad updates.

Digital billboards rotate a rotation of different advertisements on a recurring cycle, usually every 6-8 seconds.

This allows for more ad inventory per digital face compared to static boards.

However, the upfront and operating costs for digital boards are much higher with large LED screens to power and maintain. Advertisers may be able to get away with shorter rental terms on digital displays instead of annual commitments.

“Personally, I actually like the old-fashioned static science the best. No maintenance; always up unless they get knocked down by wind,” Chris said about choosing between static or digital billboards.

The Equity Upside in Billboard Ownership

While the monthly cash flow from renting billboard advertising is attractive, the real wealth-building potential lies in the equity growth of these income producing assets.

Major national operators like Lamar Advertising and Outfront Media routinely acquire independent billboards at valuations ranging from 7-12 times the annual revenue stream.

These big players are always on the hunt to grow their networks through through mergers/acquisitions. So any time an individual or group decides to sell their billboard asset, they can demand high prices from potential purchasers.

Let’s say you own some billboards that bring in $100k per year after expenses and everything is paid off. That means your billboard business would be worth $700k to $1.2M!

Techs/Tools

You might be surprised, but Chris keeps his operations remarkably low-tech and streamlined.

No fancy proprietary software or complex systems are required.

For the most part, they use basic spreadsheets to track everything—advertiser contacts, contract dates, income statements, and all the fundamentals.

One notable tool Chris uses is LandGlide, which he uses for real estate and scouting possible new spots for billboards. This app shows you “who owns what, where it is, lot of lines, all that kind of stuff.”

It essentially maps out county parcel data and ownership records in an easily accessible mobile interface.

The location-scouting process is key since ideal billboard spots require careful evaluation of neighboring properties, road visibility, and more.

A (Mostly) Passive Day in Chris’ Life

With so much complexity in zoning, permitting, and new construction logistics, you’d think running a portfolio of billboards is a full-time operation.

According to Chris, nowadays, it’s actually relatively passive aside from some basic administrative work.

“It’s been a little boring,” Chris shared.

Most weeks, he’s only spending around 5 hours or so on basic billboard business management tasks. Answering inquiries from potential new advertisers, handling contract renewals, those sorts of things.

Mistakes or Surprises Along the Way

Chris expressed surprise that more people don’t value consistency and long-term investment approaches and instead prefer quick money-making schemes.

Everyone wants the overnight success story, but those are the extreme exceptions, not the rule.

In fact, shortcuts may lead to even further delays in your financial freedom.

Real wealth-building takes time and consistent effort, with small actions causing big difference over a decade.

What’s Next for Chris?

Chris’ goal for this year is to double the number of billboard faces in his portfolio within the next two years and launch a new coaching course called The Billboard Academy.

This will be a chance for him to pull back the curtain and give people a proven blueprint they can follow.

“I want to help others build wealth, get out of the rat race, and achieve that financial freedom.”

So stay tuned for that because it’s going to come in the next couple of months.

Interested students can get a free preview at Chris’s website. There, visitors can download a free guide introducing the passive income potential of billboard ownership.

Chris also hopes his entrepreneurial story can inspire others to take control of their lives and financial futures, just as he did coming from modest beginnings.

His non-profit organization Signs of Good ties together principles of entrepreneurship and giving back.

Chris’ #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“It’s about who you’re becoming, not who you’ve been.”

Episode Links

Signs of Good
wantmore.org
Lamar Advertising
Outfront Media
LandGlide
The Billboard Academy

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Looking for a fitness-related side hustle to make extra money? The good news is there are lots of ways to stay active, help others, and get paid at the same time!

I compiled this list based on:

Interviews with dozens of fitness side hustles
My 15+ years of side hustle experience
Feedback from the 50,000+ member Side Hustle Nation community

Here are our top picks!

1. Personal Training

The requirements for personal trainers vary from gym to gym. Some require a degree or official certification.

Depending on the gym, you can also make commissions for bringing in new members. Most trainers connect with private clients through their network, NextDoor, or through a marketplace like FindYourTrainer.

Aside from training clients in-person, you can also do it online. For example, April Whitney took her passion for fitness online and created an online strength training program for petite women.

When we spoke, she was earning $1000 a month from it.

2. Sports Coaching

Channel your athletic glory days and help young athletes level up their game.

You can set your own rate and CoachUp private coaches report earning an average of $45 an hour. It doesn’t hurt to check your local school districts to see what coaching positions they have available.

3. Sports Officiating

School sports and recreation leagues always need officials and umpires to help out. If you have experience with a sport and know the rules, this can be a fun and active side hustle.

According to Zippa, referees get paid an average of $25/hr.

4. Teaching Fitness Classes

Gyms offer a variety of fitness classes taught by passionate and trained individuals. 

If you are trained in yoga, Zumba, spinning, or more, check out and see if your local gym is looking for instructors.

5. Build a Health and Fitness Website

Write content on the health and fitness topics you care about and build an audience in your niche. As you build out your library of helpful articles, you’ll pick up more traffic and revenue.

Content sites earn money from affiliate partnerships, ad revenue, and your own products and services.

One common way to start is by creating in-depth product comparison content, like Tami Smith did with her fitness website, FitHealthyMomma. 

Tami is a Certified Personal Trainer and a Nutritionist who took that expertise and applied it online. When we connected, she was earning up to $20k a month.

Want to start a website of your own? Check out my free 6-part video course on how to start your own site.

6. Dog Walking

When homeowners travel, it opens up an opportunity to come by and take care of their animals. Or, they may just need some exercise in the middle of the day!

To set up shop, try Rover.com. Several Side Hustle Nation readers report earning $1000 a month watching other people’s pets.

7. Parking Lot Cleanup

Brian Winch equated his litter pick-up service as “making money going for a walk.”

Now a $650k a year operation, his business started as a side hustle performing the very basic task of picking up litter.

Check out Brian’s interview to learn more about how you can earn $30-$50 an hour picking up trash.

In bottle and can recycling redemption states, you can turn that trash into treasure as well.

8. Create a Walking Tour

Would you love sharing your city with others?

Alexandra Kenin built Urban Hiker SF into a $50k a year side hustle, guiding tour groups around the hills of San Francisco.

With Tours By Locals, you can offer private, unique, and customized tours to travelers in 162 countries.

9. Fitness Niche Newsletter

One of the side hustles I’m most excited about right now is curated email newsletters. Could you source the best articles on your health and fitness topic on a daily or weekly basis?

These are super valuable for readers since you help cut through the clutter in your niche. As your audience grows, you can monetize with ads, affiliate offers, or your own products or services.

Tools like Substack and SendFox make it super easy to get started.

10. Weight Loss Coaching 

Nagina Abdullah turned her weight loss blog, MasalaBody.com, into a side business that consistently made $10k a month.

By day, she worked for a large consulting company. With a busy work schedule, a young family, and limited time to work on her side hustle, Nagina had to be very smart about her marketing and pricing.

After struggling with her weight for all of her adult life, she finally hit on something that worked and dropped 40 pounds!

She started her blog to share recipes and tips, and began offering one-on-one and group coaching programs.

This can be done remotely with Zoom and email, allowing you to help people remotely.

11. Start a YouTube Health and Fitness Channel

Creating content on YouTube is a fast-track side hustle, especially compared with blogging. It’s easier to “rank” videos for your target keywords, and once your channel reaches certain metrics, you can monetize with ads.

Some ideas of content you can create:

Workout Videos
Meal Plans
Equipment Reviews
Exercise Tutorials

For example, Nisha Vora built her Rainbow Plant Life YouTube channel about vegan cooking to over 1.2M subscribers!

(You can also use YouTube in other creative ways, like to sell a digital product or service.)

12. Host a Fitness Podcast

Podcasting is another unique way to build an income stream around your opinions. It can take a while to build an audience, but it’s a business that can scale really well.

After all, it takes the same effort to produce an episode that 100 people listen to as it does to produce one that 100,000 people listen to.

For example, Shawn Stevenson hosts the popular Model Health Show.

Top podcasts earn up to $100,000 for a single episode — but even smaller shows can thrive with a niche topic. We’ve seen successful side hustle examples from a range of podcast niches, including:

Parenting
Dinosaurs (for real!)
App marketing

This could be a good fit as a fitness side hustle if you love to talk!

13. Write a Book

One of my favorite and most passive side hustles is self-publishing. Passive — after the whole book-writing part, that is 🙂

My books are on topics like:

how to work with virtual assistants
the most important items every website should have
how to start a side hustle

Over the last decade, my collection of titles have earned me over $80,000.

I can’t call myself a full-time author, but it’s a fun way to get paid to put your ideas and opinions out into the world.

For example, physical therapist Sean Sumner wrote this guide on how to get rid of your back pain.

It’s got over 150 reviews on Amazon, and has led to paid speaking gigs on top of his author royalties.

You can set your own prices and collect a 70% royalty on all Kindle book sales priced between $2.99 and $9.99. (Amazon makes it easy to create a print-on-demand paperback as well.)

14. Freelance Writing

Many companies hire freelance writers to create:

website content
sales copy
marketing newsletters
product descriptions
brochures and training material

And yes, even in the age of AI, there’s still a strong demand for real human writers who have experience, voice, and an opinion on what they’re writing about.

Freelance writers command anywhere from $50-500 or more per article, and can connect with clients on platforms like Upwork and Fiverr.

For example, Georgia Austin started her freelance writing business on Fiverr, and got her first orders right away. The more you practice your writing, the faster you’ll get.

Start by deciding which health and fitness topics you are interested in and would love to write about.

You can then see what companies are hiring writers. You can also look at writing job boards or Facebook groups for websites needing health and fitness writers.

15. The Amazon Influencer Program

My latest side hustle is as an Amazon Influencer. This is an offshoot of the Associates program designed for content creators with a following on social media.

Once your Influencer account is approved, you’ll be able to upload short product review videos.

In turn, Amazon displays those on the relevant product pages, and rewards you a commission when someone makes a purchase after watching your video.

I made a little over $100 doing this in my first month, with very little effort!

If you love reviewing workout equipment and accessories, this could be a good fit to start.

16. Get Paid to Lose Weight: $500+

If you are looking to lose weight yourself, you might want to check out HealthyWage. This cool service lets you put a friendly wager on your weight loss.

If you meet your goal, you can cash in — to the tune of $500 or more! (Here’s our full HealthyWage review.)

If you are looking to get healthy this year, why not make some money at the same time.

Click here to see how much your prize might be.

17. Instacart

Shopping for people’s groceries will certainly boost your daily steps with all that walking up and down the aisles. Instacart connects customers with shoppers to deliver fresh groceries to their door.

As an Instacart shopper, you shop and deliver orders as an independent contractor (car required).

Check out my full Instacart shopper review for more details.

18. CashWalk

CashWalk is a popular “get paid to walk” app that uses the pedometer function on your phone to track your steps throughout the day.

Those steps convert into CashWalk coins — up to 100 a day — which can then be redeemed for gift cards to Amazon and other stores. For serious walkers, that translates into $5 every 6-8 weeks.

The only drawback is you have to open the app every day to claim your coins. (That’s how they get you to look at the ads that pay for your gift cards!)

Get 100 coins as a sign-up bonus w/ referral code MR9W5.

Check out our full CashWalk review to learn more.

19. StepBet

A friend of mine reported earning around $150 a year with StepBet, which gamifies your walking goals with group step challenges.

Bet on yourself to meet your walking goals. If you hit your own step goals every week for the entire game, you divide the “pot” with the other winners. That means you win back your own investment plus profit.

If you miss your weekly goal, you’re out of the running.

The Best Fitness Side Hustles: Your Turn

The good news is are lots of fitness-related side hustles available. You may even be able to combine several on this list to help others get in shape or meet your own fitness goals.

The best thing to do is pick one and get started today!

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.