Creating a Side Hustle Out of the Cross border Bus Lifestyle
Mike’s blog 136
Are you a bus rider? I’m a bus rider. Is that a word?
The 10 years I’ve been here in China, and bouncing back and forth between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, I have taken hundreds of bus rides, If there are 52 weeks a year, and I take the bus on average twice a week (round trip) – That is 100 a year – meaning times ten – 1,000 bus rides! And I think it should be even higher as there are many times in my China career when I was going 2 or even 3 times a week!
Oh, the cross border bus. Do you remember Chinatown in New York City? I would leverage that bus network to get to Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia.
Chinese people take a lot of buses.
So, with our upcoming Cross Border Matchmaker on Friday Oct 27, and the busy trade show season – combined with Global From Asia’s blog traffic still growing more and more from people searching how to get to the Canton Fair from Hong Kong or Shenzhen – why not – bring a little “side hustle” of a bus booking service.
And that is how Canton Fair Bus dot com was born.
Already people are excited about it and I have barely even pushed it. Just linking it in my blog posts and cross-marketing it on top Hong Kong / Canton Fair travel guide blog posts. That is the power of content marketing, the rank in Google has been there so long, and I’m an idiot I didn’t think of this sooner – but better late than never. Going through the old blog posts of Global From Asia and mentioning this new bus booking service.
While this may not make me rich – heck – this will be a lot of communication and coordination and can even lose money – it is a great networking tool. To engage with the blog readers on the site who need help with travel. And we will learn from them, see where they are coming from and to. It is about understanding your target market and serving them.
This is something I wish I thought of years ago, but hey, lets do it now. So if you know anyone traveling around for the trade shows and they are asking for help booking cars or buses or any kind of transportation, we can help them out – even for free just guiding them – Canton Fair Bus dot com. Easy to remember domain, and an easier way for you to book your transportation with our online and friendly client service team – in English!
Always listen and learn. I hate pushing I like instead people searching and needing something. Guess this is why people say I’m a marketer and not a sales. But isn’t it so much better for people coming to you needing something rather than you going to them asking them to do something. Again, it goes back to my… limiting belief on asking… but I love people coming to us.