Free Restaurant Specials-board Advertising, Used as a Wedge to Upsell Local Businesses Into an AI/digital Agency
Originally published Aug 21, 2026 — Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast
Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast · The Simplest $10K+/M Business You've Never Heard Of ↗
Place a free dry-erase specials board (used for daily specials and announcements) inside high-foot-traffic local businesses like restaurants and coffee shops, sell 6 ad slots on the board's border to other local businesses for $600/year each, then use the relationship with those advertisers (mostly home services — realtors, contractors, insurance agents, lawyers) as a warm lead into a separate, higher-ticket AI implementation and digital marketing agency (websites, Google review/reputation management, AI voice receptionists).
The guests, a married couple who started this a year and a half ago alongside an existing digital agency, are earning about $10,000-15,000/month combined from both sides of the business after 6 months. The board itself costs about $350-400 to produce (which is covered before printing, since you only print once all 6 ad spots are sold) and generates about $3,200-4,600 profit per placement per year at roughly 85% margin; separately, roughly 20-30 of the businesses that bought ad space have converted into digital agency clients averaging about $7,500/year each, projected around $200,000-225,000 in annual revenue from that side alone — with 60% of that from brand reputation management, 30% from websites/hosting, and 10% from higher-ticket AI services like voice receptionists and automated appointment booking.
Someone comfortable with in-person and DM-based local sales (cold outreach to find host locations and advertisers) who also wants to build or already runs a digital marketing/AI implementation service to upsell into.
This is one of the more genuinely novel local business mechanics in this database — a low-cost physical product used deliberately as a lead-generation wedge into a much higher-margin service business, rather than as the primary profit center itself. The presenters are candid that finding the first advertiser took 10-15 cold outreach messages, and that asking business owners broad questions ("what problems are you having?") doesn't work as well as specific ones ("do employees show up late?") — a real, transferable sales lesson. The digital-agency upsell side requires an existing or newly-built service offering, which is a nontrivial second business, not just a matter of selling one ad board.