Last week, I quietly announced the launch of the Seacoast Stories Small Business Partner Program, or SSSBPP, as the cool kids say.
I posted this news on a Friday at 5:30 p.m. - not typically a time when you find people scrolling. I held zero expectations for this post, and because of the nature and timing of it, I anticipated little reaction.
Welp. I was wrong.
Because that post just led us to the most bonkers week in Seacoast Stories history.
The backstory on the program:
So in my ideal world, Seacoast Stories sponsors would be exclusively small businesses. The Seacoast runs on small businesses, and it would mean nothing more to me than to have 3 Bridges Yoga, LANEY & LU, Studio One, Bird Dog Cider, and La Mulita - the five small businesses with very special places in my heart - support Seacoast Stories for the whole year, which would include paying for me, company expenses, and a staff of three or four additional people.
As you can imagine, businesses like these don’t have tens of thousands to spend - only hundreds and maybe a little more.
So when I hired Smithline founder Lucy Donnally, our Director of Partnerships, we made the decision to pivot away from small business sponsorships and to focus more on larger businesses who have the resources to advertise with Seacoast Stories (duh), which now has a reach large enough to attract thousands of dollars per partnership.
But when we started sketching out the new-and-improved partnerships strategy, I still couldn’t shake the idea of supporting small businesses. Even though the financials didn’t make as much sense on our end, I still wanted to find a way to work with small businesses over the long haul. It’s just the right thing to do.
Out of nowhere, the idea for the SSSBPP hit me:
A year’s worth of visibility across the podcast, website, events, and social media in exchange for a very small price, a pay cut Seacoast Stories can afford to take because now we’re partnering with larger businesses like Appletree, RC Conner, and SWTHZ who can support us.
This is a win-win for all parties.
The businesses get access to our quickly-growing promotional channels, and with (eventually) 20-ish small businesses enrolled in this program, the sponsorship fees add up on our end.
Yay!
Back to last week’s Instagram post.
So in this post, we unveiled 3 Bridges Yoga, Flight House Fitness, Ohana Kitchen, Kittery Hill Barber Shop, We Can Help!, We Fill Good, Studioh, and Empowering Path as the first cohort of small business partners.*
Shortly after, my phone started blowing up with direct messages. Ditto for Lucy’s email inbox.
Businesses of all genres - from food trucks to bookkeepers to plastic surgeons - reached out about joining the program.
In total, we received 30 inbounds, and we’ve agreed to an in-person meeting, Zoom call, or phone call with every single one of them - the majority of which have taken place this week.
In addition, we moved forward with our previously-scheduled meetings with larger companies for 2027 partnership conversations, which (hopefully) we’ll have more details on in the coming weeks.
Lucy and I have been nonstop, but luckily we were able to find some time to escape on Wednesday night to Biddeford for a stay at The Lincoln Hotel, which was LOVELY.
(She is my girlfriend to, by the way. I typically keep personal life stuff closer to the vest on the podcast and on my personal social media channels, so I wanted to make that clear here with the behind-the-scenes look the Substack newsletter promises).
We’re grateful for all the attention Seacoast Stories is receiving, and we’re so stoked that so many businesses want to partner with us. It’s overwhelming, but in all the best ways, and even when we’re stressed about the amount of emails and follow-ups and contracts we owe, we try to remind ourselves that these are great problems to have! Things are happening so fast right now, and I haven’t had a moment to breathe to let it all sink in. I anticipate October will be a very busy month for the business. But after that, I’m confident we’ll have enough in place that I’ll finally get the chance to slow down.
But for now, I don’t even have time to write this newsletter! However, it’s been a minute, so I wanted to provide some updates here before heading out to film a vlog about the best french fries in Portsmouth. Riveting stuff, I know.
The Seacoast Stories pub crawl was a massive success! We can’t wait to do more. We even received some requests to host an espresso martini pub crawl. TWIST MY ARM. Stay tuned.
Seacoast Stories Dinner Club in Manchester was a BLAST! I love that city. They’re always so excited to host us.
Dinner Club will be featured next Tuesday on NH Chronicle! They came to our Kittery dinner last month, captured footage, and interviewed me along with several attendees. I can’t wait to see how the piece turns out.
And while that piece airs on television, we’ll be in the midst of Seacoast Stories LIVE!
I’m so excited for this.
I’m interviewing Victoria Arlen at The Press Room. For a reminder, she’s the one who spent four years in a vegetative state, won a gold medal at the London Paralympics in 2012, appeared on Dancing With the Stars, hosted shows on ESPN, and has written two books.
We’ll talk about her crazy life story and all of the challenges that come with fame, having the eyes of the world upon you, and of living in a body that could shut down at any moment.
Of everything we do at Seacoast Stories, live podcasts are my favorite. This will be a special one with an incredible person, and I really hope to see you there. Snag your tickets here to join us.
Have a great weekend everybody.
Thank you as always for your support. I couldn’t do this without you.
*To see some offers from our new small business partners, please visit this page of our website.