This week, I’m calling on a classic writing structure – the Five Ws and an H. Except we’re only doing four Ws.
Naptown Scoop is a perfect lifestyle business. It pays my bills and I work a couple hours each day. If I want, I can work more and grow it. That doesn’t happen by accident. It’s all about the systems.
So, today’s big idea is Naptown Scoop’s org chart
Please excuse ChatGPT’s typo. Social Média lol
Here’s how it’s gonna go
We’re gonna cover:
Who each employee is
What they do
Where I hired them
When they work
And for Life of Scoop Plus members, How much I pay them
Let’s get to it.
Who: Operations assistant - Elle
What: Elle is a jack of all trades. She started as a VA and grew from there. She still does VA stuff like managing inboxes (mine and Scoop’s generic) and scheduling. But she does a lot more now. Like scouring our sources for content, finalizing each newsletter in beehiiv, and creating the live music and weather sections of the newsletter.
Elle also chases down unpaid bills, does research for stories, makes graphics, and runs the creative process for advertising in our newsletter.
Long story short: If there’s a standardized process at Naptown Scoop, there’s a 99% chance Elle’s the one moving it from stage to stage.
Where: I hired Elle from Shepherd (now called Somewhere). It was expensive (35% of her first year’s salary) but 100% worth it. For offshore contractors, I like paying a one-time headhunting fee rather than ongoing monthly fees. More expensive upfront but cheaper long term.
When: Elle is my only full-time employee. She works 9–5 every day except Friday where she is done at noon in exchange for 1 hour every Sunday night to finalize the Monday newsletter.
How much: Compensation is reserved for Life of Scoop Plus members only. Upgrade now.
Who: Writers – Lauren, Duffy, and Dylan
What: Pretty self-explanatory. They write newsletter and blog content.
Where: I hired Lauren by posting an ad in the newsletter. Lauren referred Dylan. And a former employee referred Duffy. Hiring from your newsletter is my favorite channel. Getting referrals is a close second.
When: All writers are 1099 contractors. On average, they work 80 hours per month combined. That workload produces a newsletter every weekday.
How much: Compensation is reserved for Life of Scoop Plus members only. Upgrade now.
What: All Gavin does is make awesome videos for Instagram. He’s not a full-fledged social media manager (captions, comments, DMs, and content planning are outside his comfort zone), but he’s a wizard with a camera. In a perfect world, he’d do it all. In reality, I need to hire someone to fill in the gaps.
Where: I hired Gavin by posting an ad in the newsletter. Seeing a pattern here? Gavin didn’t actually read the newsletter but a friend’s mom did who sent it to him.
How much: Compensation is reserved for Life of Scoop Plus members only. Upgrade now.
Who: Sales rep – Mike
What: Mike sells newsletter ads and social media sponsorships
Where: I hired Mike by posting an ad in the newsletter
When: Mike is a 1099 contractor who works as much or as little as he pleases because he is commission-only i.e. he doesn’t get paid unless he sells ads.
How much: Compensation is reserved for Life of Scoop Plus members only. Upgrade now.
That leaves one
Me. I only do the things I want to do for Naptown Scoop. That means being the editor (I decide what we publish and how it looks). I oversee sales, billing, and the books. I guide overall strategy. And I’m always looking for ways to be more efficient or do things better.
Content idea: Notable businesspeople from your town
Last week, I randomly discovered that the founder of Stag’s Leap Winery attended college in Annapolis. That inspired me to write a story about other business people from Annapolis. Some were common. Some had built common businesses nobody knows the founder of. And some were totally under the radar but seriously impressive.
The story was very well-received. You can read it here.
ChatGPT was invaluable with the search. However, always double check everything it tells you. It straight up lied in response to my first prompt. Please, always double check ChatGPT’s work.
The Deep Research mode is super helpful for stories like this. It takes 10–15 minutes but you can use other tabs while it works. Most helpfully, it provides links to sources.
Newspapers.com is also a fabulous resource for stories like this once you know what you’re researching.
Pro tip: Don’t accept payment via checks
Take it from me. Naptown Scoop collected almost $300k last year, much of it from recurring checks. Cashing them is annoying, requires manually attaching them to invoices for record keeping, and if you change addresses lots go missing.
Checks suck.
For my next local newsletter, I will only accept checks from clients who are paying their contract in full before it starts.
Everyone else will be on a Stripe recurring subscription, giving me their credit card info (stored securely in Stripe), or paying directly with ACH.
How can I help you?
I can get you 20% off beehiiv, my favorite place to send local newsletters
Life of Scoop Plus members get these emails and real assets, case studies, and tools I use to run my local newsletters. Like the “Facebook ads that actually work” library and set-up video I mentioned today. Upgrade here.