Launch Your Box Podcast with Sarah Williams | Start, Launch, and Grow Your Subscription Box

Starting a Facebook business page from scratch is hard. Even growing an existing page can feel hard. But it’s a critical part of audience building. You create great content your ideal customer will love. And you want your ideal customer - lots of your ideal customers - to see it. That means gaining more followers. When I started my page, How to Start a Subscription Box, in early 2020. I knew who my ideal customer was. What I didn’t know was how I was going to get them to like my page. I spent six months spinning my wheels and not gaining a ton of followers. At the end of those six months, I took a step back and took a close look at what I was doing. And what I wasn’t doing. Then I came up with an action plan to get to 1000 followers before the end of the year. Getting to 1000 followers is possible. In this episode, I’m sharing four things you can do to reach - and pass - that 1000 follower mark. I called these “4 Simple Steps to Gain Your First 1000 Facebook Followers.” Nothing I’ve recommended is complicated or difficult. Following these 4 steps helped me reach 1000 followers on my business Facebook page. Continuing to follow them led to reaching - and passing - 10,000 followers in less than two years. Let Facebook work for you! Join me for this episode where I share a simple, 4-part action plan for gaining your first 1,000 Facebook followers. We have an entire module dedicated to audience building inside the Launch Your Box training library. It’s full of strategies and actionable steps you can follow to gain your first 1000 followers… and beyond! Join me and our AMAZING community inside Launch Your Box! Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join today!

Does it feel like you are making good sales, but nothing is left in your bank account at the end of each month? Are you bringing in enough revenue to cover your overhead and pay your employees but can’t pay yourself? I’ve been there. If you’re a small business owner, you’ve been there, too. It’s time to change how we think about sales and profitability. And I’ve brought the perfect person to the podcast to help us do just that. In this episode, Ciara Stockeland, fractional CFO and inventory genius, joins me as we get to the simple truth about inventory, margins, and profitability. Ciara is a 3rd generation entrepreneur from North Dakota. She opened her first retail store in 2006 and built it into a franchise before selling it. She also started a subscription box for retailers, grew it, and sold that, too. It was Ciara’s love for all things numbers that led her to her current role where she works with business owners to identify and fix their inventory, cash flow, and profitability issues. Ciara has met so many inventory-based business owners who all ask the same questions: Where is all my money going? What do I do with all this debt? How much inventory should I really own? Ciara responded to a need and built her Inventory Genius course where she teaches business owners how to focus on the right things in order to create more profit and keep more cash. Set profit goals using Ciara’s framework - the same framework she uses regardless of the size of the business. I want you to understand that subscription box businesses can be profitable from month one - but you have to be disciplined about operating expenses. If you don’t fix a problem with operating expenses, gaining more subscribers won’t solve the problem. The cost will grow right along with the subscriber numbers. When you get diligent about knowing your numbers, it gets easier. Get Ciara’s book Inventory Genius for an explanation of the numbers in your business. What is profit and loss? What is a balance sheet? How does inventory play into what’s happening with my cash? Problems with inventory, cash flow, and profitability will not solve themselves. But they ARE solvable! It starts with understanding the numbers in your business. Knowledge is power. The more you know, the better decision you can make. We want you to love your business and to make decisions from a place of certainty, not panic. Don’t forget to grab Ciara’s FREE eBook HERE! Join me and Ciara Stockeland, inventory genius, as we get to the simple truth about inventory, margins, and profitability. Grab your earbuds and notebooks, and join us! Find and follow Ciara: Inventory Genius on Facebook Inventory Genius on Instagram Ciara’s FREE eBook Ciara’s Website Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join today!

What if you never had to pack and ship your subscription boxes again? How would that change your business… and your life? Ryan Culver of Lessgistics joined me for this episode to talk all things subscription box fulfillment center. Not only does Ryan have more than 20 years of experience in supply chain, he’s also a former health & wellness subscription box owner and the current owner of a charcuterie subscription box. He joined me to talk about how fulfillment centers can help subscription box businesses, especially as you grow and scale. Ryan started Lessgistics in 2020 to help other subscription box owners. Inside their 60,000-square-foot facility, Ryan and his team support subscription box owners with businesses ranging from 250 subscription boxes to over 5,000 subscription boxes. They also fulfill special projects and one-time boxes. Lessgistics especially enjoys partnering with start-up subscription box businesses that are starting to show growth and have 250-300 subscribers. Other fulfillment centers require subscription box businesses to have 1,000 or more subscribers. Ryan talked about how important it is that you have time and experience fulfilling your subscription boxes yourself before outsourcing to a fulfillment center like Lessgistics. This allows you to understand your needs, your process, and what you’ll require of a fulfillment center. There are many benefits to working with a fulfillment center, including: Taking advantage of the economies of scale a fulfillment center brings. Getting your business out of your house. Getting access to better shipping rates - subscription box owners benefit from Lessgistics’s buying power with shipping companies. The volume discounts Lessgistics can get for its subscription box partners usually pay for the cost of the fulfillment center, making it a no brainer! Ryan recognizes that it can be difficult to let go of control and trust someone else to fulfill your subscription boxes. He understands and is dedicated to creating an experience that’s very subscription box owner-focused. As a subscription box owner himself, he understands the importance of providing an outstanding subscriber experience. Lessgistics can handle variations - size, color, quantities - with ease. They handle customer service issues promptly and stay in close contact with their subscription box owner partners. Ryan and I talked about one of my Mastermind students, Stacey Collins, and how Lessgistics has been such an important part of her latest subscription box’s success. If you’re in the hundreds of subscribers range, you need to be focused on growing and scaling - not on packing and shipping. It’s time to really think about what a 3rd party fulfillment center like Lessgistics could do for you. Contact Ryan to schedule a 30-minute call - he’ll talk with you about your subscription box and your needs and provide you with a same-day quote. Join me and Ryan from Lessgistics for this episode to learn what a 3rd party fulfillment center can do for your subscription box business and how the money you’ll save on shipping costs can just about pay for the fulfillment services! Find and follow Lessgistics: Lessgistics on Facebook Lessgistics Website Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join today!

You’ve curated a beautiful subscription box. Your website is nearly ready. But there’s one decision holding you back from actually launching. And it’s all about shipping. Should you offer free shipping or charge for shipping? Of course, “free shipping” isn’t free. If you offer free shipping to your customers, you will adjust the prices of the items you sell to absorb those shipping costs and protect your profit margins. In this episode, I go deep on all things shipping. The truth is, there’s no easy answer to the free shipping or charging for shipping question. There is no one-size fits all strategy when it comes to shipping charges. There may even be more than one answer for your business. Think about your own buying behavior. What matters more to you when you’re shopping online? What matters to your customers? Shippo, a shipping software company, conducted a survey where they found: 49% of customers prefer to pay a lower price for items and pay for shipping. 40% of customers want free shipping. 11% of customers want their items fast and are willing to pay expedited shipping charges. Another report showed: People prefer paying for low-cost shipping when purchasing lower-priced items. 93% of shoppers will add to their carts to reach a certain threshold to receive free shipping if it’s offered. For one-off online sales, offering free shipping once a customer reaches a purchase threshold is smart for a few reasons. It can increase your average order value. It incentivizes customers to order more items at once instead of placing multiple one-item orders, reducing your overall shipping charges. It allows for lower pricing of items because you don’t have to account for as much of the cost of shipping in the price of each item. Answering this question for your subscription box is more difficult. Do you only ship or do you offer local pickup as well? Does the perceived value of your subscription box allow you to include shipping in the cost of the box or would that make the price “too high?” Don’t be afraid to test options with your audience to help you make this decision. Join me for this episode as I talk about what you need to consider when deciding whether to charge for shipping or offer free shipping to your customers and why you may end up choosing one strategy for your one-off sales and the other for your subscription box. Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join the waitlist today!

Is tech holding you back from launching your subscription box? There are so many decisions to make. One of the first is choosing the right platform for you and your business. There are hundreds to choose from. But not all of them are right for subscription box businesses. So many people get stuck here, overthinking and over-researching. Decision paralysis sets in and they fail to make any progress at all. But it doesn’t have to be that way - I’m here to help. In this episode, I break things down for you to make it as simple as possible. I talk you through my top three website platforms and the pros and cons of each. The truth is, no one platform is perfect for every subscription box business. But there is one that’s right for you! Option 1 - WordPress/Woocommerce WordPress is the platform and Woocommerce is the plug-in needed to sell products. Woocommerce Subscriptions is the plug-in needed to sell recurring products like a subscription box. Option 2 - Shopify Shopify is an eCommerce platform that allows you to create an online store and sell products. It offers a wide range of tools and features specifically for product-based businesses. Find more in-depth information about all of these platforms and a deep dive into the Subscription Apps on Shopify inside the Launch Your Box Training Library. Not a member yet? Joinlyb.com! Option 3 - Subbly Subbly is an all-in-one subscription box platform that provides tools for managing and launching a subscription-based business. My tips for choosing a website platform: Don’t get overwhelmed by your options - go with one of these three. If you already have one of these sites, don’t change it. Build your subscription on it. Decide which features as most important to YOUR business. Evaluate the costs. Just. Get. Started. Don’t let tech stop you from moving forward. Join me for this episode where I share my top three website platforms for subscription box businesses and the pros and cons of each. Don’t let tech stop you from moving forward. Join me and our AMAZING community inside Launch Your Box! Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join today!

Building an audience of people who are interested in your subscription box is crucial. You can’t have a successful launch - and a successful business - without an audience. But you don’t need a huge following with tens of thousands of followers if you have a small audience filled with the RIGHT people. I’ve built two multi-million dollar businesses and neither one has a huge number of followers. I don’t need hundreds of thousands of followers because the followers I do have are the right people for each of my businesses. They’re engaged, they’re interested in me and what I offer, and most of them buy from me. The secret to finding subscription box success with a smaller audience is to maximize the value of your audience, no matter the size. Subscription box success - or success in any online business - doesn’t come from having a large number of followers who don’t engage with you and your business and don’t buy anything. Instead, success comes from having an engaged audience filled with your ideal customers. Finding and building an audience filled with your right people starts with remembering your why. What drove you to start a subscription box in the first place? Those people who you wanted to serve with your subscription box? Those are the people you need to attract. Those are the people who will engage with you and your business. I have some practical ways you can attract and engage an audience filled with your right people: Be known for something. What are you the expert at? What makes you happy? Show up. Get in front of your audience and go LIVE consistently. Serve before you sell. What value are you providing to your audience? You don’t have to be everywhere, but you do need to be consistent. Don’t try to do all the things! Pick a few that you are good at and can be consistent with. Love on your people! Help your audience feel seen and heard, and they’ll keep coming back. Join me for this episode as we talk about why a large following isn’t necessary for subscription box success and how you can maximize the value of your small audience. Join me and our AMAZING community inside Launch Your Box! Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join today!

“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” - Dwayne Johnson One of the healthiest habits we can build into our businesses is consistency. Consistency trumps everything else. You don’t have to be the best, you just have to be consistent. I talk about consistency a LOT because it’s just that important. You can be an expert, you can be the best at what you do, but without consistency, you won’t succeed. Someone with less expertise who is consistent will succeed because consistency trumps expertise. A lot of business owners struggle when they try to do “all the things” and end up doing them inconsistently. Instead, do a few things and do them consistently. Look at your business and ask yourself if you’re being consistent enough in 5 key areas: 1- Planning your boxes consistently 2- Go LIVE consistently 3- Email your list consistently 4- Post on social media consistently 5- Talk about your subscription box constantly Talking about your subscription box creates buzz and generates excitement! How consistent are you? Can you improve? If you’re not consistent in any of these 5 areas, choose one to start with. Get consistent with that one and then add in another. Join me for this episode as we talk about why it’s so important to be consistent in your business and the five areas you need to be consistent in to build a successful subscription box business. Resources: YouTube video - Weekly Emails for Your Subscription Box Business FREE 6 in 60 Workshop - Curate 6 Subscription Boxes in 60 Minutes Join me and our AMAZING community inside Launch Your Box! Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join today! Use code LAUNCHWELCOME at https://www.boxup.com/ to get 10% off your first order

Finding people who are interested in your subscription box and collecting them on a waitlist is one of the most important things you can do to have a successful launch. But you can’t just collect them. What you do with that list leading up to your launch is just as important. The more work you do between the waitlist and the launch, the higher your conversion rates will be! Inside Launch Your Box, I teach that there are 5 stages in a beginner Subscription Box Marketing Plan. Audience Building - building a following and an email list. Identifying Potential Subscribers - building a waitlist. Pre-Launch Campaign - building authority & expertise and nurturing your following and list. The Launch - actively selling your subscription. Post Launch Engagement - it’s a “feeling,” it’s not about the “stuff.” On this episode, we’re focusing on stages 2 and 3. A waitlist is an email opt-in form someone fills out to tell you they want to learn more about your subscription box. Filling out this form puts them on an email list that allows them to be the first to know when your subscription box launches, entitles them to early bird launch specials, and ensures they get an opportunity to subscribe before your boxes sell out! The goal of the waitlist strategy is to build a large list of warm leads who are interested in becoming subscribers. Every time you talk about your subscription box, your CTA is to join the waitlist. Start building your waitlist 30-90 out from your launch. Any longer, you risk the list becoming cold. Any shorter, you won’t have enough time to build a healthy list. The time between the waitlist and the launch is crucial. You can’t simply get people onto your waitlist and then 90 days later hit them with the launch. Use this time to get them to buy into who you are and what your box is about. Send weekly or bi-weekly emails, depending on how far out you are from your launch. Each of these emails should fall into one of three categories: Building credibility & your know, like, and trust factor. Talking about customer pain points and how your subscription box is a solution to these problems. Taking people behind the scenes of your subscription box. Bring your waitlist along on the process of starting your subscription box. These potential subscribers will feel like they’ve been part of the process all along, resulting in a much higher conversion rate when you do launch. Examples of 6 emails you can send between the waitlist and the launch: Introduce yourself and share your “why.” Take them behind the scenes - designing your logo, choosing packaging, etc. Get them involved. Talk about pain points and benefits. Take them behind the scenes - working on something for your subscription box. Connect you with the box. Talk about why they deserve to have your box. Build excitement - save the date, watch your email, exciting bonuses to come! Inside Launch Your Box we have FOUR brand new training lessons all about creating your waitlist, announcing your subscription box launch, driving traffic to your waitlist, and nurturing your waitlist before your launch. I’d love to have you join us. Just head over to joinLYB.com! Join me for this episode as we talk about what you need to do between building your waitlist and your launch to build your authority, nurture your prospective subscribers, and increase your conversion rate. Join me and our AMAZING community inside Launch Your Box! Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join today! Use code LAUNCHWELCOME at https://www.boxup.com/ to get 10% off your first order

Growing your subscription box business with paid traffic is great… Until it isn’t. One great way to choose a subscription box niche is to identify a gap in the market and fill it. An even better way is to identify a gap in a market you are passionate about. Launch Your Box member Bridget Young of Lunar Maven did both. And it paid off. She saw her subscription box grow from an initial launch of 15 subscribers to 200 subscribers in a little more than a year! The only problem was that growth was largely due to paid ads. And when the cost of paid ads continued to go up and subscriber numbers started to slip, Bridget needed a new strategy. Bridget’s Lunar Maven box is a monthly subscription box based on a subscriber’s zodiac sign. Bridget sent me a box to open during our Launch Your Box member box openings. It was customized for a Pisces - my sign. The care and attention that went into it was apparent in every detail - and my horoscope-loving heart LOVED it! Bridget’s subscription box journey started when she couldn’t find a subscription box that met her expectations of content and quality. Bridget has a passion for all things astrological and crystal. She also has a great deal of knowledge. She planned and curated a subscription box that is thoughtful, personalized, and filled with high-quality items. Items chosen based on what each sign will be experiencing during that month. Bridget focused on customer acquisition as her growth strategy, using paid Facebook Ads to get in front of the right people. The strategy worked well for the first year and Bridget’s subscription grew 5-15% per month, outpacing her monthly churn rates. Bridget was strategic with her ads. She spent time engaging in the comments, answering questions and adding value. In 2023, ads stopped performing as well for Bridget, and customer acquisition costs went way up. She had no choice but to scale back on her ad spend which had an immediate negative impact on her growth. Bridget needs a strategy to move forward and start gaining new subscribers again. I talked to her about the importance of a balanced strategy - one that counts on both paid and organic traffic. I recommended Bridget start running ads to a freebie opt-in. She has SO MUCH knowledge - creating a freebie for someone who wants to learn about crystals, zodiac signs, and more would be easy for her and valuable for her audience. Running ads to that freebie opt-in will get it in front of her ideal customer AND help her build her email list. And as you may have heard me say recently, your email is your ATM. When Bridget restarts her ads, I recommend she do things a little differently. I want her to build a nurturing email flow and nurture those people on her list, knowing they are likely to buy from her eventually. Bridget shared her goals for 2024. She wants to get to 500 subscribers. This isn’t an arbitrary number - getting to 500 subscribers would allow her to move her business out of her basement and into a separate space. It would also mean being able to hire. Both would make a big difference in balancing work and family life! With her new plan to grow using a combination of paid and organic traffic and her commitment to start consistently going LIVE on social media, I am confident Bridget will reach that goal! Join me for this episode to learn how Bridget grew her subscription box from 15 to 200 subscribers in a year and what changes she needs to make to continue to grow despite rising ad costs. Find and follow Bridget: Lunar Maven on Facebook Lunar Maven on Instagram Lunar Maven Website Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join today! Use code LAUNCHWELCOME at https://www.boxup.com/ to get 10% off your first order

“Take that one next step.” - Megan Hoiosen Have you ever read an entire book in one day? Has a book ever given you exactly what you needed exactly when you needed it? When Megan Hoiosen of Sweet Tea Living got her hands on my book, One Box at a Time, she took the day off and read it straight through. And three weeks later, she had a sold-out launch of her brand-new subscription box. A former teacher, Megan turned her love for home decor and vintage into a brick-and-mortar shop in Idaho called Sweet Tea Living. The name of Megan’s shop has almost nothing to do with tea (although she does sell it) and everything to do with creating a feeling of Southern hospitality. Megan thought about starting a subscription box for a long time. She even joined Launch Your Box a few months ago. And although she found all of the trainings - and the amazing community - a great source of knowledge, she struggled to find time to consume the information while working long days in her shop. When my book, One Box at a Time, came out late last year, Megan ordered a copy. And when it arrived, she had a feeling it might be just what she needed. She took the day off from work, sat down with a notebook, and read the book straight through. Three weeks later, Megan launched her subscription box. Oh, and she sold out! My goal when I wrote One Box at a Time was not only to tell my subscription box story but to provide readers with the knowledge and tactical action steps they need to actually launch their boxes. Megan launched and quickly hit 50 subscribers. Then 75 subscribers. And they just kept coming. She had her web designer shut things down when she hit 87 subscribers. She had sold out! Megan intended to follow the launch plan to a T but found herself overwhelmed. And that’s okay. I lay out a comprehensive launch plan inside my membership and in the chapters of One Box at a Time. That doesn’t mean you have to do all of the things every time. When you launch for the first time, take what you can and do what you can. Then the next time you launch, layer in more. Realize you can reuse the assets you built for that first launch - simply rinse and repeat. If you never start, you have nothing to build on. I give you the tools, it’s up to you to implement them. Megan has great advice for anyone dreaming about starting a subscription box inspired by the title of my book. She wants you to send the email, do the post, go LIVE, and they’ll come… One Box at a Time. When I asked Megan her goals for 2024, she said she was inspired by Episode 145 where I interviewed 3 of my Mastermind students who hit $1 million in revenue in 2023. Something tells me I’ll be doing a similar interview with Megan in the not-to-distant future. Join me for this episode to learn what can happen when you “take that one next step.” Spoiler alert - you just might end up with a sold-out subscription launch! One Box at a Time Find and follow Megan: Sweet Tea Living on Facebook Sweet Tea Living on Instagram Sweet Tea Living Website Join me in all the places: Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join today! Use code LAUNCHWELCOME at https://www.boxup.com/ to get 10% off your first order