101: Building a Subscription Box Business Featuring Sarah Williams

What physical products could be a companion to what you teach, Whether that's in a course, whether that's in a membership, There are companion products that you are using that you teach on, there's mediums that you teach on that you could have in here. There's tools that you use, there is physical items that you are using to teach whatever skill you have that you could curate into a subscription box.

I'm Bonnie Christine. This is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

Today I get to introduce you to one of my favorite people. Her name is Sarah Williams and I know her today as the owner of two incredible multimillion dollar businesses that all center around subscription box. But in today's episode we get to go way back to the very beginning, which honestly wasn't that long ago. So Sarah started a small business in 2017 and she began a really tiny subscription box service and it has grown to thousands and thousands of subscription box and it has grown today to where she's serving thousands and thousands of people with her subscription box. But most excitedly she started to teach other people how to start successful subscription box services as well. Now Sarah is a creative. She serves a creative audience. She has tons of stories of other people who have also done creative based subscription boxes. And the most exciting part is that we're celebrating her brand new book so you can learn more about Sarah and her book over at one box at a time book dot com. So one box at a time book dotcom is where you'll find her new book where she really teaches everything you need to know in order to get up and running with a subscription box. So how to get started, how to plan your box, how to do a six month layout, but also all of the nitty gritty stuff like how to figure out how to order supplies how to do shipping, how to do manufacturing, like all the logistics that we need to know along the way as well. But you're also just going to fall in love with Sarah and her heart. She has a huge heart for serving entrepreneurs and creatives and really empowering women to believe in themselves. So without further ado, please help me welcome my guest today, Sarah Williams. Hi Sarah. Welcome to the Professional Creative.

Hey Bonnie, how are you? I am doing fabulous today.

I love you so much. I'm so excited to welcome you to the show. And you know, I've known you for several years. Today I know you as Sarah Williams who has built two multimillion dollar businesses one box at a time. But Sarah, I would love to go back to like the very beginning and talk about what was the very first box. What was this idea? How did you get started in your subscription box journey?

Well, I had a little gift shop. So I was solely brick and mortar store. I wasn't online at all. It was all like local customers. And that's really how I started my business. I started my business really by going to like shows, you know, like doing like a Christmas show or a holiday show or you know all. I would just drag my homemade items to these shows. I would set up a little booth, you pay your booth rent and that's how I started my business. Then I had this show that I actually made $5,000 in two days. And I thought this is it. Like this, this was the like moment. Like this was no longer a hobby. This was no longer just a little side hustle to make extra money for my family. Why I worked my 9 job. This was like I could do something with this and so I would just leaned into that and I opened my first store and it was all of 600 square feet. It was the tiniest thing. I used to joke that it was a broom closet because it was the tiniest store. But I would hand make things. I painted a lot of things, personalized a lot of things. And that was really my niche was the personalization. So I might paint you a door hanger, but then I personalized it with your name or your family name or your whatever the case. I might made you an ornament with your kids names on it. I might have made made anything. But personalization was my specialty. So when I opened my little brick and mortar store, I would see like a regular customer. It's so intimate because it's so small, right? Like my store was so small. And so I would get to know people, I would talk to them. As they were in their shopping, I would get to, you know, meet their kids or learn. Oh, this is my sister I brought today, or this is my mom. And relationships started to build, and I got more popular. And people, my regulars would come in and they'll be like, oh, you're already sold out of that thing you posted on social media last week. I'm like, yeah, sorry. Like, they were really. You know, they rent really fast. And so I was seeing the same customer. They would come in about once a month, and they were disappointed when something was sold out. And I instantly thought, how could I create something for this regular customer of mine where it was exclusive? They had first dibs. I really wanted to treat them like the VIP of my business. And so that's where the subscription box idea came in. I could create this box. People could sign up for it. They wouldn't have to miss it because it would be reoccurring every month. And. And so once they got signed up for it, they would have first dibs on these exclusive things that I would make just for the box. And so that's really what it was. And this was my first product. I had to put it online because I didn't have any way to take reoccurring payments in my shop. And so I was the first product I put online. I launched my subscription box in 2017, and I got 44 subscribers. And I was like, Bonnie, 44 subscribers, 44 people made a commitment to me, gave me their credit card and said, yes, I want this. And I didn't even show them what was in it. It was like the worst launch in the history of all launches. But I had built up enough of a following or trust with people that it didn't matter what was in that box, because they knew what was in my shop. They were going to love what was in that box.

And. Okay, do you know that we have this in common? That I also got started by making handmade things, except I didn't have a brick and Mort. I had an Etsy shop. But that's how all of it started, was making. I made handmade, like, aprons and tea towels and pillows and things like that. But the subscription box in particular is really close to my heart, because I don't know if you know this either, but my mom had a brick and mortar quilt shop for many, many years, and she was just about seven years ago, very exhausted from it, if you can imagine. Like, all the, you know, all the inventory and all the employees and all the things, and her way out was A subscription box. So she sold her brick and mortar, transitioned to a subscription box, and it was, it replaced her revenue and allowed her to leave the brick and mortar. And so I love the power of this in particular, but I'm assuming, Sarah, that this was also the very first time that you had recurring revenue in your business. Is that true?

Absolutely. Everything that I had generated before, I had to go out and get right. Like I had to show up and sell, I had to promote, I had to market. I was teaching classes, I was teaching painting classes in the evenings, I was selling custom products and making those during the day. But every single day I had to show up and sell something to pay the rent, to pay the bills, to make the car payment. Like I had to show up to sell something. And so this was a way that, you know, it was like the first, when we had the first launch and I got the 44 subscribers, it was amazing. But I didn't really grasp what that meant until the next month when on the 1st of the month my phone just starts dinging and all these charges are going through and I'm like, what is that? Oh, that's my subscription box payments running. I didn't have to do anything that day. I didn't have to show up and sell anything that day. And it was the most powerful moment because I realized all I have to do is grow this subscription box and I don't have to worry about making sales every day. Because as product sellers, we know can have a thousand dollar day and then you can go three days and sell nothing. You can have a $500 day and then go a week and sell nothing. It's like this feast and famine mode all the time. And so you never really know how you're going to shake out at the end of the month with this reoccurring revenue. I knew, okay, I had 44 payments of $40 every single month and then that turned into 75 payments and then that turned into 150 payments and then that turned into 340 payments and now it's thousands every single month. But once I started to gain some traction with that, build that, and now today, my reoccurring revenue for my subscription box is 75% of my monthly income for my business, which has stabilized my product based business in ways you can't even imagine. I know I'm going to have money to pay the employees and pay the rent and do all the things. And I know everything else that I sell in that month is icing on the cake. It's Just more profit in the bank. And I don't have to worry about so many things. It's not just the revenue and making sales so that I can pay my bills. But a lot of times as product sellers, we buy product that doesn't sell and just sits on the shelf and then you have to take a loss on it. When I buy product for these boxes, when I go buy thousands of pieces of something, it's already sold. Bonnie. I don't have the risk, I don't have the fear. I don't have will they like that? Like I like it. I know that when I go spend, you know, 50 grand on something for my subscription boxes, it's already sold. It's money in the bank. It's just a matter of what box that's going to go in and when that's going to go out. That's another way that has really stabilized my business. I don't have the guessing game with the inventory anymore.

I want to talk about the stability for a second because you, you mentioned $1,000 one day and then three days dry. But for me, what happened before I had recurring revenue would be months. So I would have a really good month or two and then I would go into like this super dry season and I was feeling like I had ideas. I didn't have time to implement ideas because I had a mortgage coming quickly. See that you have an like a big annual calendar behind you. I have one right in front of me. But it really wasn't until I started having recurring revenue in my business that it just took those highs and lows and it just kind of like averaged them out a little bit to where there was a predictability. And so I think that one of the hardest things about being a creative entrepreneur is the lack of predictability. All of a sudden it depends on how good of an idea we have. And that's a lot of pressure until you figure out passive income or recurring reven in your business. And so I love it as a business, as an entrepreneur. But Sarah, I love it as a consumer. I put everything that I can on subscription. The things that I know that I want because it actually saves me time. It buys back my time when I know that I've got what I want on recurring subscription as well. So what does this look like for you today, this little subscription box you started?

It looks like multi million dollar a year business that generates income that is life changing. Like Bonnie, it's life changing. I not only so comfortable in my own life and never have to worry about my Finances, but I don't have to worry about the finances for my business, and I don't have to worry about paychecks for my employees. I get to employ people. And I feel so good about employing these amazing women that get to work for me. And I can build a structure around their schedule where we get to take our kids to school and pick them up in the after, and. And we get to do our job in between all of that. And it's a lifestyle that I've got to create with the stability of this revenue. And it's not like this panic mode anymore like you were talking about. As creatives, we have all these ideas every day. Every day we can come up with a new idea, but it's actually taking the time to implement it. So every month, I get to curate a brand new box. Every month I pick a theme, I pick a color palette, patterns for the fabrics, I design the. The pockets for the bags. You know, I get to pick the buttons and I get to. And that's my creative coming through. And I get to do that every single month. Every single month, I get to create another box for someone. But what we do as creatives, sometimes we lose our focus because we have all these ideas just spinning out control, and so we don't know how to manage that. So we try to do too many different things, and we don't do them very successfully because we have our hands in too many things. So this allows me to really streamline my creativity. I know every month I get to create something new in this box. I get to create a new experience for my customer, and it comes from deep in my heart every single month. And I don't have to worry about all those shiny ideas that I have all the time because this is steady. It's steady in my brain, it's steady in my processes as a business owner, but it also studies my creativity that I don't get squirreled left and right trying to do all these crazy ideas that I have, because it's really just stabilized everything. Stabilized my creativity, my revenue, my business model, like everything.

I want you to just imagine what it would feel like to hold your very own custom fabric for the first time. Or maybe it's wallpaper or stationery or gift wrap. Perhaps you use it to wrap gifts with or sew projects with, like blankets or pajamas. If that sounds exciting. I'm so excited to tell you about my new free mini class. It's called Start simple in Pattern Design Design. It's called Start simple because, well, we're going to do just that. In just five lessons that are under 20 minutes each, you'll learn how to take a simple sketch or painting or picture and turn it into vectors using Adobe Illustrator. Now, don't worry even if you've never used this program. I'll teach you everything you need to know to get up and running simply. I'll even show you how to take pictures of found objects like leaves and petals so you don't even have to draw if you don't want to.

You.

I'll show you how to create a custom color palette, design your very own repeating pattern, and order as little as one yard of fabric or some wallpaper or maybe some gift wrap. Today, once you learn how to design fabric, that's the magic. You'll be able to design just about anything you want. So do you have an hour to learn an entirely new skill for free? If so, let's get started. Head on over to bonniechristine.com startsimple Once you register, you'll gain immediate access to all of the lessons and begin learning right away. Again, that's bonniecristine.com forward/startSimple.

Come on.

I'll meet you there.

So I know that you have some ideas for boxes that creatives could maybe run with, but before we get to those ideas, I want to introduce really what we're talking today about, which is your new book called One Box at a Time. And so what I love about you so much, Sarah, that you figured this out and you're still doing it today. So you have thousands of subscribers to your subscription box, and I'm guessing that people who are interested in also having a subscription box somewhere along the way was like, how are you doing this? Would you please teach me how you are doing this?

That's exactly what happened, Bonnie. I. My business, my subscription box business was literally exploding in front of my eyes, and people were seeing this. They were seeing these stacks of boxes go from 50 to 6, from 600 to 1800, you know, and they were like, what are you doing? How are you doing this? Asking me questions about packaging and sourcing product from overseas and designing and marketing, and I resisted it, you know, Bonnie? Like, I resisted. I'm not a business coach, and for a long time, I just want to make the cute things and sell the cute things and go about my business, Right? Like, I'm not a teacher. I'm not a coach. I'm not. I'm just somebody that got lucky. That's what I used to tell myself. I'm somebody that got luck Lucky. And finally, after a lot of persistence, I took on my first consulting person. They had a business and wanted to start a subscription box. And we spent three months going through all the things that she needed to start a subscription box. She launched that box. She sold out in one day. And I was the proudest mom that you could ever, like, have, like, that feeling. I was like, oh, what I do is repeatable. I didn't get lucky. I have a strategy behind this that I really didn't even realize that I had built because I'm just winging it, Bonnie. I'm just figuring it out as comes. Like, I don't have anybody telling me how to do this. I'm just trying stuff. If it works, it works great. If it doesn't, we'll try something else. And so I was able to teach her in a way that she could replicate my exact success. And now, to this day, I have thousands of students, and so many of them are replicating exactly what I did. And that's what I wrote about in this book. I take you along my journey from that, 44 subscribers, and trying to figure out how to show up in my business and get online when I felt so uncomfortable for me. And then technically, this is what I did. And then here's the story about what happened when I did this. And then technically, this is what I did next. And here's how you can do it, too, and actionable steps. And then every chapter is filled with one or two of my students because they're doing the exact same things that I'm teaching. They're taking my formula, rinsing, and repeating it in all different industries.

Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. I have had the pleasure of reading your book, and I love how it's. It absolutely takes someone from beginning to really get up and going with their subscription box. Because when you start something like this, there are so many questions, so many questions about fulfillment and shipping and getting it all out the door. So would you tell us how you would advise someone to just get started?

Yeah. So I really put this in, like, three different categories. Right. So probably, if you're listening right now, you're probably at one of these stages. Okay, so stage one would be, I don't even have a business. I want to start a business. How do I get started? With this? And in chapter two of this book, I'm talking about your ideal customer. And so that's the first thing you really have to figure out, like, who is going to buy my products? Who am I building a subscription box for? What are their likes? What do I want to do? Who is my ideal customer? We have to figure that out. And I take you through some exercises on how to figure that out inside chapter two of the book. So once you figure out your ideal customer, then we have to curate a subscription box for them. So really that first step for someone wanting to start a business, who are we going to build this business for? Okay, then there's stage two. That would be I have a membership. I'm a creative, possibly. I have a membership where I teach people how to do things, whatever my craft is, whatever my skill is. You could be a letterer, you could be a surface pattern designer, you could be an artist teaching people to paint, or whatever your skill set is. You have a membership and you're like, okay, I already have an audience building, built, have a little membership going on here. What if I built another stream of reoccurring revenue? Because your membership, or maybe you have a course that you teach, is already some stream of revenue. How could you then create a subscription box around that? And for me, I want you to think about what physical products could be a companion to what you teach. Whether that's in a course, whether that's in a membership. There are companion products that you are using that you teach on. There's mediums that you teach on that you could have in here. There's tools that you use, there is physical items that you are using to teach whatever skill you have that you could curate into a subscription box. And because you already have an audience, a lot of times someone will pair their membership and add on this, say companion pack, which is a subscription box. My friend Casey Hope, who has a lettering membership, she teaches people how to do faux calligraphy. And she has a subscription box that goes along with her membership that has their projects for the month. She has pens, she has traceables, she has projects. Everything that you could want to go with her membership comes physically in the subscription box. And then there's stage three. And that could be your currently selling physical products that could be from your Etsy shop, like Bonnie, that could be from a brick and mortar location like I was. You're further along than anyone else at this point because you know how to buy product, you know how to sell product. And so that's a really important key and subscription box, you already know that. So these are some questions that I want you to ask yourself about your product based business. What are your best sellers? For me it was T shirts, tumblers and earrings. Those were my best sellers in my Shop every day, every month. Those were my best sellers. What do people come back and repeat by? People buy so many T shirts from me, you think that they have no more room in their closet. But that was something that people repeat by all the time. Okay, so that, that was in my head. What are people asking more of? They're always wanting more T shirts from me. Can you make cute Christmas T shirts? Can you make, you know, Valentine's T shirts? Can you make a T shirt that has my initials on it? So those are the three questions that I want you for selling physical products. What are your best sellers? What do people repeat by and what are people asking more of? And if you can line that out, then really the next step for both stage two and three is to go through my post it note challenge and is also in chapter two of this book. What I do. I'm going to lay it out for you. And what, what I love about my book, Bonnie, is that every chapter has these little like grade boxes that say action steps. So you can read the story, you can be inspired, you can understand how I did this. And then here's how you do it too. So the action steps. I'm going to teach you how to curate six months worth of boxes right on post it notes. You can lay them out on a table, on a poster board, on the wall, on the window, it doesn't matter. And you can start to really, really see how you can take these things and create your own subscription box. Because I'm going to take you through an exercise, like a brainstorming exercise of okay, let's think about this. And I want you to jot these down on post it notes. Let's think about this. I want you to jot these down on post it notes. Now let's take all those post it notes and I'm going to help you organize them month by month. And what you'll get done when you're done with chapter two, you'll have a six month plan for your subscription box. And then all you have to do is start and then I'm going to take you through marketing and building that off audience and logistics, buying, packaging, shipping, fulfillment. I'm going to take you through all of those. And along the way it's not just boring tactical things. I mean those are good things. But I'm telling you how different people have done these things. I can tell you about one of my members that fulfilled 800 subscription boxes in her one bedroom apartment in Austin, Texas. How did she do that logistically, whatever you're working with. We have to start somewhere, and then along the way we grow. And I'm taking you through all that process the same way I did it inside this book.

Yeah, that's really powerful because I think part of what holds us back is not knowing what it's going to look like in three months or four months. And so doing that exercise first, the planning of the six months and how you would approach that is such, like, a validation point, right? Like, okay, I have six months of an idea, and if I did it once, I can absolutely do that again. And then you move forward with so much more confidence, right?

Yeah. Because for me, I feel like if you can't see it for your business, how do you move forward? You can't buy packaging if you don't even know what's going to go in that box, because you have no idea what size anything is. You can't figure out who you're going to market to if you don't know what's going to. You have to see this for your business. And then all the other pieces start to come together. But you can't start backwards. You have to start with, what is this box? What does your customer look like? And then what is this box going to look like? And then we can do all the technical stuff, but you can't do that stuff. People want to start with packaging because it's fun and it's cute and you get to design your box, but you can't if you don't know what you're going to put in it. And that's why this exercise is really important.

Okay, so from a creative to a creative, tell me some ideas that you've seen come to life for subscription boxes for the people who are listening.

I have so many students, but I jot down some of, like, our creative businesses, and surprisingly, a lot of them are in my mastermind, but I have people in my mastermind that are focused on sewing. Okay. So one of my mastermind students has a serger box. Do you know what a serger is? It's a type of sewing machine that does, like, one thing, right? And she has a whole subscription box around what the serger can do. So if you have a serger, she has a subscription box for you, and she sends out all the materials to do whatever you need to do with your serger. I don't know what a surgery does. And then I got a quilting box. So we have the ginger quilter. She's part of my mastermind as well. She sends out quilting Projects every single month. They're seasonal, they're fun. She has a lot of fun with her audience. I have crafters in my mastermind. We have some that have tier tray boxes, you know, the little things that you decorate per season. So they're going to send you all the little wooden pieces, you're going to paint them and put them together. A lot of them have home decor. I have one of my mastermind students that has a pillow cover of the month. She sends you a brand new pillow cover that you put over your pillow form. She designs them, she has them manufactured overseas. She has a fulfillment center that ships them. She doesn't touch on, all she has to do is design them. Isn't that a designer's dream? A creative dream? Like we do this? Yes. I have a candle maker in my mastermind. She has a candle of the month subscription. She makes wax melts of the month and she makes them in fun shapes. For this season, I have lettering people in my membership. I told you about Casey Hope. The tools, the traceables, the projects. I even have one letterer that specializes in wax seals because wax seals go beautifully with a hand lettered envelope. So she's sending you the stamps and the wax and all the things in her subscription box. But those are just a few ways that you can take what you already provide your audience and put that into a subscription box.

Sarah, I would love to hear you talk about the person that you held in your heart and your mind when you wrote this book. Who did you write it for and what is your hope for them?

I mean, I wrote this for my students, you know, someone like me, you know, and when I go back to those early days, Bonnie and I know that you feel this too. Like we have so much self doubt in ourselves, especially as women, we tend to overthink a little bit. We tend to question what we're doing. We tend to doubt our worthiness or our capabilities or even how strong we are to bust through the challenges. Challenges. I wrote this book from really beginning of my journey and who I was as a person to who I am now. So much of business is personal and we go through so much personal growth as we build our businesses. Business growth equals personal growth. It's hand in hand. Business is personal. And I wrote this book for anyone that has wanted to dream bigger but has been scared to. And how one step in front of the other can get you where you want to be. But you don't have to think of it as big and scary. One step in the right direction the first step, the next step. And we're all going to go through the challenges. We're all going to have failures, we're all going to have the self doubt that creeps up in us at all levels. That's who this book is for. The book is for anyone that has dreamt bigger but has been scared to move forward. Forward. This book is for you.

So for everyone, for pretty much, yes. Thank you so much. I know that you have some things for people who buy your book, right? So can you tell us about that?

Yeah. So we have a beginner bundle bonus. So if you go purchase the book now, you're going to get an instant download. It contains four things. When I started to think about who this book is for, right, it's that beginner person. Not that the book isn't great for someone that's already started a subscription box because there's a lot of good information, but a lot of times it's that beginner person that picks up the book and starts reading it from COVID to cover. And so I've put together social media captions for subscription box owners, a whole PDF on different captions wherever you're at. If you're in pre launch stage, you're launching your subscription even after the launch. Like I've got them in all stages so you can use them. You don't have to think about it. I've got a bonus in there called the elements of a wait list page. You're going to learn when you dive into the book that building a wait list for your subscription is one of the first things that I want you to take action on. And you do. We have to start collecting the people. So I'm going to tell you what that page should look like in that bonus. I also have some wait list email sequence flows for you swipe files. So you don't even have to write an email. You just take mine, tweak it and you'll have your wait list set up. You'll have your email sequence set up right there. So it's not a barrier for you to get started. And then the last bonus that we have is the beginner's checklist. So we have a very exclusive, intense checklist. Like okay, I need to get, get my license to sell products. I need to file this, I need to do this, I need to set up this. And so we're going to take you through that beginner checklist. Because here's the thing that I've learned, Bonnie. Like you know, when I was in college, we didn't have online businesses like we do now. And so we don't know what to do. We didn't learn what to do. We didn't go to the school of entrepreneurship back then. And so it's really hard when you don't know what you don't know. So we've taken the beginner checklist and we have just outlined here's step one. Here's what you need to do, here's what you need to have, here's what you need to look into. And that way you can feel confident building a business that you know that you're on the right track and the

best place for them to get this is where you want to go over

to my landing page. It's called One Box at a Time book dot com. You're going to be able to purchase the book from lots of different places right there. You can buy it from Amazon and Books a Million and Barnes and Noble and all the places indie bookshops are on there too. But that's where you're going to be able to put your receipts seat in so that you can get the bonus

perfect One Box at a time book.com Sarah thank you so much for sharing with us.

Thank you so much for having me. And I know that the creatives that listen to you are just going to love diving into this idea of starting a subscription box.

This is life changing, friends. Create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world, maybe in a subscription box. And remember, there's room for you.