028: How My Subscription Boxes Got Ran Over – And I’m Not Mad About It!

Has something happened in your business that just shuts you down? How do we shift from feeling like we just want to give up to problem solving? I was right on track to have everything out early, easy, and with no issues, and then it happened. Come listen.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Hey everybody, today we're going to talk about a little something different. I want to just let you hear what happened to me this month with my subscription boxes and how I handled it, because the way that we handle things is super duper important. And I want to just shift your mindset on what could be happening to you right now and how you handle it. And maybe these things aren't happening to you right now, but they might in the future, maybe the near future. And I want you to be prepared for what could happen and how we can problem solve it. So here's how my month was going. It's— it was the beginning of July. We had just finished packing all of our July boxes and we were early. And, and that almost never happens because I'm always waiting on something. So I just want to note there that we were early. Finishing packing all of our boxes. And it was awesome because I was getting ready to go on vacation, so things could be done early. I wouldn't feel the stress and pressure of getting things all the way done before I left, or that they would be finishing them after I left. And so we filled 2 FedEx trucks full of boxes, and they were off. We were done. It's like that moment at the end of the day when you can just Breathe easy. All your little precious packages are on the truck waiting to go to your subscribers. You're officially done. Now all that has to happen is they get delivered and the excitement shows up at their door and everything's great. So that's where we were. We thought we were done. Not very long after those two trucks left my building, my son sent me a video. He and I was actually on a Facebook Live, so I didn't see it until after I got off the live. But he sent me a video and it was a video of my boxes scattered all down one of the main streets in our town. And he knew they were mine. He saw these turquoise boxes in the street, in the ditch, on the sidewalk, everywhere. And he sent me this video that said, Mom, I think these are your boxes. And there was the FedEx truck sitting right there in a parking lot. And I panicked. And I knew exactly where this location was, and it wasn't very far from my store. And so I jumped in the car and I headed to the scene of the crime. I needed to see what happened to these little precious boxes and why they were all over the ground. I was panicked. I was like, what is going on? And what was I going to find when I got there? And so I get there, and when I get there, everything's picked up, everything's safely back in the truck, I had hoped. And the crime scene was once again restored to just the regular road. Come to find out that there had been some that had been hit by a car or some that had been ran over. And, and there were approximately 40 of the boxes were the ones in the street. Just a quick glance That, that is what I was told. About 40 of them had hit the street. And I knew that I had something breakable in the box this month. And I knew it would be fine shipping, but I didn't know if it would be fine with the impact of it falling out of the truck and hitting the street. And I don't know what at what speed. I don't know what at what distance. So then I started to worry. And so I asked FedEx, hey, If when you get all these boxes back to the center, there's anything that looks rough, that looks damaged, that looks smashed, I want you to pull it and I don't want you to ship it. And they said, okay. And so I come back to the store and figure out how am I going to handle this? Like, what happens if there's a bunch of stuff damaged? And my employees were like on pins and needles waiting for me to get back. And one of them said, are you Oh, she's going to be so mad. And here's the thing. I wasn't mad. I wasn't mad. Like, crap happens. Like, honestly, crap happens and crap's going to keep happening as long as you're a business owner. Stuff happens. I mean, you're talking to someone here, you're listening to someone on this podcast who left the back door of her SUV open and backed out of her garage and it It got stuck on the lip of the garage and shattered my windshield into like 1 bajillion pieces of glass in my driveway. Like, I get it, crap happens. And when I found out that what actually happened was they made a stop at the Walgreens there on the corner for delivery or pickup and they forgot to close the door. And so when they left the Walgreens, the boxes went out onto the street. And I'm not mad about it. It happens. It could have happened to any of us. It could happen to me if I was a FedEx driver. I mean, I've left stuff open before. Like, I'm not mad about that. And there's nothing that I could do or say or be pissed about and call and chew somebody out that was going to change the fact that this already had happened. I wasn't mad. I was worried. And I was worried about my subscribers. Because when I leave these packages, when they leave my building, my only concern is that they have the best possible experience when they get them. And so my worry was, if there are things damaged inside that box when they receive it, are they going to have a good experience? And so I waited and I waited for FedEx to pull those boxes and to let me know like what had been damaged. I had about 7 extra of everything. So I was hoping I could cover anything that was damaged in those boxes, but I didn't know. I didn't know what the damages were at that time. I didn't know what I was looking like. Was I looking at 40 boxes being damaged? Was I looking at, you know, a handful of boxes being damaged? I didn't know. So the next morning they come and they have 5 boxes in their hands and y'all, they look run over, smashed in every capacity. And I thought, oh wow, these are bad. And there was only 5 of them. And then I started to worry more. Like, I know there were a lot more packages in the road. Are they all okay? And they said, these are the only ones that showed physical damage on the outside. So, okay, there's 5, there's 5 of them. I replaced all of that stuff, put them in new boxes, and off they went that day. Those 5 subscribers will never know that their boxes were ran over. But I was concerned about the impact of falling off the truck and hitting the ground that those other 40 packages might have. And then what was going to happen when they started to get delivered? And so I went into problem-solving mode. I made the decision not to show up and say what happened because I didn't want all of my subscribers to be anxious. Remember, I have thousands of subscribers, and if only 40 of those packages fell into the street off the truck, I didn't want to put panic on all of my subscribers. So I sat back and I waited and I waited for the messages to come, and they came. They started coming the next day. My tumbler is broken. My tumbler is cracked. My shirt has a hole in it. You know, whatever the case may be, it started to happen. And every day there were several, several, several. And so it was how we handled that. We're going to replace it, we're going to replace it, we're going to replace it, we're going to fix it. And I just wanted my subscribers to know that no matter what the issue was, we were going to figure it out. And so I had to figure it out. I had to go in problem-solving mode. I only had 7 of everything, and now I had 30 people telling me they had damages in their boxes. And so I had to get on the phone with my supplier and I had to get more product. And that's the best thing about working with people and getting to know the person and the company that you're working with. That day they shipped, shipped me cases of product from that box. I was lucky that they still had some in stock. And then what was going to happen if they didn't have that in stock? That's a whole nother set of problem solving. But what I see over and over and over again in the group, on my page, subscription box owners are letting something just completely derail their month. And it could be stuff like tech issues, it could be stuff like product is late, it could be I've lost my Facebook page, it could be so many different things. But if you have those things happen, what you have to do is you have to problem solve. We're not going to ball up in the corner and say, I can't do this. This is too hard. It's never going to work. I can't figure it out. When something happens, you have to shift your mind to problem solving. I saw in the group a few weeks ago that one of my members had their, their tech failing in the middle of their launch. Like nobody could even sign up for their subscription and she didn't let it stop her launch. She didn't. She said, okay, this is what's happening. We've got it fixed. Now let me resend the emails. Let me do another live. Let me go back and see if I can capture the people that tried to sign up the first time instead of let's shut down the launch. Let's do it another time. It's too much. I can't handle it. And then I saw another member that said, I had these 100— I don't know what they were— scarves on order. We're just going to make that up. Scarves on order. And they didn't come in time for my box, and now they don't think they're going to come this month at all. And I need help. I need help. Here's my box theme. Here's what I have. Here's what— something I need. Here's what I need the cost of it to be. And instantly the members are helping her. Here's what I have. I have 100 pieces of this. Here's what I can make you. Here's what you could do. Here's a suggestion. They're sending links, they're sending options. They're helping problem solve. The idea for her box because her shipment didn't arrive. If she just said, you know what, my shipment didn't arrive, I don't have all the items I need for the box, I guess I'm just going to have to refund everybody and call it quits. We can't let stuff like that shut us down. There's always going to be issues, always. And at this point, you should just expect them. If 2020 hasn't shown us that we need to expect the unexpected, we should be used to it at this point. It's rare that I have a month that everything is going according to plan, and I thought July was going according to plan. I had all my product here way early. We had everything personalized way early. Boxes were here, inserts were here, everything was ready to roll. For the first time in a long time, it was all coming together earlier than normal. And then this happened. And I could let it get me down and I could be mad about it. But you just have to problem solve it. And you know what? When those boxes started to arrive and I started to get all those emails, I was like, oh, there was a pit in my stomach. How many people have damages? How many people are disappointed? How, how is this going to affect my subscriber base? But it doesn't. It doesn't. I don't think I had one person cancel because they got a cracked tumbler, because we problem solved. We replaced that for them. We made it right for them. We made them feel special. And that's all that you have to do. Figure it out, solve the problem. And it's so important when you have people around you that can help you see through the fog. That's what I love about the membership is that when you can't think clearly, you have somewhere to go to ask for help. Help me problem solve this. This is what's happened. I need to problem solve. And, and I see, I see issues in that, in the group all the time. And I see members showing up for each other, problem solving for each other, helping each other with tech, helping each other with products, and just encouraging each other that it's going to pass and it's going to be great. So my advice for you today, and if you're listening, if you've let the little things bother you, if you've let something in your business derail you, it's time to start over. It's time to start fresh. And I want you to expect the unexpected. You're going to have problems. If you don't have problems almost every single month, I don't think you're big enough yet. Just know that you're going to have problems and it's how we react to them and it's how we problem solve them that is going to make and break us. Don't let it break you. Let it make you. Make sure you subscribe to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'd love for you to take a minute to rate and review it. Let me know which episode is your favorite so far. Don't forget to join me next week right here.