031: From an Audience of Zero to 100 Subscribers in 60 Days

A sudden shift created big results. On today's episode, I'm talking with Launch Your Box member Claudia Ramos about how she shut down one box and launched a new one to a new audience, all within 60 days. 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.

Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. I am here today with Launch Your Box member Claudia Ramos with The Shabby Boxes. Claudia, why don't you say hi to everybody?

Hello everyone, I'm so happy to be here.

I want you to introduce yourself, tell them a little bit about— let's just start from the beginning with them because we're going to unpack a lot of stuff for them on this episode today. But let's just start in the beginning and let's tell them how you started your business, what you started with your subscription box, and then what happened along the way. So why don't you just give us a little introduction with what you started with?

So I have been an independent designer with a multi-level marketing company for about 2 years, and I came across your, um, week, um, coaching— your weekly coaching week. Yes. And I thought, well, this might be interesting. I can definitely start a box to increase my sales in my multi-level business, marketing business. So I took the coaching week and I launched quickly and I got 7 subscribers and I was really excited. I wanted to grow it. I thought this would definitely help increase my sales, maybe get some new team members. And then I had a big halt. I, um, somebody saw one of my ads, one of the uplines, I saw one of my ads and they called corporate, even though I had already gotten the approval from corporate, we called them, made sure that this would be an okay thing to do, and they had given me their blessing. Um, then corporate said I couldn't do it. I could not.

Let's backtrack a little bit because I know what you're talking about, but not everybody might know what you're talking about. So you were working in a direct sales industry, right? So you were, so you were a, they call it independent designer. Is that what they call it? So you had— you were putting products in a box from basically an MLM. Am I saying that right? Like, direct sales equals an MLM. You went and got permission from them to put this in your box, and then once you started your Facebook ads, someone higher up saw what you were doing and they did not like it, and they contacted that corporate and said, um, she's— I don't like what she's doing.

And they said you have to stop. Yes, they said you're out of, you're out of compliance, and I have to stop. So corporate called me and said, yeah, you can't do that. You can only sell it in your private group, which was not what they said the first time. So I, you know, that I wouldn't be able to grow that box the way I wanted to grow it in a private group. I wouldn't be able to market it and advertise. So I just I just got a big kind of stop. You can't do this anymore.

So how were you feeling when all that happened? Here you launched it, you've gotten subscribers, you had plans for the next several boxes. Like, how did that, how did that hit you?

I was really disappointed and I thought, wow, you know, um, I felt first, you know, kind of, um, disappointed by the company that didn't stand behind their original decision of allowing me to do this. You know, and other people that kind of called corporate and said, wait, this is not okay. Why? There was so many other things that are being done with this direct sales that are similar to what I was doing that I just felt disappointed. However, I had gotten a taste of that residual, that month-to-month income coming in. Even with just 7 boxes, it was 2 months of, wow, this money hit my bank. On the first of the month, and I know that this can be something great. So I had to pivot and I had to do it quickly because I didn't want to lose that momentum. I didn't want to— I needed to get out of my own head because I started having these self-doubt moments of, well, maybe this is not for me. Well, maybe this isn't going to work. You know, I tried it and it didn't work. No, stop. This is going to work.

You got a little bit of that, that recurring revenue started to hit your bank account and you're like, oh, I like this. I need some more of this. So you're not going to let them stop you. And you, you have it in your mind that you want to do a subscription box, but now we need to pivot. Now we need to do something else. We need to make sure that we can do something that's on our own terms and not on somebody else's terms. And so you decided to start a new box. So tell us about this new box that you decided to start.

So I'm sure that there's so many other people that are probably in the same boat. When you start a box, then your mind starts thinking, well, I can do this box too, and I can do this box too, and I can do this. So it, it was already kind of in the back of my mind, eventually I'll probably move into some other box and started having brainstorming ideas. So it was already there. The seed was already there of creating a teacher box. I am a teacher, so a teacher a box that would serve my fellow educators. My school is well known for the t-shirt school. You know, everybody knows that my school, we always have these cute t-shirts that all our teachers wear. So that's what I decided to do. I decided to launch a teacher box and I had zero audience.

Let's talk about that because I think that scares a lot of people. They're like, I don't even have an audience for for this, but you were a teacher, Claudia, and so you knew, okay, I have friends that are teachers, I know a bunch of teachers, there's probably teachers in my audience for my crafting, you know, my crafting audience. So let's talk about this pivot. So we needed to basically create a whole new page, new social media, new, new everything so that we could pivot our business in a different direction. Let's talk about what you did when you made the decision that you're going to create this Teacher Box and how you did that.

So I started with brand new social media— Facebook, Instagram. I tried TikTok a little bit, but that— I'm not really, you know, that's not going well. And Instagram, I'm not very Instagram savvy. My primary, you know, social media platform is Facebook. I'm very comfortable with it and I grew a big following with it with my craft business, but I thought I have to grow both and I'm going to start from zero and I'm going to start posting. I listened to your podcast, your, you know, training about Reels and I started doing them and I felt silly. I felt like This isn't going to work. I mean, these are dumb, dumb, but, but they did, you know, one of my reels got over 10,000 views. Um, and yeah, and slowly, you know, I've been tracking and I'm like to 300 subscribers on Instagram, which I had zero, nothing in a month, in a month and a half, I'm up to 300. Um, I post little things here and there. I post stories, the interactive stories that you shared. I post those. And I just post kind of sneak peeks or behind the scenes when I'm doing like the founding member gifts, when I'm cutting those, I post sneak peek of those shirt colors, you know, just things, random things that I feel are silly, but they're healthy.

Yeah. So let's, let's talk about the timeline then. So you made the pivot. And what month was that that you said, okay, I'm going to do a teacher box and I need to start a new social media platform here.

What was that? It was the end of May when I got that stop, and, and then I thought, okay, well, I'm going to pivot. So it was like the beginning of June when I started.

And you did this so fast. So the beginning of June, you said, okay, I'm going to do this teacher box. Let me start a new Instagram. Let me start a new Facebook page, and I'm going to launch this new box in July, at the beginning of July. So, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Because I knew that I wanted my first box to go out in August. August is the beginning of the school year. So I wanted it to be out the door by August 1st. So I wanted to have, you know, a good amount of time for people to subscribe.

Yes.

You know, to the box.

So you gave yourself about 30 to 45 days to build an audience from scratch, which is crazy, but I love that it's, it's almost crazy enough that it worked. Right. So you start building an audience. Here's what you said in your notes to me. You said I was posting, I was doing stories, I was doing reels. And what I realized is that people were finding me on Instagram and I knew nothing about Instagram. So I put my focus on Instagram. And so when you start to focus on what's working instead of really spinning your wheels on what's not working, a lot of people are saying Facebook is not working right now. It's really hard on Facebook. But what you noticed is that Instagram was working and so that you went all in on Instagram. So you started building your audience over there. You added a waitlist. So you asked people to join a waitlist. That was your first task was, I'm starting this thing. I want you to join the waitlist. So that's number one in these tips here. Always get your waitlist up as soon as possible and start driving people to your waitlist. Then you told me you did an early bird promotion. Let's talk through that.

Yeah. So I knew that I felt one of the biggest obstacles that I that in my mind existed was that this was June. This is when teachers go off track. We had a very difficult year last year. It was difficult teaching from a computer and being so distant. It was more work. It was just a difficult year. So here I was at the beginning of summer when teachers disconnect. They don't want to talk about school. They don't want to talk about going back to school. It doesn't matter if we're talking about looking cute coming back to school. They don't want to talk about that. So I thought, how am I going to get teachers to listen to this when we're on summer mode? So I thought, you know, it was my birthday's June 18th, and I thought, for my birthday, I'll do an early bird and I'll offer an extra t-shirt. So it'll cost me, I don't know, maybe $10 into my profit. It depends. We'll see. But at least I will get some members to join because of that bonus t-shirt. Yeah, and I will make it.

You knew you would make it back that next month, right? Like, you weren't worried about losing the profit in that first month because here's the difference. Here's the difference in selling one-off products is we don't know if they're going to come back, but with our subscription box, they're going to come back month after month. So even if you weren't profitable in that, in month 1 with these early bird buyers, you knew that you would be profitable next month. And What happened was you had a lot of subscribers take you up on that early bird bonus. Tell us how many subscribers took that bonus.

35, 35, 35.

And you only had 7 total for 2 months with the other box. And so I bet it just felt like, okay, this was what I was meant to do because not only did you grow this quicker and faster, but you have more subscribers and you're more profitable now than you were with the old one. So it almost feels like It was a blessing in disguise, right?

It really was. Yes, absolutely. And it's, it's, it feels like it's calling to me and who I am, you know, to— I'm a teacher and I just, I love that. So I, yeah, it does. It's, it's, it's, it was a blessing in disguise. Um, that, that early bird was only from June 18th to June 30th and that's it. And I, you know, I sent emails. That's another thing that I did that I was uncomfortable with at least once a week saying, hey, here's the countdown. You have X amount of days, don't forget. So, um, yeah.

So let's go through back through the launch because we're not over. We didn't just get 35 subscribers. So you got your 35 early bird subscribers and then you continued with your launch and you did the things that you know how to do with the launch that we talk about and we, we do trainings on. And you ended up last week with what is your total?

I am at 106 now. I'm 106 total.

106 subscribers from an audience that started with zero less than 60 days ago.

Yeah.

Is that what we're talking about? Let's just say that one more time. 106 subscribers from an audience that started from scratch less than 60 days ago. Because why, Claudia? Tell me why you think you ended up that way.

Um, just perseverance, you know. I, I think that— I'm gonna be honest, there was so many times that I've had that imposter syndrome where I'm like, I don't even know what I'm doing. Like, what am I doing? What, what am I gonna do with 100 subscribers? You know, I have moments of panic, like, oh my God, you know, is this, is this real? What's going on? You know, kind of preparing and getting the inserts and getting this, and then I catch myself saying Are you ready for this? Is this really happening to you? And then I tell myself, stop. I don't know. Those of us that have kids, you probably know I tell myself, Silencio Bruno, with that Luca movie. Stop. You are ready. You've learned. And if you make mistakes, you'll learn from them. Keep going. This will change your life. And that's That's the big picture. This is going to change my family's financial, you know, it's going to put us in a different financial freedom, really.

You know, what is that 106 subscriber base recurring revenue that's going to hit your bank account every month? Like, what does that change for you right now?

That will put an extra $2,000 in my bank account monthly. That is insane. In 1 month, in 1 month, I have increased my revenue by $2,000.

That is incredible. That is incredible. And you are just beginning. This is, we are only 60 days in, Claudia. Like, we are only 60 days in. Like, I am so excited for you because this is how it starts. When you really find your passion and you find your purpose, and I can see, they can't see you, but I am looking at you on camera and I know that your face is just lit up and mine is too, because I know this is only the beginning for you because you started out of the gates with 100 subscribers. You did what you knew to do, show up, engage, create excitement, create buzz, and it worked for you because this is something, you know, a lot about, about being a teacher. You're passionate about being a teacher. You're able to speak to people about being a teacher and your audience is there and they're going to keep coming and they're going to bring their teacher friends. Like how many teachers do you know that like to wear the same shirts with their, the other teachers in their pod or their grade or whatever, like they're going to keep coming and you're going to be ready for them, right?

Yes, yes, I sure am. I'm so excited. You know, school starts in August, so I am, you know, hopeful that people love what they get in their box and that they share. Um, I've taken notes on those inserts, having them do the social media posts and stuff so that they can drive more traffic to my, to my social media and hopefully get more subscribers. I'm super excited. I'm super excited to see this grow.

You know, I wanted to have you on the podcast because I think it's just a great example of just doing it. Like when I ask people, what advice would you give to someone? They always say, just do it, just get out there and do it. And there's very specific things that you did. And I want to recap that for everyone listening, but you showed up on social media and you hit social media hard. And you said you tried different things. You tried posts of your family, you tried quotes, you tried, you tried all these different things to see what was going to land. You did funny reels that you thought maybe were stupid or cheesy. And what you did is you were super consistent with that. And I think that's the number one lesson is that when you start something, you have to be consistent at it because the inconsistency is not going to give you results and you're not going to be able to measure your results. Because of the inconsistency. So you got consistent at social media.

Yeah.

You started to get consistent with emailing, which is something that was uncomfortable for you. And it's so important. So social media consistency, email consistency. Um, another thing that you said is that you started tracking to see where the sales were coming from.

Yeah.

And when you saw that they were coming from Instagram, You knew that that's where your, your focus needed to shift. And Facebook is there and Facebook is very alive and it's a very real thing and it's great for our businesses. But when you saw that your sales were coming from Instagram, you knew that you had to figure that out. Like Instagram was new to you and you had to figure out what was working over there. And so what I love about all of this is that you weren't afraid to try. You weren't afraid to try new things, um, that you decided you were going to do it. And you made a plan, you started a waitlist, you had an early bird promotion, you did the launch, like all the things that we, we talk about in Launch Your Box. You were ready, you were ready to do it, and you just went all in. And I just, I love it. I'm just so excited for you, and I can't wait to see how this grows through the fall and how you increase your subscriber base there. So if you could give advice For anyone that might be listening today, and maybe they're sitting there and maybe they tried their first box, um, and maybe someone didn't shut them down, but maybe it just didn't go off the way they wanted to, and they feel like, well, maybe I shouldn't do this— what advice would you give them, Claudia?

I think the biggest thing would be get out of your own head, you know, and really, um, stop those moments when when your brain is telling you this is not for you. You know, you shouldn't be doing this. You don't know what you're doing because we may not, but we can learn and just try something else. Uh, it doesn't hurt to try. It may work. It may not, but if you won't know until you try. So, um, just keep pushing, pivot. If that doesn't work, try something else. You know, there's, there's, there's a market for everything as we are learning in this group, you know. So try something else, maybe something that you're more passionate about. I feel like I tried this, but really my passion wasn't in, in this other box.

So yeah, I had this discussion with a couple of members this morning about we got to do something that lights us up. And at the end of the day, it's not about what you think is going to sell or what you think is somebody wants, but it's about what lights you up, what will get you out of bed in the morning to go do. Because because this job is not for the faint at heart. Like you're about to pack 106 subscriptions and that's not going to be the easiest thing to do. And if that thing that you're doing doesn't light you up, it's not going to get you through those hard days where you've got to figure out new processes and new systems. And so my advice for you would be to find something that really lights you up because one, you can talk about it in a way that other people can't. That you're going to resonate with people, that it also lights them up. And two, it's going to help you keep pushing through the hard times when you get there, because they're going to come. They're— it's just natural for any business owner. You're going to have struggles. It's going to be hard. There's going to be hard days. But if what you're doing really lights you up, you're going to get through those a lot easier than, than if you don't. So, well, Claudia, I am, I'm excited for you. Um, you got to go back to school soon. You've got 106 subscribers to start loving on. Where can someone find you that might be listening that might need a teacher tea?

I think Instagram is a great place to, you know, kind of keep growing because I'm, I'm trying to really focus on that. It's Instagram @teacherbox. It's T-E-E-C-H-E-R box.

@teacherbox. Um, on Instagram, and that's T-E instead of the regular spelling. So Claudia, thank you so much. T-E-E. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today, and I know that your story is going to inspire other people to just get out there and get going. Y'all come back next week, we've got another great episode for you. If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to launchyourbox.com with Sarah.com. Get on our waitlist and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.