047: Too Many Offers Can Stop Your Growth - Lessons Learned from Becca from Isle Candle Co.

You've launched with a bang, then 15 months later, look back and wonder what went wrong. On this episode, we're walking through Becca's highs and lows as a subscription box owner and where to go from here. 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. I'm super excited because I have a very special guest here today. A longtime member of Launch Your Box is joining us today. Becca, say hi to everybody.

Hey everyone, I am so excited to be here.

I've got Becca Sly here from the Isle Candle Company, and we're going to break down some things. But I want to start, Becca, with a little bit of back history. I want everyone to understand, like, where we've been, what we're going through, what we're doing right now. And then we're going to jump into all the juicy things we're going to talk about today. So why don't you take us back, take us back as a family-owned business and tell us a little bit of the story of how we are here today.

Okay, that sounds great, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me. I told my husband this morning, I said it feels like an early Christmas present. Like Christmas is done. This is all I needed for Christmas. It's such an honor. So thank you for having me. Like Sarah said, so my name is Bekah Sly. I live in Virginia. I'm married 14 years, 3 amazing kids. I'm a candle enthusiast. Okay, so we have a family business. We have a candle company. Our, our business originated in a place called Pawleys Island, South Carolina. So that's where our name comes from, Isle Candle Company. My parents started our business about 15 years ago. And we are most known for candles that turn into a lotion. So they're a soy-based candle, and as they melt down, you can actually dip into the oil and you can use the warm oil directly on your skin as a luxurious warm lotion.

That's so cool. I have done this once. I thought it was weird first when I did this, but it is So cool.

Yes, literally it's cool. So they're cool burning candles. And to the touch, when you, when you dip into it, it just feels like warm bathwater. So you're getting like a two for one. You get the fragrance, the ambiance, they're clean burning. So great for the environment, great for your home. As they're burning, they're not giving off all that soot and smoke. And then fabulous for your skin because they are naturally rich in vitamin E. So you can use them on like eczema, psoriasis, bug bites, burns, scars. Head to toe. So that is, that's our signature product, is a candle that turns into a lotion. We are the original soy lotion candle manufacturers. And again, we originated in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. So that's where Isle Candle Company comes from. We, we've had like a beachy tropical kind of vibe to our business, and we started Uh, primarily just as, as brick and mortar. Um, for, for several years, um, we were selling out of our South Carolina store. We had our factory in the back and then we had our retail in the front. It was really cool because the, the customers could come in, they could take a peek into our factory. They loved the experience, and then they could shop, um, from from a variety of different fragrance options and then other bath and body products. But it was a whole experience for our customers.

And so have you always worked at the store or with the company?

Well, that's kind of— it's a long story, but we actually grew up in Virginia. So the next part of the story is that my husband and I have opened a second location in Virginia. So my parents moved to South Carolina when my sisters and I were all graduated and off in college and, you know, getting older. And so they said, we're going to move to the beach. So they've always been entrepreneurial. I was not shocked when they moved to the beach and started a candle business because they had dabbled in this and that. You know, all that's all I had ever known was them being self-employed and running different businesses. And so they said, hey, we're starting a candle company. I said, great, have fun. I'm sure it's going to be awesome. Well, here we are 15 years later. My husband and I are getting ready to purchase the business from my mom and dad. But to backtrack a little bit, Mom and dad started the company in South Carolina, business as usual for the first few years. So they, they had the factory, they had the store. I was not involved for the first 5 years of the business. They started dabbling in wholesale. We did have an online website where our customers could, I'll say reorder. It was more for people who had already found us. Just as a way for them once they went back home, because we are in a tourist destination in South Carolina. So custom, I mean, we see people from all over the country, you know, a new turnover every week of visitors to the area. So they come in, they see us, and then they get back home and they wanted to reorder. And so we put together, well, we isn't, I say we now, but my mom had put together a very basic website for customers to reorder. And that was, that, that was what business looked like for the first 5 years. Well, then my husband and I, we were like, hey, they're, they're kind of onto something. Like, this is really working well. These products are so unique. We could use some extra money. So we started taking the products to craft fairs and festivals and shows here in Virginia. So mom and dad were doing their thing in South Carolina. We were in Virginia, and we started experiencing a lot of success at pop-up festivals, shows, fairs. That turned into us doing like 30 shows a year. We were traveling all the time. We didn't have as many children as we do now. So it's becoming, you know, more challenging to be on the road. Um, but we decided that we were going to open a second location in Virginia. So that's what we did. And additionally, we brought all of our production to Virginia. So currently we have our South Carolina store. So it's just a retail storefront. We do all of our manufacturing in Virginia, and we also have a small retail— we call it our factory and retail outlet here in Virginia. And my husband and I both work for the business. My mom and dad have since moved back to Virginia because they have lots of grandchildren now, and so they want to be close to the family. And we have a factory manager and staff that run the store, and we ship them products every week.

Okay.

We make them and we ship them down. So that's kind of the, the big picture. Big picture overview of, you know, the business, um, as a whole. Now, as my husband and I have become more involved, um, we have had an increased interest in eventually purchasing the business. That was kind of the natural progression. Um, you know, my parents, they're, they're getting older. They're aging very gracefully, but they are getting older, and it was, it was the next step. And we, we really saw the potential for scaling. However, and this is where this, the subscription box kind of comes in and more of our building of our online business. We knew from learning from what they have gone through, you know, had went through over the last, or the first 5 years, we didn't want to have to rely on brick and mortar sales.

Because it's up and down constantly, right? You just never know.

It's just unpredictable, you know? And then you have, you know, you have to be open at certain hours. You've got to have all your staff, you know, thinking about running multiple locations. Now it's great for now and they're very profitable. So we're keeping them for now. But the goal is to build up our online presence and our subscription box enough and our wholesale enough that we don't have to depend on customers walking into a retail establishment. And we didn't want to be traveling to shows. They're profitable too, and they're great, and we do— we are continuing to do our, our favorite shows, but we don't want to be away from our family every other, you know, weekend slinging candles. Like, that's not ideal. And so we felt like our best option to reproduce the success that we had experienced in our storefronts was to grow and scale our online presence. Um, and so that's what we've been doing over the last couple of years. We're a little late to the game. We have been in business for 15 years.

It's all right.

We're just doing a little things a little backwards.

Um, so a little over a year ago, yeah, you decided, uh, we're going to start a subscription box. We want to build this recurring revenue into our business. Like, if we're going to be serious about this business, we want to make sure we have a paycheck every single month. We can pay our expenses, we can pay our employees, all the things. So let's build the subscription box into our business. So tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah. So we were, we did just that. We were upping our online game. You know, we were learning about things like Google Analytics and data and, um, you know, we were collecting email addresses consistently, but again, we didn't want to have to depend on the one-time online sale. Just like the one-time, you know, physical storefront sale. I said, well, if we're going to be putting all this work into building our online business, let's build in some recurring revenue into it as well. And so I thought, well, we have proof of concept. That's the first thing. So when you're starting out, like you have to, you have to know that you have something that people will buy. So if you don't have a box yet, a piece of advice would be if you're making stuff, you know, if you're put together a test box, like put some stuff together, start talking about it. Ask the question to your people, you know, even if you don't have a business set up yet, ask on your personal social media pages, hey, if I were to start this, like, would you be interested? Talk to your customers and let their answers inform your next steps. And so we said, well, we have proof of concept. We knew that people were buying our stuff. Then what happened is I started to see the same names. Start to pop up on online orders. I was seeing the same faces visiting our stores, and I thought, well, why wouldn't we just make this more convenient for them? You know, um, they, they're obviously enjoying our products, so we're going to give them more of our stuff, and we're going to make it more convenient by shipping it to their door. And plus, another little fact is we also make— because we make our product, we do it was a, it was an easier on-ramp for us because we have more control over our inventory. We had a little bit more flexibility with the startup of it.

You controlled your manufacturing, which a lot of us right now wish we controlled our manufacturing. Exactly.

Especially now. Although, you know, we certainly have hoops to jump through, but we have a lot more control for sure. So what happened was, Sarah, is I took Tribe.

That's what happened.

Honestly, I took Tribe with Stu McLaren. That's where I met Sarah. I had been dreaming about a box for the last few years, and I hear this so often.

We all—

well, not all of us, but many of us say, I've been thinking about it for years. And so here's what I want to tell you. Don't delay what you know is supposed to happen, like sooner rather than later. Okay, let's not unnecessarily prolong the inevitable. Like, if you know that it's something that's going to happen because it's constantly on your heart, it's constantly in your mind, you're dreaming about it, you're journaling about it, you're constantly thinking about it, let's not overcomplicate it. Because that's what I did. Yeah, I was like, no, it's just too much. Like, I don't know how to do all those tech things.

I did the same thing.

I just, you know, and I— we talk ourselves out of stuff So quickly. And that's what I did, but I just want to encourage whoever, for whoever it is, like those things that are in you that you're thinking about, they're for a reason. And so you need to pay attention to them and we need to take action sooner, preferably sooner than I did. But so that's, that's what led to the start of our subscription, the proof of concept, seeing those repeat names and faces, found TRIBE, met Sarah. Um, spent a couple of weeks dreaming up a plan, late hours into the night, pages and pages and pages, which we ended up throwing out about 3/4 of it, which is normal. You got to get it all out. And then, um, I remember calling up the team, which the team was like my mom and dad, my husband, a couple of our really close team members. But I said, team meeting, had them all over to my house. Y'all, I had a PowerPoint. I don't even make, I don't do PowerPoint. I don't do Excel. I don't do any of those things. Okay. But I made a PowerPoint. I said, we, we are launching a subscription. Okay. Open cart, closed cart. I don't know price. I don't know. I'm still figuring out. It's just minor details that we have to figure out.

Like you were pitching your ideas to them, trying to get them on board with you. Like, I want to do this. I got to present this to them and get everybody on board with my idea.

Yeah. And, you know, at that point, honestly, they saw my excitement and my enthusiasm and that is all they needed. That is for you all, too, that are listening. It is like movement creates clarity. So, let's just keep moving forward and the details, like I was joking, you know, how are we actually going to do it? Like, I am still working on that part, but I have passion, I have conviction. And so I know that it's going to work, um, because I'm excited about it and excitement breeds excitement. And I'm going to get on there and talk to our people and I know that they're going to get behind it.

Well, let's talk, let's talk about that really quick because I, let's go back. I remember this. I remember you coming into Launch Your Box and at that time the membership was a lot smaller than it is now. Um, and I remember your fear of going live and I remember you needing to do this and you totally did it. You just, You jumped in there, you were live, um, at home, you were live in the factory, you're like, you were live everywhere. So you started doing the things necessary that you knew you needed to do to make a success, have a successful launch. And, um, you launched with a bang. You launched with over 100 subscribers right out of the gate. And it was so exciting to watch you launch. And you, you came in the group, you're like, oh my God, I did this. And if I can do this, anybody can do this. And you were just cheering on everybody else that had been dragging their feet to do it, to just put yourself out there. The lives get easier, right?

They do.

They do so much easier than they were a year ago. Um, and it's just natural. But what happened after the launch is something that we want to deep dive into today.

Do it. I'm excited. This is the fun part. This is, this is the meat. It's the juicy stuff, y'all.

This is the juicy part.

And I'm excited to share about the last year because You know, it's, I'm humbly sharing it and this is, I think it's, I think there's going to be people out there that can relate. And I think it's going to help someone. So you want me just to jump in? Tell them what happened. Yeah. So what happened was, like Sarah said, we launched really well. We did have an existing customer base, like I have mentioned, so that we had going for us. But I worked, I did work really hard. We did our launch well. We had We had the audience, we had the foundation, and I teased that thing out for weeks. It was all I talked about. And after everybody knew about it, I talked about it some more, overcommunicated, right? When in doubt, just overcommunicate. And it worked. And the day that we opened the cart, I mean, the orders were coming in and I was just in tears all day. So we launched with 135 subscribers and 15 months in, y'all are going to be like, what is she going to say? Is she at like 300, 500, 750? Is she over 1,000? No, y'all, we're at 170.

Okay.

Okay.

So we've only grown 35 subscribers in the last 15 months. We came out with a huge bang and then we've stalled.

Correct.

And there are things that happened that caused the stall. And that's what we're going to break down today. And we're going to be super candid about it. And we're going to make a game plan on what we're going to do next. So why don't you tell them your excitement for the box created all this enthusiasm for all kinds of things. And I think that we're guilty of this as a lot of us entrepreneurs are creatives. We want to do all the things and Let's be honest, we can do a lot of things. All of us can do many, many things. Um, and, and then we do too many things and, um, our excitement for one thing turns into another thing and another thing and another thing. And let's walk through what happened over those 15 months.

Okay, let's do it. So I think, um, there's, there's a lot of different directions I could go here, but I think the summary is that we really went wide. We tried to do a lot. We had a lot of stuff going on. I'm going to break that down instead of going deep. Okay. So here, here's my thinking. We had a great launch. Our subscribers, I'm thinking, well, they love this. They're going to love anything we put out. Now, perhaps they will. And they do. If it aligns with your ideal customer, you know, that Post-it note thing that Sarah talks about, that's like legit, like that's real, that works. So you should do that. Knowing who your customer is, speaking to them, what are they feeling? What are they? So we got a little distracted in other words. And we were not, we were not the things that we were putting out. We weren't thinking, Does this align with my ideal customer? Okay.

So what kinds of things were you putting out there? Just run through those.

Okay, let's do it. We had, here we go. All these different one-off boxes. We got, we've got the, we had a for him box. We had a for her box. We had a be well box, a lavender lovers box. I'm not, I'm not done. We had a teacher box, a nurse box. Sarah Williams, we even had a box. I'm saying this, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It's fine. We've learned and we're moving forward. But I thought my subscribers were going to love whatever I put out because they love the box, they love me, they love our company. So I'm like, oh, do you want to buy a box for your nurse friend? And what about for your, your young granddaughter, right? And we were thinking that they were just I don't— we just got distracted with one-off things. Okay. And really what happened was, see, we went to Atlanta and, um, we went to Atlanta and I saw all the pretty things and I'm like Sarah said, I'm a creative. I love variety. I like change. I went complete rogue in Atlanta.

You had like shiny odd object syndrome at market. Is that why?

I am a mature adult, okay? Like, but I bought all these things, um, because we had just launched in September. I went to market in January and I'm like, oh yeah, they're gonna love it all and we're gonna be the box company. We're gonna have a box for everything. And, um, word to the wise, take some— take someone with you to places like Atlanta who know the vision and who know your ideal customer. And don't take your husband who has learned that it's best to agree with you. Like, he's just like, oh yes, sweetie, it's going to be great. I think you should get that.

Um, what we say in the South, bless his heart. Yes.

But I needed someone with me that said, Becca, put your blinders on. We're going to stay focused. Okay. Um, so you lost your focus.

You lost your focus from your monthly subscribers now to all these new shiny objects that you were creating. That weren't necessarily for your ideal customer.

Yes. And what happened was, Sarah, is our main thing that started as the main thing, the subscription box that we talked about all the time, it lost its exclusiveness and it's lost— it lost its uniqueness because the box, it just became— it took a back seat.

It became one other box in your lineup.

It was just the, all it just didn't have the, the, it didn't have the spotlight anymore. You know, it was watered down and it was buried under all of these other million things because, you know, we've got to take pictures, we've got to post all these, you know, random things on our social media and our emails. And so it was confusing. Our messaging was inconsistent. It was confusing. And the sayings are true that when you try to sell everything to everyone, you're actually selling to no one. And when you give the people too many options, they choose nothing.

Oh, say it again for the people in the back.

When you give them too many options, and that's what I wanted. So I'm like, more, more, more, you know, I just was getting so— and I love to put together boxes and gifts and It just brings me life, but it also puts me in a great predicament when people don't buy them. And then I have all this extra inventory, which we're going to get to about how we, how we rebounded from this situation. But listen, friends, you can't be all things to all people. Okay. You have to find your people, find your ideal person, not even people, you know, create your ideal person. Who is it? Stay in your lane. And keep the main thing, the main thing. Don't let your subscription or whatever your main thing is, take a back seat.

So here's the thing. If your subscription right now, isn't your main thing.

Yeah.

I need you to ask yourself, are you treating it like the main thing? If you want it to be the main thing, are you treating it like the main thing in your business? And if your answer is no, that's why it's never going to be the main thing. If your answer is yes, you're going to continue to grow it. Focuses on it, you're not shifting lanes every time you turn around. The main thing will be the main thing, and it will be the main driver of your revenue in your business if you can keep it the main thing. So huge lesson learned from back there, right here. Huge lesson.

Now we had, you know, we're okay. Like, we sold some of these things. It's not like, you know, everything just— we're closing it all down. And we're doing okay. Um, but 15 months in, we are still at pretty much a break-even. I mean, we're— we've gained, we've lost some and we've gained some, but when it all— when all the dust settles, like, we're about at the same spot.

And now you're dealing with this huge level of extra inventory with extra stuff that you were making all these fun boxes with throughout the year, and you're like, okay, I gotta regroup. I realize I I've realized these things you told me. I realized I was going wide and not deep. I realized I had too many offers, too many calls of actions, too much noise. I realized I was trying to sell to everyone and I got to stay focused. You realized all these things. But at the end of the day, we're still business owners and we have stacks of cash sitting on our shelves because we bought all this extra stuff. So now we're going into the fourth quarter.

Yeah.

And you said, okay, I got this, I'm refocused, but I got to sell my stuff. And so I watched you, I watched you just like step up and say, I'm going to take control of this mess that I made and I'm going to get rid of my inventory and I'm going to get focused. And so I loved what you were doing. I was watching what you were doing. And so I want you to share some of the things that you did. It was operation, get rid of this inventory so I can Focus on the main thing after Christmas, right?

You summed it up beautifully. That's exactly what happened. I, I said, you know what, I, I went a little rogue. I'm a creative. We've, we've discussed that, but I'm also a problem solver. We as creatives and entrepreneurs and business owners, like, we are problem solvers naturally. We, we will fix this. Okay. You give me a room full of thousands of dollars worth of inventory. That doesn't really match my brand or my vision or speak to our ideal customer, you know, because they're not a 12-year-old teenager or a man or teacher or nurse. Like, our ideal customer is an ultra-obsessed candle enthusiast who burns candles on the daily, who also wants soft, silky skin. She is not 12 and she is not, you know, a nurse. And so I had I had all this stuff. And so this is what we did. We— and this can be done at any time of the year. So if you're listening to this at a later time and it's not around Christmas, do it in the summer, do it in the spring, adapt it, you know, change it, morph it into whatever fits, whatever's appropriate for the season that we're in. But we did a countdown. I called it Countdown to Christmas because, you know, you put, you put a cute name on, on something and some bows and, you know, you go get the gift boxes. And so what I did was I created all of these unique gift sets. I went into the room by myself without anybody there, right? I got in my zen. I said, okay, we're going to fix this. What can I put together? What, which of these products can I put together with a pretty ribbon and gift tag? And I don't even need it to— I don't even need to be super profitable on this stuff.

You're trying to get rid of it.

It doesn't need to be a big moneymaker. I just want to liquidate it. And I want to get it off my shelves. I want to get— I want to recoup some of our costs or all of our costs and make a couple bucks and just stir the waters a little bit. Okay, let's just, let's just do something, even if it's not ideal at this point. What are your— what's your other option? You know? And so that's what I did. We had our countdown to Christmas.

We—

I made up about 20 different gift sets, different colors, different— we had things from $15 up to $80. So we had a wide variety of price options. I created one simple product on our website. For those of you who are like, that's a lot of pictures. No, I didn't take pictures. I literally didn't take— I just did lives. Okay. I created one product with a dropdown that said gift set 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all the way to 20. And the only way that you knew what they looked like is you had to watch the live. But I promoted those lives so much. I, you know, told people in email, text, You got to watch the lives. Then I sent the replays out through email and text, and we sold about 100 of them.

Awesome.

So, you know, 100, that, that's significant for small business. I mean, we're not selling thousands of them, but we cleared out some inventory doing that. There was still more stuff left, though. And so now we're currently in our mystery bag promotion. Okay. So we cleared out a bunch with the, with the Countdown to Christmas sets. We now have our mystery bags, which we're offering 3 options. You can buy a $39 bag, which is $50 worth of product, a $69 bag, which is $100 worth of product, or $99, which is $150.

I love that. And this, if you're listening right now, this would be a great thing to do after Christmas too, because we can sell a lot of things through the, you know, through the month of December. But when you're sitting at December 26 and you still got stuff on your shelves, do a mystery bag, do a grab bag, do a mystery box, something like that, just the way Becca is here.

Yep. And yeah, that's great. Typically we would have waited until after the first of the year, but we're also thinking, man, people are buying right now. We're just, we're going to take advantage of it right now. So we shifted our— I mean, we have called some audibles over the last few months. We've made some changes in our, in our calendar and move stuff around. So that we can really capitalize on this season. But the mystery bags are going well, and I love them because they're exactly what they say— they are a surprise. I get to put in what I want. Now, of course, it's not just a bunch of random stuff. I do try to curate them and have a nice, you know, variety of products, but not like, what in the world, you know, I'm getting this, this for a man and this for a teen, you know, a little girl. And, um, so some of the stuff we did just have to end up donating because there's you know, there's just little to no hope to try to salvage it. But, um, the mystery bags have gone, have gone really well. And, um, I'm excited to—

what's that? Tell me what you offered your existing subscribers. Yeah, I thought that was really smart.

Yeah, so that was about the, um, the inventory, um, for our subscribers. What I found to be really helpful is make sure that you are connecting with your people, your subscribers, people on your waitlist, asking them questions, asking them what they want, right? Like use that data to inform your next moves. And so we, we put together little surveys, 5-question surveys, simple things like, you know, what do you, what do you love the most? And we give them multiple choice answers. What would you, what would you like to see? Why would you ever choose to purchase from another candle company?

Great question.

You know, what, how many candles would you like to receive every month? Or what, you know, pick the questions that are best for, obviously, for your business, but do some research and then give the people what they want. And so when we were asking our people, we sent one to our subscribers and they said, well, we'd love to be able to like purchase additional boxes. After we see them, if we love them and we wanted to gift one, we'd love to be able to buy another one. I said, okay, let's do it.

So you sent that out for November and December? Yes. Okay.

Sure. Did that go great? It went great. I mean, we, you know, like I said, we have about 100 and how many did I say? 170, 170-some subscribers. We probably sold Oh, I don't know. We probably sold an extra 20 to 25 boxes in, in both months, I would say. Okay, extra. So that went really well. Now, will we do that every single month?

Maybe.

We, we put out bonus boxes occasionally. We usually do that once every 3 to 4 months. We'll send an email to our subscribers if we do have some leftover product, and we'll say, just to our subscribers. We'll say, hey, do you want— did you, you know, which one of these was your favorite? You can grab it and it's even an additional 10% off or 15% off. And so they can grab one of the previous month's box.

I think that's really awesome. And I think all of us could do something like that. You know, I typically order extra things just because I'm worried about damages and I want to make sure, right, because we order them so far in advance that offering them to your subscriber at a, at a discount from the retail price, it makes it feel exclusive. They instantly feel special, if they want to gift that to someone, they got first dibs, right? And I think that's a great way to connect with our customers and nurture those relationships. So many times I see in our group, our subscription box owners are nervous about selling things one-off, and I don't want you to sit on it. But having that little bit of exclusivity, like that's like a VIP perk that you get first dibs on any extras. I love that idea, actually.

Thanks. Well, you know, Sarah, we actually did the same, well, something very similar to our, to our waitlist audience. We sent a survey to them because, you know, honestly, it's a beautiful way to serve your audience. Like, ask them, get their perspective, and ask them what they want. And so we, we sent our, anyone who was on our waitlist or who had showed any sort of interest in our box over the last year. So we have them in a, in a segment in our email service provider. And so we sent them the survey and what we gathered was that I said, you know, I think that if we offered them the opportunity to try a box one-off without having to subscribe I think that they would probably do it. I think that they would try it. And so we did that, and we probably have— I should have written these numbers down, but I think we probably had at least 20. We sold probably at least 20, maybe more, maybe 30, um, individual one-off boxes. And we offered them the opportunity to buy the November box individually, the December box individually, or and they, they were prepaying for December, or they could buy them both for like $10 off, like a bundle. They could bundle them. Now this just went to our waitlist, so we excluded our subscribers. They did not, because we do not want to upset our subscribers. And, and you know that if they found out that we were allowing people, but for just for those on the waitlist, and we have just done it for the November and the December. But now we will put cards inside of those boxes that say, hey, if you love this box, you will absolutely— like, this gives you a taste of what our subscription is every single month. And the hope is that they fall in love and they will in turn become a monthly subscriber. And we will follow up with those people afterwards. You know, we'll email them and say, hey, did you love the experience? We want you in the club.

Yeah, and I think it's important to, you know, not do that all the time, kind of do it as like a one-off, because if they see, oh, I'm doing this all the time, I don't need to subscribe. So doing it kind of right here at the holidays is perfect. They could keep them for themselves, they can gift them, and then it's kind of a lead-in and a little momentum for them to become a subscriber in January. Because what we know is if somebody purchased something from us and they have a good experience with that purchase and that product, they're more likely to trust us and make a commitment to us. So you giving them an opportunity to know, like, and trust you.

Exactly.

Or maybe they've been scared to commit to you on a, on a monthly basis. So, right, I love all of those ideas.

Yeah.

And so now we're rolling into 2022.

Yeah, let's do it. Let's put this year behind us, take everything I've learned, we're gonna move forward.

So let's talk about that. We're gonna, we're gonna clear through this old crazy inventory we have. We're going to reset. You're actually going to purchase the business from your parents. And now what does our subscription look like in 2022 as we go into January? What does that focus look like for you? What is your plan going forward?

Yeah, well, it probably goes without saying, I'm going to try to stay focused. I'm not going to try. I am going to stay focused. I'm going to make the main thing the main thing. Okay. I'm going to put my blinders on and we're going to go, we're going to go deep. I, I'm going to simplify our subscription actually. And fun fact, we are doing a complete rebrand, which people know that we're doing that. They don't know all of the fun details of what it's going to be, but in that rebranding, we really want to simplify our subscription in that Right now we put a lot of stuff in our boxes.

Yes.

And that's another thing that we could do a whole podcast on. You don't need all the stuff. Yes. Okay. You really don't. It's just layers of complexity. You gotta order all the things, find all the things and people. I'm just finding they don't want a lot of stuff.

They just want the candles.

They just, they want things that are consumable.

Mm-hmm.

They want things that they can wear, that they can use. They, they don't need a bunch of extra like trinkety stuff sitting around. They want the potions, the lotions, the snacks, you know, the shirts, the candles. And so we are going to focus more on the candles instead of, instead of the extras. We're considering having an upgraded option, an upsell with like a, some sort of bath and body product. That they can add to their subscription for an additional charge, but actually just focusing on a candle subscription, a candle of the month, candle of the month. They get to—

I think that everyone should have a one thing of the month. I think it's easy. Sometimes that's all the people want. They don't want the box filled with stuff, and we get consumed with filling this box with everything, and sometimes they just want the main thing. That's the main thing of the business. And for you, that's candles. For me, that's t-shirts. And so we've gotta, we've gotta have that available for someone that wants the main thing. And then we can also do, you know, like that ultimate subscription. It's the main thing with the extra stuff. But don't think that a one thing of the month subscription is not a good thing.

Isn't enough. Yeah.

It's a great thing. And sometimes it's more profitable because it's less labor intensive. Packaging is different. Exactly.

It's easier to produce.

It's so much less stress sometimes. So don't discount that. I would love to see in the new year, I would love to see your one thing of the month. I'd love to see you continue your box and continue to bring it back to the main focus of your business. I would love for you to plan an early launch into the new year, like a big launch like we did 15 months ago. Yeah, going live, we're talking about all the things, we're the new owners of the business, we We're changing things and just building that brand new excitement on what your subscribers already know and love about you. And then bringing some more people along for the ride, talking about the main thing. You can totally do a launch with both of them together so that your focus is, is together. And you don't have— like, I feel like sometimes when we do separate launches, we're launching for months. People don't want to see you selling every day, all day. So you can do those two launches together. When I launched my t-shirt club, I already had the box. And I was really nervous about cannibalizing the existing subscription. So I launched them together. And what I found out was we came out of the gate with 300 subscribers with our t-shirt club. But we also increased another 50 onto our box because I launched them together. And I got to talk about the, the benefits of both at the same time, we had a lot of things to talk about, we could, it was, it was all towards that ideal customer. And sometimes our ideal customer just wants the one thing. And sometimes our ideal customer wants the experience. And so we were able to capture both of those in one launch, and I was able to give so much during that launch because I only had to do it one time. So I'd love for you to do that. And I honestly, if you have it in you, I would do it in January. I would hit them right after Christmas. You've built so much momentum with your lives, your, your mystery bags, your gift boxes. You've built all this momentum going into the end of this year Let's just hit it. Let's hit it by the end of January.

Did she say January, y'all?

I did. I think that you already have momentum building, and when we can capitalize, capitalize on momentum that we already have going, it's not like we're starting from a stopping point. We're— our car's already moving. It's easier to put the gas on it when the car is moving than it is when we have to start it again. So I would love to see you do that. I think you could have a really great launch at the end of January. And I see doubling these subscriptions very, very easily. It's totally doable. I think your mindset is right. I think your focus is right. And all your lessons learned here are just going to propel you to have the best year yet with your subscriptions.

Yeah, absolutely. That sounds like a great plan. I'm ready for it. Ready for what the new year is going to bring.

Let's, Becca, let's just talk about people listening right now. And I know I have a lot of listeners that they've been subscription box dreaming for a while, like you and I did, you know, what advice would you give them?

Um, if they're listening today, I would say, oh, there's so many, there's so many things I would tell you. Um, I would say be confident in yourself. That's one of the, that's one of the key takeaways that I would love for you to hold on to is to be confident in yourself, to be confident in your dreams and the visions that are inside of you, because they're, they're there for a reason and for a purpose. And just to be proud of, of who you are, um, the business that you have and You know, we own our businesses, but really just to own your business, to walk in confidence in your business. Um, because people are attracted to, to confidence, they're attracted to authenticity and give yourself big doses of grace because our businesses are ever evolving. As we have discussed. Yeah. We have highs and lows and ebbs and flows. And you know, most of you are probably the leaders of your businesses. And it's your responsibility. It's our responsibility to, to set the tone, to stay positive, to keep the morale high for, for our team. So, I would tell you to be confident in yourself. I would tell you to hire help, as soon as you can hire help, hiring help has changed everything for me. I would love to dive into that at some point. Because, you know, as the, as the leader and the creative and the visionary, like I have a lane that I want to stay in. I don't, I'm not good at, um, you know, implementing all the time or bookkeeping and things like that. So as soon as you can hire some help, get some people around you, some support to, um, you know, to, uh, to offer the skill sets that you might not operate in very well. So I would say hire help, be confident, and just get unstuck. Don't stay stuck. Take some movement, do the next thing. People say just get started. That's, that's, that is good advice, but I'll break it down even further. Just do, just do the next thing, whatever that next thing is, to keep making some progress.

Yeah, it's good advice. Becca, if we need some super awesome candles, you guys, amazing, where can we find you?

Yes, you— okay, so I hang out most on Facebook, Isle Candle Co. It's I-S-L-E Candle Co. Mostly on Facebook, all social platforms and website too.

Awesome. Becca, thank you so much for breaking down your journey. The, the wins.

The best. I loved it so much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Come back, join us next week. We have another great episode for you. Have a great rest of your day. If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage encourage you to head over to launchyourboxwithsarah.com, get on our waitlist, and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.