060: Building an Audience: One Rhinestone at a Time with Stephanie Russell

What if the one thing you are most passionate about could bring you an income? A love for her kids' sports turned to profits for Stephanie. I get my coaching hat on during this episode and give her actionable ways to continue her audience building efforts. Come join us.

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 Launch Your Box podcast. I'm excited because I have Stephanie here from Bling Owl Creations. We're going to talk about her journey as a subscription box owner. She came into coaching week during one of my coaching weeks last year and everything's changed since. And so we're going to break down her subscription box journey. We're going to focus on audience building with her story. So we've got lots to talk about today. Stephanie, why don't you just introduce yourself and tell them a little bit about Bling Out Creations?

Hi Sarah, like I said just a little bit ago when it was just you and me, I am in serious fangirl mode with you being on this podcast. It's like a dream come true, and I had it on my goals to one day be able to talk with you about my subscription box. I am Bling Out Creations, and bling pretty much runs in my veins. I was a former pageant girl. A former pageant mom, dance girl, sports mom, whatever. And my mom was always the extra mom. So of course I became that way when I had kids. Like I always wanted to go full out, the hats, the shirts, the earrings, you know, cheering on my kids, the school spirit where all of that was me. And so once my oldest daughter graduated from high school and began competing in Miss Virginia, we started doing a lot with pageants. That's kind of where this whole idea kind of started for me, because I was making pageant, you know, Go Hailey shirts, you know, to wear to her pageants. We were blinging out her gowns and her shoes and all of that stuff. And then afterwards I thought, you know, I could probably learn this. And so I just started doing it. I started learning it for myself. And at that point my friends were like, I want one. Like, where did you get that? I'm like, oh, I make it. And they're like, oh, well, I want one. And so I just started a Facebook page, you know, not nothing really serious, it was just a hobby. But at that point, we, we just exploded and we grew locally for a lot of my friends. And then of course, you know, Facebook started— my friends started posting it on Facebook, hey, check out this girl and what she does. And that's kind of where it all began for Bling Out Creations. But I mostly focus on custom rhinestone apparel for sports moms, pageant moms, business branding. But, you know, I knew I always had an idea in my mind that I wanted to do a box for sports moms. I just didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to go about it. I didn't know all the ins and outs of it. I didn't have a website. It was just strictly on Facebook. And so there was a lot that I had to learn. I mean, it's been a huge thing for Bling Out Creations. Now we ship our boxes and our creations. We've had— we've been in business for about 4 years and we've been sending out probably about 2,000 or 3,000 orders in the last couple years of just bling shirts or earrings. Bling.

I mean, I know a lot of us women are extra. You can't see Stephanie right now, but she's so extra. And what I love, what I love is that you just own it. You just, you celebrate it because there are so many people that love to be extra. I like to be extra in different ways, but you're just full. Like, if you could see her in front of me right now, she's full on bling. Bling hat, bling big earrings, the bling shirt. She's got it going on and she's just owning herself. And I just want that, that's, that's one point I just want you to get and get with this podcast. It's okay to be yourself and you're going to go further faster when you can just own who you are and you're going to attract people that are just like you, the way that Stephanie's attracted people. Now let's go back a little bit, Stephanie. Let's talk about, I know that you said you've saw one of my Facebook ads for our $10 coaching week and you were like, okay, I'm going to check this out. Tell, tell me what happened at that time.

Well, I had been seeing your ads for a while and I was like, okay, I, I really need to figure out how this lady does subscription boxes. Because like I said, I had this idea in my head for sports moms or ladies, a bling box. And so when I saw your ad, I was like, okay, well, you know, it's not going to hurt to join because I'm sure I can learn business tips and tricks just in, you know, if I never do a subscription box, I could learn tips and tricks from you. And so it was a lightbulb moment when we were going through the planning of the 6 months of like, okay, let's just knock it out. Because you and I've talked about it and it's been in our Launch Your Box group a lot that we just try to overanalyze everything. And I think that's just us as women in general. I'm a planner. I used to be an event planner, so like, I got to know every single detail before I can move forward.

Like, before you can even take that first step, you have got to know the path that you are walking. See, I can just go down a path and not know where it leads. Like, that is just how I roll. But there are a lot of people that are like you that before I can take this first step, I have to know where this sidewalk is going. I have to know what is on the other side of this when I get there. Some people are like me that can say, oh, this looks interesting. Let me walk down this sidewalk and see what is at the end. But not everybody Everybody's like that and it's okay for it to be different for everybody. So you were like, I can't start this until I know what this looks like. So we did the 6 in 60 workshop. You came to coaching week. That's the first thing that we did. And we just laid out the plan. What happened when we laid out that plan?

Well, it helped me to realize that one, not to overanalyze everything. And two, that I already knew my market. I just had to put it on paper. So that way I could move forward. I had to know that, okay, I need to start with an apparel item and then I can add an accessory and, and not make it just be too hard because I was just making everything too hard.

You were.

And so you showed up on that.

So we had a, we had a late night session during coaching week, and this is where I first met you. Right. And it was a bonus that they, certain people got to come to these after-hours sessions with me if they joined Launch Your Box during coaching week. And so One of those sessions, you rose, you raised your hand and you asked a question and you were kind of tripping up what to do for your box, right? We'd gone through the planning session already, and maybe you were still unsure about the plan. You could see it, but you weren't exactly sure. Can you walk me through how you were feeling in that moment? And then what our conversation ended up changing for you?

I mean, I knew I wanted to do a ladies' box. I just wasn't honed into a specific niche, but you know, you always say to us, the riches are in the niches. And we were talking and, you know, I said, this is what I do. I really want to do a bling box. There's lots of subscription boxes out there for ladies just in general, but I want to be a little bit different because bling is my niche and that's what I'm known for and that's in my name. So I, you know, I got to do something with that, but I didn't know how drilled down I should be. And I kept trying to just generalize it. What was I going to do? What was my theme going to be every month and, and all of that. And so finally I had my baseball hat on with my bling baseball. And you said, you know, what, what are the things that you enjoy? What are the things that you know? And I said, well, I know baseball. I'm a baseball mom. I've been a baseball mom for 13 years. I was a softball mom for 13 years. You know, my, I have lived at the ball field for the last 20 years. I know that, I know that niche. I know those people.

And you were known for that too. You were known for your baseball items and decking out the whole section at the baseball field. Right, right.

Any trip we would go on, any tournament we went to, I I was the extra mom. Like I had the bling hat, I had the earrings, I had the, you know, number 19 on the back of my shirt. Like everybody knew me as that. And when you said, well, Stephanie, why don't you just do a baseball box? Like, you know that it's not hard for you to think about what those moms would want. And that was a truly life-changing moment for me. Yeah. I mean, like there's been other life-changing moments in my life, but You know, getting married, having kids, all that stuff. But this was a, a life-changing moment as far as my business, because I knew at that point, you know, there's millions of baseball moms. Yes. Just baseball moms. Mm-hmm. And we are all crazy. I mean, we are, you're a soccer mom, so you know how it goes with us sports moms, but like you eat, breathe, and all of it sports, weekends, nights, tournaments, outta town, travel, whatever.

Craziness.

Yeah, craziness. But I wouldn't, wouldn't change it for the world. I know all of that time we got to spend together. But yeah, once you told me that and said, Stephanie, it's okay to just do just baseball, because I thought that would be too drilled down and too like specific. But I mean, the, the rave reviews that I'm getting on my box, once I started it, the moms are going crazy because they're like, you know, we spend all this money on our kids. Decking out our kids with the shoes, the bats, you know, the uniform, that we never get to look good ourselves, or it's a struggle for us to look good or what we're wearing.

Yeah. Let's be honest. Most like sports gear is very basic. Like this is, this is the opposite of basic. So what shirts we normally would wear are good for both men and women, right? They're just very basic. Everyone can wear them. They make one thing and there's not a variety and it's not custom and it doesn't have our kid's name and number on it. And it doesn't, you know, it doesn't reflect our personalities. Like your extra personality doesn't reflect that. And so we don't want to be basic anymore. And so you were able to really create it. I think what it was is you didn't need me to give you permission to do that, but in some way it gave you permission to do that. Do you know what I mean?

I think so. The validation of it's going to be okay. Yeah, you can do this with just this one. And then, you know, I started posting it on my Facebook page after that meeting of, you know, hey friends, what do you think about if I, you know, start a baseball Mom Box, and it was like, yes, yes, that's what we want. And I was like, okay, why did I, why did I make it so hard? Why did I struggle for months? Because I joined in July, Launch Your Box, and I did not launch my box until the following May. Like, it took me forever. But there was a lot of other things I had to do tech-wise, you know, to get me to that point. But it just took me like 8 months before I could actually figure out what box I should actually do and how I was going to market it. And it is—

you had to have the plan and it took you a while to put the plan together. And that's okay. Everyone's journey is different. You know, I talked to you, I talked to Jonica last week. She's like, yeah, I just, I did things too fast and then I had to pull back on it. So she's kind of the opposite. She's like, I'm quick. If I think about it, I'm going to do it. If I think it, I'm going to do it. But she had these trial and errors that she had to go through before she really figured out what was going to work for her and what was going to work for her customer. And so I think it doesn't matter which way you are. If you're that quick start person like Jonica, or if you're the, I gotta have it planned out person like you are, Stephanie, or somewhere in the middle, it's okay. We all have a different journey and it all looks different for all of us. And that's what makes it such a great space to be in. Let's talk through kind of those, those months that we, we, we spent spinning a little bit, but we also had to spend some time audience building in those months because, you know, you were the person in your local community that had the bling baseball stuff, but you needed to get the word out there. You needed to get get past your local community. You needed to build an audience that was outside of your area. And so it takes time to audience building. It's not the quick and easy, and it's also sometimes not the most fun thing that we get to do with our business. And so we struggle with it a little bit. We overthink it a little bit and, and we feel like maybe it's not working when we actually don't know if it's working, but let's talk through some of the things that you did as you were starting to build up towards launching the box. So let's just run through some of those. What are some of the things that you first did? You already had a social media, right? So you already had that established.

I had Instagram and Facebook for my business page, but I did not have a website. And I felt like in order for me to have a box, I had to have a website, you know, to, to hold all the things, to house all the things, to be able to collect the orders, to get the recurring payments every month. I knew I had to have a website and I'll just tell you, I am not a tech girl. I am a creative girl, but I am not a tech girl. And thank God I have my husband and my mother because they're tech people and I am not. Um, but I felt like if I'm going to design a website, I have to know what I'm doing because I'm going to be the one who needs to change it on a whim. I'm going to need to be the one who's going to add stuff to it. So I had to learn July until the end of October is when I finally launched my website. So that's the majority of the time that I spent I watched all of your video lessons, you know, all Launch Your Box. I'm one of those quiet Launch Your Box people, except when I like have something I just have to share. But I read all of it and, you know, pay attention to all of it because I do work a full-time job still, and it's very demanding. And I work 40 to 60 hours a week with that full-time job. But I knew that I had to have a website. So that was my first thing was I needed to make sure that I had all my ducks in a row. Again, the planner, on the website. And so I launched it the end of October of that year, and it was the biggest blessing I think I've ever done, is by creating a website for my business, because I just exploded after I had the official website presentation to be able to share with people. It wasn't just a hobby and I have a Facebook page anymore. It was, I'm a legit business and this is how I run it. So I had to do the website first and then I did all of your stuff. So I did the KingSumo giveaways and I did those every couple months. I did one for, hey, we're going to launch my box and, you know, would you like to sign up to build my email list? And then I also did, you know, all the videos like, hey, you know, this is what I'm going to be launching. I would do those live videos because before I wasn't really doing Facebook Lives. And as we know, Facebook Lives is what truly grows. Your presence.

Yeah.

And, and you've told us that Damon Oates has told me that I'm in his coaching group as well. And you know, it's all about that. You need to get your face out there and you need to build like and trust, I believe is what we call it. Yep. Right. Of who I was, like you said, to get outside of my comfort zone of my little town or my state. And then I just started. And the other thing was I had to, I use Klaviyo just like you do, but I had to learn Klaviyo. I had to figure that out. And of course, you know, building an email system is it's pretty difficult as well. I mean, it's a lot of, uh, you know, point and click kind of things, but it was having to build the flows and having to, you know, do the, you know, the thank you emails and all of that, and then collect the waitlist. And, you know, so I had to build that waitlist. And so that way, when I did launch, I would launch to people that I did not know. And now our boxes go to 17 different states because of all of that audience building that I was able to do and get outside of my circle of influence right here locally. Yeah, I think I answered all that.

You did.

What I did in this, it's just, it's a concept.

It's a, it's a work. It's work. Like we can't just, we can't just put our thing out there. You had the great website and it was, it was the way you wanted it, but we can't, we didn't just build a website and expect people to come. Right. We constantly have to drive traffic. And I know that when we were speaking before we, we started recording, you said, that's really still one of my challenges, Sarah. Like, how do I continue to drive traffic? And so that I can get more subscribers because I'm selling to the people that are seeing me, they're loving it, but I need more people. So here's a couple things that I wanted to talk through with you on just getting traffic to your website. So are we— have we run any Facebook ads at this point? Yes, we have.

And how do you feel about it consistently? Like, I haven't done it every single month. I've done it like, you know, for a month here or a month there. I did notice when I was doing the Facebook ads, I was getting a lot of traffic and normally 1 or 2 new subscribers when I would do my Facebook ads. But I still don't think I've narrowed it down enough on my Facebook ads. I feel like I'm still spending way too much money on my Facebook ads.

So we need to narrow down our interests, our targets. And what, what is on that Facebook ad? Is it a direct— is it a subscription box? Is that what's on the Facebook ad? So here's what I would challenge you to do, and I've seen a shift in this myself. I used to run the ads for the box, but instead I run an ad for what, like a core item of the box, so that I, I'm not asking someone that's maybe cold, that has never— doesn't know anything about me or my business to come and make a commitment to me. But what if they wanted to buy one shirt from me? And this shirt was an inspirational t-shirt, which is what I'm known for, which is the, the whole premise around my boxes. So if I can get them to come into my business by one purchase, that's no commitment. Now I've got them. Now they're, now they're in my world and now I can warm them up. So what is like the best seller that you have that's not in your box? I would think about that. And how could you create that as almost like your, your lead magnet. It's a paid lead magnet. I would call it a self-liquidating offer. We call those SLOs. But the goal for this is that you would sell the one thing. So maybe it's the hat you're wearing. We'll just, we'll just pretend that it's the baseball mom hat, all blinged out. That on a Facebook ad is going to attract your ideal customer. Anyone that wants to wear a baseball mom blinged out hat is your customer, right? So if we think about how much we're going to sell this this hat for. We make it at whatever price that is, but the goal is to not be— make a profit on that hat. That goal is to take whatever profit you do make and funnel that back into your ad spend so that it's constantly getting more traffic over to your site. And all that you have out is the cost of that hat, whatever that may be, and that's probably very minimal based on then to the profit. So then you have all this profit That's your self-liquidating offer. Whatever you liquidate from that offer goes back into your ad spend. And so it's one hat that you can get at a great price in bulk. You're selling it all the time and you're funneling that into cold audiences in those sports mom interests, those kinds of things. Instead of the box, sometimes it takes a little bit of time for someone to make a commitment to us. And with Facebook iOS changes, the cost has gone up. And so we have to just be more mindful of our costs and more frugal with our expenses. And so what I found is the sales on that one t-shirt or that one sweatshirt that I have funnels them into my business, and then I get to nurture them and I get to invite them to come to a live box opening, and I get to show them my box in person on a Facebook Live, and that will convert them if they get their shirt or their sweatshirt from me. They have a— it's quick, they have a good purchase, that it's all a good outcome. They now starting to trust me. They don't know me or trust me enough to make that box commitment to me right off the bat. So that's one thing that I would see if you could figure out what is that item. Maybe it's the hat, um, and, and start running that on a Facebook ad and, and do it consistently. So do it for a dollar or two a day and see what that brings you, starts to bring you some more cold traffic. So that's one thing. The other thing is a couple of weeks ago, I recorded a podcast about how a blog can help bring traffic to your subscription box business. And so I want to talk through that a little bit with you. Have you ever written a blog?

I have not. Okay. And I know it sounds, but I have not.

I know it sounds big and hairy and scary and we break it down on that podcast episode, but I believe it's episode, I think it's 58. Don't, don't count me wrong, but I think it's episode 58. But here's what I'm thinking for you. So we do all these pieces that connect to a blog all the time. We send an email, we do posts, you're doing live video. We may be doing short video like Reels and TikToks. I'm not sure if you're on Pinterest yet. So we're doing all of those pieces, but in reality, those pieces would anchor on from a blog. So if you wrote one blog on a particular topic and we're going to brainstorm together, and then that email was what was in the blog, you had 5 posts that relate to the items that you wrote in the blog, your Pinterest pins all are about that blog, your live video are the things from your blog, your short video are from that blog. So this hero piece that we have put into a blog content stems all this other content. And blogs bring so much organic traffic to your website and it lives forever. It doesn't have a short life like those TikToks and Reels. It doesn't have a short life like a live video. Live video is good for maybe a week or two and then it's kind of dead off in the land. Your post gets some traction for the first few days that it's up and then it fades away. This blog has so much SEO in it. That when people are searching things, they're going to find it a month from now, 6 months from now, 3 years from now. I have blogs I've written in 2018 that still get the most hits on my website. So it's content that I can create that's going to live forever. And I don't feel like I'm spinning my wheels all the time trying to— I got to get another thing out, but I'm building the content here. And then everything that I do is stemming from that. So I had a couple ideas. For you. One, I always do a box opening on a blog. Okay. So any subscription box owner can do that. But what about 10 things to keep in your baseball mom bag for a tournament?

I know that exactly.

What am I, what if I'm searching like what to take to a baseball tournament, you know, and I'm on there Googling, making sure I have stuff. Maybe I'm a new sports mom. I'm gonna find you, Stephanie. I'm gonna find you because you gave me information that I'm looking for on the web. So what, what other things could you write a blog about?

I got lots of things.

Yes. So here's what I want you to do.

I want the chair, the wagon, the—

yeah. And you can take those 10 things, right?

Okay.

So if we wrote a blog, 10 things to keep in your baseball bag for a tournament, now you can send that out to an email. You've got 10 things and you can put it all in an email. You're nurturing your audience. Even if they've never bought something from you, they're going to start to know, like, and trust you. Because you're giving them information, you're serving them before you sell to them. Okay, so then you could also do a quick little Reel or TikTok throwing these 10 things in the back of your truck, right, or the back of your car, putting them in there. 10 things, and it could have 10 things every baseball mom needs to take to a tournament. You could also take a picture of each one of these things and label them like 1 through 10. You now have 10 posts that you can put on social media. 10 Instagram posts, 10 Facebook posts. These top 10 things, you know, you need for a baseball tournament. And this is number 10. And they're going to come back and look, oh, what was number 8? And those are automatic posts that you have. And you can even do like a roundup post. So now you have an 11th one. Here's my top 10 things I take to a baseball tournament. What else do you take? Now you're going to engage them. What did all these baseball moms take to a tournament that maybe you don't have on your top 10 list? So now you're going to create some engagement with that. You could also do it in a live top 10 things that I take, and you could show them the things you take. You can tell them where you got them while you're wearing all your blinged out baseball gear, while you're showing up, maybe your hat. And these top 10 things need to be some of your products too. Okay. So we need to weave some of that in so that that draws them back into your business. But think about that one piece of content and how it can drive the other content. But what I want for that content is for you to have more traffic to come to your website. So I want it to bring more traffic in organically. We talked about paid just a minute ago with the SLO, the self-liquidating offer, but here's a way to bring some organic traffic that lives forever. It's not like you do all this work and then it's only good for a couple weeks, right? It lives forever. The things you— and then what you can do, like, this is what I do. A year or two later, I go back and I'll pull that blog up and I'm like, okay, this has changed a little bit. I no longer take this with me. I got this. And I really love, I love my all-weather pod when I'm at soccer because it is cold. It is windy. It could be rainy. It could be snowy. It could all the things, right? So some things might change and you can refresh them and, and just renew them for another blog. And you don't have to do it every week. Like that's the thing that people I think get scared of is that, oh gosh, I have to start doing this every single week. Try it twice a month. Do a box opening on a blog. And you can go back to that episode and listen, I break down a box opening there. You could do one educational informational piece, like 10 things to bring to, to a baseball tournament. If you did one of those kinds of pieces every single month, and then you built all your monthly content off of it, you would feel good about that, right? That you had. This content that you could keep driving traffic and engaging the traffic that you get. And then this would bring new traffic over to you. And the other thing that I want you to think about is when they're hitting your website, how are you capturing them? Because it does no good to get traffic to our website if we're not grabbing them. So do you have a pop-up?

I do.

Okay. Do we have a waitlist if our box is closed?

Or is my box has never been closed? It's open. I do the open cart model, but I have it, I have it set up that if I sell out, I can do the waitlist. Okay, perfect.

And then what would be another opt-in? So if they were coming over for the 10 Things to Keep in Your Baseball Mom Bag, what if we made them a checkout checklist printable that they could print right out and just check the things off? And so they, it required us to get their email and then we emailed them a checklist. And now I've got them on my email list too, and I can nurture them that way. So those are some things I want you to think about.

And what I will tell you, go ahead. I just hired a virtual assistant and they start next month. So all of these things is on my list of them to help me with.

Yeah.

Because I'm to that point.

Think about, think about you creating one little piece of content and then giving it to your VA and say, Hey, can you make an email off of this? Can you create some social media posts off of this? Can you put this on all these on Pinterest? Like they could take this one piece of content and do so much of the work for you because they know what to do now. They know what's in your head that is now out and they can start helping drive that traffic too. And so I would tell you with your VA once a month or once a quarter, brainstorm ideas like this, like we just did here with the 10 things. Your mind's probably spinning with all the things that you could write a blog about. Jot them down, put them in a Trello board, put them on a Word document so that when it's time to show up and create the content, you're like, okay, what am I going to do today? You're like, okay, here's my list. I'm going to do this one and I'm going to get busy. And you spend less time spinning your wheels on what you should do instead of just knowing what you need to do and getting to work because your time is limited. You've got to work all day. So when you come build some content, you just need to be able to take it and run with it, and then your VA can help you with it. So that's my tips for you as far as getting, getting some traffic. Yes. Just keep growing. So what we've talked about, I just want to kind of recap. We talked about you niching down and I talk about it a lot because it's really important. If you were just creating things for every person that liked bling, it's gonna fall a little bit flat. You wouldn't be able to speak to the person that you're, you're currently speaking to. You wouldn't be able to speak to the baseball mom. You wouldn't be able to speak their language, and that's what they're connecting with. So it's okay to start a little broad if you're not sure, but think about like with Stephanie, what is she known for? What are her bestsellers? What is she experienced with? And what does she love? And those things all led her to being the baseball bling mom. And so then you've got to build your audience and it's never too early to start that. Stephanie says it took a while to figure that out and get going on that. It does take time. So let's start now. And if we can narrow down our niche, it's going to be easier to build our audience. We're going to find our people easier. We're going to be able to speak to them easier. And so we went through some of those ways that Stephanie built her audience, but Stephanie, I guess my advice would be, or I would want to know what your advice is. Hang on, Sarah, let's edit that out. Stephanie, what would your advice be for anyone that's kind of— they, they feel like they have an idea for their subscription box, maybe they've even put the plan together, but they just can't quite take the first step on that sidewalk we were talking about. What would your advice be for them?

I think it would be one, just to poll their audience to see, you know, is this going to fly? For one, but to know that you've— if you've done your homework and God has given you the vision and the idea that there's a reason for that and that we need to go with it. I'm a firm believer. I have a very strong faith that when I have this overwhelming sense that I'm supposed to do something, that there's a reason why I'm supposed to do it. And if that vision and that idea has been given to you, then there's a reason that you need to do it. And there's somebody out there who needs your box. There's somebody out there who needs you as an inspiration to them. And just, you know, like, like I've said, I'm a planner, but I've had to learn being in business that sometimes you can't plan out everything. Every day there's something that happens that did not go according to plan, and I just have to run with it. And sometimes I have to clean up later. Yeah, but just like, okay, let's just get it out there. And one thing I've learned too is that, you know, perfection— if you can't do anything, you're all— if you're trying to be perfect You're never going to do anything.

Yeah.

So sometimes just doing something is better than perfect. Yeah. And you can, you know, you might have to change things later. And, you know, I went through a lot of things with my Bold subscription that just were so screwed up and that were not working when I first launched. And finally I just said, you know what, just forget about it. We're just going to go with it. And if I have to refund a customer, if I have to email a customer, if I have to fix something, I'll do it later. And that like was just, I was so stressed out about that. And Nicole Gini was like, Stephanie, it's okay. If your customer is your customer, they'll deal with the fact that you just launched a product and there might be some hiccups. Yeah. And so I think that sometimes, you know, we just have to get out of our own way and just take that first step. Because now that I look back and May will be my first year, um, in, you know, with my subscription box is I've come a long way in a year.

You have—

there's, there's been a lot of things that I have done, and 2021 was the best year I ever had. Like, I blew all my goals out of the water that I had no idea were even possible. And now, you know, I was able to buy an automatic rhinestone machine to help my business. I mean, that is a $36,000 investment that I never would have been able to do had I not taken the first step to start my subscription box, because it wasn't possible. Without my box and the recurring income to know that I could make that payment every single month because I, I'm a planner. I'm not going to go out and have, you know, a $1,500 a month payment if I can't afford it. And so because of my boxes, I was able to do that. And so, you know, just go for it. Even, you know, you may be a planner like me, but there's an idea in your head and there's a reason why you have that idea.

You're right. And I want you to take a moment right here and just I want you to soak in, cuz not only has your business really grown with your subscription box, just business in general has really, really grown, but I just see it in you as I'm talking with you. Like you've really grown not only as a business owner, but as a person. And it's digging in there and learning the tech the way that you did, knowing that you could go in and do something on your website that builds so much confidence as we go into being a business owner. And I think that you're just invested in learning for yourself and you keep growing, and that's— it shows in you. And I know that this next year is going to be even better, and I can't wait. And I'm obsessed. Can we just say I'm obsessed with watching your little rhinestone machine on Instagram? I'm like, I have to— I watch everything like 2 or 3 times. I'm like, that is the coolest dang machine. I gotta find something that needs rhinestones that I can order them from you because I'm obsessed with watching it. But I'm just really— you know, I am going to send you a soccer mom shirt.

Shirt. So that way, you know, you can be blinged out.

I want blue. Blue is the color. Royal blue. Okay. Yes. Um, but yes, I'm, I'm just really excited and I want to just kind of give our listeners a little bit of information for the things that we've been talking about because they're important. We talked through laying out that plan and that was from the Six in Sixty workshop. And you can go over and take that workshop for free at sixinsixtyworkshop.com. And you can just lay out your plan, figure it all out, lay out all your Post-its and really start to see this for yourself. Because if you can't see it for yourself, it's hard to figure out the tech. It's hard to do the packaging. It's hard to figure out what's going to ship if you don't even know what's going to be in that box. So that's really the first step. And then if you're further along your journey and you're like Stephanie, where you're audience building and you're working on more traffic, go back and listen to episode number 58, where I talk about building that blog into your business, just like I did with Stephanie here, because you're going to have an aha moment and you're going to figure out how easy it can be. So those are a couple resources I want you to get. But Stephanie, if they need some baseball bling in their life, where can they find you?

Um, all of my subscription boxes and all the ideas and all the different things that we can create are on blingowlcreations.com. I have a separate website that has all my subscriptions because I have more than one now, but you can link to it from blingowlcreations.com and you can find everything there. And we do custom orders, like I do custom team orders. I do custom, you know, school spirit wear orders. So there's a design request form on my website that people can fill out and we can go from there for any custom items that people want.

I love it. Awesome, Stephanie. You've been such a great interview today on the podcast. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us.

Thank you so much, Sarah. It's been a pleasure to be here.

If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I 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.