067: Ask Sarah: What's Holding Me Back from Starting My Subscription Box?

We are continuing our Ask Sarah series today with one of my Launch Your Box members. Gina's had her subscription box idea for a while, but just feels stuck, paralyzed actually. Come join us as I give Gina a plan to get unstuck and on her way to launching that subscription box. Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now, Now here's your host, Sarah Williams. Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. I have a special guest today. I have Gina with Serendipity Lane for our Ask Sarah series. And today's Gina's question is, why am I stuck? And many of you listening right now might feel stuck in some place or another within your business. So we're going to meet Gina. We're going to break down what's going on in her business, and we're going to help her get unstuck. Stuck today. So Gina, why don't you introduce yourself? And I would like for you to kind of start with the backstory and then lead us into where we're landed at today. And then we'll talk about where you're stuck.

Okay. Well, hello. I'm so excited to be here. Um, I think I've listened to every podcast, every training. I think you're amazing. So I, I'm just so excited and honored actually to be here.

Oh, thank you, Gina.

I'm Gina Rich. I live in Oklahoma. 15 years ago, I opened a brick and mortar, and I loved it. It was my hobby. It was scrapbooking, paper crafting, a little bit of card making. At that time, I was more into the scrapbooking scene. That went so great for a long time, and then the hobby kind of started dwindling just a little bit in my area, so I started adding a few things. Took some, you know, business classes, um, had some boutique items, some gift items, and things were going pretty well until COVID hit, like most people have had done in 2020. But so I shut my brick and mortar down because we were, you know, staying at home and all that. I did start something online. I did actually have my website before COVID hit, so I was so thankful that I already had my website set up. People were so great. They were buying gift certificates online, you know, to use at some point and that sort of thing. So everything was really good at that point. I started something called Happy Boxes at the time, and I had a lot of gift items. I would mail out gift boxes to people for Mother's Day, for thinking of you type things. And that was really fun. I enjoyed that a lot. It was kind of even before I thought about any type of subscription. For anything. COVID continued to wreak havoc on my business, though, because, you know, my main, my main purpose and passion was still the paper crafting end of it. At that time, card making was probably the thing that we did— card making. I added a little bit of DIY gifts just to, you know, make it different. So really, I mean, to back up a bit, with COVID I had a lot of in-person classes. And so I was probably teaching probably 5 to 6 to 7 classes a month in store. I was having scrapbooking weekends, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And of course, you know, when COVID hit, no one wanted to get together. A lot of my clientele were older, and so they really didn't want to get together even after things got a little better. So it was hard to get people back in to do that because that was really what sustained me was my classes, teaching them, you know, how to do different things. I did start something that I called Mystery Cards, and I did that every month. I had about 20 people on my list. And again, this was kind of before I even thought about it as a subscription, because it kind of was a subscription, except, I mean, it was kind of recurring revenue, but I had kind of the problem of some of my people were like, oh, it's been 3 months. I guess I need to get in there and get, pick up my cards and pay for them because they were used to coming in the store. Instead of me having like a subscription service where I just took it out of their bank account and, you know, they picked it up. So as long as they hadn't paid for it, obviously it was easy for them to, you know, wait until it was convenient for them to come by. So after a little bit of life happenings, I decided to go ahead and close the brick and mortar. I still have it because I own the building, but I do have a few classes every now and then, and I have a scrapbooking retreat weekend about once every 2 or 3 months. Those seem to go really well. So that's, you know, still good to have those. I kind of let my mystery cards go by the wayside because I was going to change it. Kind of in that transition was the time I found you, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is what I need. I need a subscription every month. People will love it. They love putting cards together. And then I haven't done anything.

Okay, I'm gonna do this, but now I'm stuck. And I want to talk about that because I see it all the time, Gina. It's not just you. I see it all the time from members, from non-members, from just people in general. They, they have it all thought out in your head and I can see it. I can hear it all thought out in your head. This is what I'm going to do. This is the best-selling item. People love this. People come do this at my store. You know, it's proven, right? You've got a proven concept, but for whatever reason, You still haven't put it out there. And so I want to talk through a little bit about that with you today, because, um, the couple of things you said in your email back and forth as we were getting prepping for this podcast was that you want everything to be perfect before you start. And I think that that is a detriment of a lot of people. Um, people are listening, they've got us in their headphones right now. And they're like, yes, that is me. I am the perfectionist. And it, what it does is it holds us back, right? It holds us back from doing anything because we want it to be perfect. We want it to be beautiful. We want it to be the best that it can be. And so we're not there yet, but I hate to break it to you and to everybody that's like, yes, Sarah, that's me. It's never going to be perfect. So what's going to happen is you're never going to launch the thing because I'm telling you, it's never going to be perfect. It's like, I relate it to like having a kid, right? Like when you have a baby, you, it's when's the right time to have a baby. There's never the right time to have a baby. You just do it and you figure it out along the way. And that is really what an entrepreneur is being, is being. You just do things and you figure out as you go. And so we have to stop waiting for the right time. We have to stop waiting for us to have all the things together. We're never going to have all the things together. And we have to start taking some action. And it's going to feel hard for you. And it's going to feel hard for anybody that is a perfectionist. I think I'm the opposite of a perfectionist. I'm like, let's just try it. And if it doesn't work, we'll try something else tomorrow. And so I have that mentality and it's easy for me, right, to just throw stuff out there because I don't give two thoughts about if it is perfect or not. I just, let's try it. And so I think there is, we have the opposite ends of the spectrum. What I want you to remember, and I want you just to really just ingrain this in your brain, that messy action is better than no action. And we have been thinking about this for a while. You have it all planned out in your head. But whatever is telling us that it's not ready, it's not time, it's not perfect is going to hold you back right now. It held you back last month. It's going to hold you back for the rest of the year if you don't just take that messy action. And if you can give yourself permission to say that it doesn't have to be perfect, Gina, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just give yourself permission to know that there's probably going to be things that are not going to go right. There's probably going to be things that could be better. There's probably going to be things like It's not going to be perfect. And if you can just, I think, feel that deeply, like just own that it's not going to be perfect and I've got to be okay with that, then we can start making those steps to make it happen. So that's a mindset thing. And it's not something you can just turn on and off. You've got to, you've got to say that to you. I want you to wake up every day and just tell yourself, Sarah said messy action is better than no action. I got to make some messy action today. And if you just own the fact that it's messy, then you're not like, okay, it's not perfect. It's totally messy. And I own the fact that it's messy. Messy, but I'm doing it. And so we just— that's a whole mindset thing. And mindset is like 75% of being an entrepreneur, is like getting out of our own way. So that's really the first thing. It's not going to be perfect.

It's not going to be perfect.

It's so hard. It might not even be perfect in 5 years from now. Okay, so that's true. We just have to like accept it that it's not going to be perfect. We're going to make it the best that we can possibly make it and do justice with it, but it's it's never gonna be perfect. So you're always gonna be waiting. So let's stop waiting. Let's do some messy action and let's move forward. Okay. So that, that's our brain around that. Okay.

Now, all right.

Now you said your another challenge is pricing. Let's tell me, tell me what's going on in your head about pricing.

You know, I, I have in my head, like sometimes this is how much I wanna charge, but are people gonna pay that, especially now? So I worry about the economy some. My mystery cards literally were $12. They got 2 cards for $12. I did all the work, and sometimes it was really— my card kits are very labor intensive, I'll put it that way. You know, they're not just here's 3 pieces of paper and a sticker and something, you know, it's here's layers and, you know, and so I was thinking, okay, well, $6 a card at that point I thought was okay. But I also had things in the store to sell, and so it kind of made up for, you know, the $12 kit that was kind of getting people in, getting people on a list and that sort of thing. So now I've, you know, I'm thinking, okay, I'm thinking maybe $22 to $27 and maybe doing at least 3 cards. And then I want— I listened to your podcast that you did with Katie, and I loved the little extra value that she put in her literary club book boxes and stuff. And I thought, oh, how fun would that be? Because my people, when they get together, sometimes our classes would last 3 hours just because we talk, we laugh, we eat. I would provide lunch or snacks or coffee or something. And I thought, oh my gosh, that's perfect. See, I'm using that perfect word again. I was thinking, oh, that would be so fun. I could put like a cocktail mix in or a bag of popcorn or something, because that's kind of what we crafters do, or at least my experience with my crafters is, you know, we like to eat when we craft.

Yeah.

Or, you know, Sonic cups is, you know, that's pretty all over our tables half the time. So yeah, I think the pricing is hard. I want to make it have value, but if I put my time on there, I can't sell a card kit for $50. You know, so that's really hard. So I'm trying to tell myself it's okay to put the time in, but I still need to price it, you know, accordingly. So I think I'm getting there. I'm thinking, you know, adding an extra card kit and making it $27, and then maybe possibly adding the little thing for extra value, I think will help as well. So to make sure that they're really getting something.

Here's my suggestion, and this is good for anybody listening that maybe has been stuck on their own pricing. I did some research. So first I went to your website. And I took a look at your product and I thought, oh, these are gorgeous cards. They are very layered. There's lots of intricate pieces with them. So from there I went on the World Wide Web and I tried to find a subscription that was similar to yours. I found 5. Okay.

Okay.

I looked up each of these and the price was very widely ranged and what they got was a little different too. So I wrote them down. So the first subscription that I found was $19.99 and it was 4 cards every month. Okay, the second subscription I found was $38.50, and it was 8 to 10 cards. You had enough pieces to make 8 to 10 cards a month. The other subscription I found was $25.99. It was 4 cards a month. I found one at $23.50. It was 8 cards. And I saw another one for $29.99 at 5 cards. So when you told me $27, I'm like, yes, you've nailed it. Because if you look at these 5 And I recommend everybody just do a little research with your industry. Know that there are boxes out there probably like yours, and you don't want to be the lowest on that research, and you don't want to be the highest. So when you said $27, that fits right into the middle of these. And if you provided 3 card kits, you know, a kit to make 3 cards, and then something that has a high perceived value that doesn't cost you hardly anything and doesn't take your time, because this is time intensive for you. So we want to remove that from anything extra that we put in this. It could be, you know, you talked about Katie. Katie adds like that chocolate or the snack or the cocktail mix. How easy would it be for you to print out a little, you know, drink mix on a card and add it to your subscription that would be in the theme of your cards? Like I saw your Valentine's kit, you know, you could do like a chocolate strawberry shake, you know, recipe or something like that in there that would be— that would seem with your cards. It would be so easy for you to add just a little bit of perceived value for no extra money, because we already know that this is labor intensive and your time is really valuable. So we know that we've got to price this in a way that you can be profitable, but also that it feels extra. The other thing that I liked when you were talking about this, you wanted to maybe have a Facebook group. I think that's a great idea. And what about like a once a month, like a Zoom night? Grab your kit and let's make cards together. You just talked about that in-person event, how you would sit there for 3 hours and talk and eat snacks and make cards and stuff like that. What if you hosted a Zoom card-making night once a month? They could grab any of their kits that they had that they hadn't worked on. You guys could sit and work together and have conversations and show each other what you're making and how your card is different from each other. That's how you build a community. And I think that if you You get so much joy out of it in person. You can totally translate that online. It's very easy to do. And it would create that bond between those people. Some people might have a hard time even getting out of their house. They may not live in your area. Like there's all kinds of reasons why people couldn't come in person. It doesn't mean that you have to stop doing the in-person events. You can still do the in-person events, but know that your online people could join you in the Zoom room, you know, within your, your subscription. So that could be a great benefit to being a monthly subscriber that that you always got a Make with Me night with Gina and anyone else that was inside the subscription. So I would tend to lean towards that Zoom night versus creating a Facebook group for you. And the reason I say that is because I went to your social media, I went to your social media and I saw the inconsistencies there. So if we're already inconsistent with our page, adding a group is not something that I want to put on you because it's, it's work too. You're going to have to be consistent now in two places. We're not consistent right now with our page, so I don't want to add something else to your plate when we're not nailing down the main page, right? So let's not think about that for right now. Let's think about once a month we can turn on Zoom, we can have a great time together, and we can make cards together. That's what I want you to think about as far as But that leads me into the social media. We're maybe feeling stuck because we're not getting very much engagement over there. We're not getting very much interaction over there. And I think that it's because of the inconsistencies. I, today we're recording this, it is April 15th and I haven't seen a post on your page in April at all. I'm just keeping it real, Gina. I'm keeping it real.

I know. I totally know. You know, back when I first started with trying to get online more, I was consistent. I was consistent. I was posting, I was going live twice a week and I saw my engagement grow. I saw my audience grow and it was so great. And see, it goes back to almost like it's the perfectionist in me. So then things started happening in my life. I got COVID, my heat and air went out of my brick and mortar, so I had You know, I had no place to go. I had no place to work. I had no place to hold class. You know, basement flooded. Um, I needed a new roof. Um, my son is accident prone. Next week he'll have his third surgery in a year. And so I feel like, oh, well, I can't, I can't get on Facebook and post all this stuff because what if I can't get back on there next week? Or what if I can't do two lives this week? I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to wait. Then until everything is perfect and I can start this without going, oh no, something came up, what if I can't do that later? And so I have all these ideas. I have all these ideas to do lives to, to get my audience built back up, you know, showing them tips and tricks on card making and making shakers and all this stuff to get them excited, you know, to get my monthly card subscriptions. And I'm like, well, but you know, I've got so much stuff going on that if I start posting and then I have to stop, I'm going to lose all of that. So it's almost like, I feel like I need to start over. Does that make sense?

It makes complete sense. It does. It's the story of your business, right?

It is. It is.

I start posting social media today because I have time to do it today, but I don't think I'm going to have time to do it tomorrow. I'm just going to wait until Wednesday instead. Yes, that's exactly it. And something else happens. You're like, well, scrap this whole week. I'll start Monday. And then the next month goes by and now we're in April 15th and I have no post from you on your social media. And this is how it happens. And I can see this, I can see this spinning in your head as you're telling me this. And I, I want you to know that I understand. I understand. And there is probably somebody listening right now that says, I need to talk to Gina because she is my soul sister right now. Like, this is exactly who I am. There are so many people that But this is what's happening in their head all the time. And so I want to clear that for you. I want to clear that for you because if we continue to operate that way, we're not posting until at least September. And so what's, what could happen till September? Do you want to look back in 90 days and say, I should have started this in April? Do you want to look back in July and say, what if I would have done this this in April instead of today. I would be 90 days further than I am right now. And so I don't know if you saw, but we did training today inside Launch Your Box, and I want you to write that down and I want you to go watch that over the next 2 days, no more than 2 days, find time to watch it. But I'm going to help you a little bit with a social media plan, because what I know to be true with most people that I coach is that if we just have a little bit of structure and if we have a little bit of a plan, we, we are more likely to show up and do the things if we know what we're supposed to do and when we're supposed to do it. And sometimes we get in our head about what I have to do, just like, just like I saw you in your head about posting, you know what you want to do. It's just a matter of like doing it. So we're going to create a plan today and anybody listening that is inconsistent with their social media or anything else that they've got going on with their business, creating some kind of system or structure is going to help you just check the box and move on and not spin around in your head about it. So here's what I want you to do. Because we're so inconsistent with social media right now, I want you to schedule one post a day for the next 30 days. That is your commitment to me. I want to see you go schedule one post a day. And in that training I did in the membership, I'm going to show you how I scheduled that right inside of Facebook. I only do it twice a week. So I'll pick 2 days a week. Mine are Wednesdays and Sundays. I'll sit down and I'll schedule my posts. So you don't have to think about if you're available tomorrow. You don't think about if you're going to be at the hospital with your son's surgery the next day. You don't have to think about what's happening all week long. You say, you know what, today I'm going to schedule the next 4 days. And then, and then on Sunday, I'm going to schedule the next 4 days. And no matter what happens in your week, you've got content that's being published on your Facebook for you. That will create consistency. Facebook will see it. Facebook will start generating an algorithm. People will comment, you'll engage back with them, and that's how this thing works.

Okay.

So it's, does that feel heavy to do one post today?

You know, it really doesn't because honestly, I love to do that. I love the posting and, and, you know, I'm kind of like the techie part of it. You know, I'm excited to build my new website. I'm excited to, to do the posts. Um, I enjoy that part of it. So I don't think it feels heavy to me at all. I think that having a plan is much better for me. I'm such a routine person. And so having a plan will be great. And, and I tell myself that all the time, I need a plan. I need to sit down and plan. Well, then I feel like I don't have time to sit down.

That makes sense too. We're doing the plan right here. We're doing the plan right here. So one post a day for the next 30 days, because you've already got a great start to your page. You already have followers. You just don't have any engagement. Because Facebook's not showing your posts to anyone right now because of the inconsistency. So it's probably not going to have a lot of engagement as you get started, but as the weeks go on, you're going to start to see the engagement and your content that you have on there is great. We just need more of it. And in that training I did inside the membership, I'm giving you tons of content ideas. So you can go over there and watch it and make some notes and you'll have lots of things to post about without even thinking about it. You could probably plan 7 posts today, um, just by you know, thinking about some content and you can just schedule them all. And it doesn't matter if the wheels fall off your week, you've got it done. The other challenge that I want to give you is I want you to start doing one live a week and I want you to start next week. And I want you to do that for a month as well. So this is your 30-day challenge. I want you to plan one live a week for the next 4 weeks. And I think it just could be make a card with me. And you just pick a card from one of your collections. You could either have it in your shop for sale as a kit, or it could be part of, you know, in the future it could be part of like your subscription, and then people will want to subscribe. So I want you to create a routine. I want you to pick a day and a time that you know you could be consistent with. For me, I go live Friday mornings at 9 AM, every Friday morning, 9 AM. I show up, I do my thing, I'm done. And I do it in the morning because if I do it in the afternoon, I'm going to overthink about it all day long, and I don't want to do that all day. Friday. And then I get it over with and I can have the rest of my day off if I, if I choose to. But it's easy for me to do it on Friday. I have to take my kids to school. No one's at the warehouse. No one's staring at me and what I'm doing live or whatever, you know, live. So, and then I don't talk myself out of it because people are expecting me to be live because I've created the schedule for myself and I've done the same schedule for 3 years now. So all I have to do is show up live and I quit talking myself out of all the reasons why I don't want to do it. But I want you to create a a schedule that you can keep. And it doesn't matter when every— when's the best time to go live. People ask me that all the time. And I'm like, when's the best time for you? Because that's what matters. More people are going to watch it on the replay than will ever watch it live. So just do what's best for you so that you can be consistent at it. And I think what you're going to see after the next 30 days of you doing the one post a day and going live is you're going to see engagement. You're going to see a connection. You're going to start to feel like I'm ready to launch. Launch because people are here and they're ready for it. And then that's going to move you one step closer to getting your box launched. And then as you get consistent with the one day, push it to once a day, push it to twice a day. I prefer 2 to 3 times a day for everyone, but I don't think it's necessary for you to jump in and just start, you know, all or nothing. Like you would— we've got nothing so far. So I just want you to take your time with it and be consistent. Consistent once a day consistently is better than 3 times today, 3 times tomorrow, and then you've fallen off for a week. Okay. So just plan it out for once a day, make that habit, get in that routine, and then you'll be able to layer onto that. And then the other thing that I wanted to talk to you about was this online versus in person. And, you know, I, I had a brick and mortar, we just shut it down last year. I felt this really deeply about— it's really hard to talk to both your in-person and your online person. And what moved the needle for me was kind of creating that bridge between the two. I loved the in-store classes. I love the in-store person. How could I take what I was doing in the store with people in person and create the same experience online? So when you're teaching, whether it be a scrapbooking night or a card-making event or whatever, whatever it is that you want to teach in person, could you do the same thing and teach it online? That's what I want you to think about. Could you hold a class online? Again, if you do a Zoom with your group, you're going to get more comfortable on Zoom. Could you charge to do a workshop online? And then you can offer it to both places and you don't feel like you're only talking to one or the other. And you can say, we have this kit available and you can come in person here, or you can buy your kit here and I'll send you the link for the Zoom room and we'll do it together. But I think you can really bridge the gap on the in-person and the online person by creating the same content for both people.

So I started doing a few of those classes online, um, you know, before it was— before we could all get together and they seem to go fine. And my locals though are like, oh, this is so fun, but I can't wait to get back in person again. And so I feel like in my locals, I'm sure like how you feel and everyone that's had a brick and mortar before, you know, they're not my customers, they are my friends and family almost. And so I'm like, oh no, well, I don't want to switch them all to online if they're not going to watch. And, you know, because some people are like, oh, I don't want to sit at my, at my kitchen table and do this. I want to go to the store and do it.

Yes.

So I've had a really hard time wanting to people please my, my people. And go, okay, well, I'll just do it online and I'll do it at the store. And then I'm thinking, okay, is that, is that too much? Is it too much work? Maybe I shouldn't. I don't know. I have been having a little trouble with that too, but the online classes that I did have, you know, went very well. And so, and I was selling them out of state, so that was all good. I guess I just worry about my locals not liking that, but I think I just need to stop worrying.

Yeah, stop worrying. But here's the thing, you can still provide that and, and, you know, you will We're teaching what, 6 or 7 times a month, right?

Yeah.

So if that is, if that's 3 in store, in person and 3 online, it's not like you're doing 12, right? You're not having to do everything 12. You're still offering the in person, but you're also bridging the gap between your in person customer and your online customer. And as you grow more online, you know, as your subscription box grows more online, you're going to have more online customers than in store customers. That was kind of the tipping point for me. When I started my subscription box, you know, it was all local in the beginning. And then when I started to really grow online, it became like this 60% in, in, you know, local and 40%. And now it's opposite. It's 60% everywhere else and 40% local. And so that you're going to have kind of that tipping point at some point, because I don't, you know, I know where you live, which is not far from me. We live in small towns. Like we don't live in these big metropolis where there's just so many people. And so there comes a point where if we want to grow and if we want to, if we want to scale, we do need to focus on that online customer. It doesn't mean that we don't love our local customer just as much. So we just have to provide both options.

Okay. All right. Well, that's what, that's kind of what my plan is to provide both options because I have to take care of my, my local people as well.

So and put it into a schedule so you can stop overthinking what you're gonna do and then you can do it. So how does this 30-day plan look for you? Posting once a day, going live once a week, bridging the gap between our, our local and our online. How does that feel for you over the next 30 days?

I think it feels good. It feels so good to feel like I have a plan.

Yeah.

Yeah. I, I'm excited about it. I, I, And don't be scared.

You've got— and it doesn't even matter, right?

It—

I want you to remind yourself, Sarah said it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm just going to get the job done. And what you're going to find is that people like less perfection anyway. So they're going to relate to less perfection. They're going to, you know, they're going to show up better for you. They like the messy stuff. So just lean into it a little bit. You're going to make it as perfect as you want to anyway, but just know if it's not all the way to perfect Gina standards, it's still going to be good. And then I can't, I can't wait to follow up with you in 30 days and to see how the month went and to see how you feel. If the mindset is a little bit different, if you feel better about it. And then I, I think after 30 days, we need to have a conversation about when we're going to launch the subscription box.

Okay. I'll be, I'm so, I'm so excited. I just, that's what I want to do. So yeah, awesome.

Well, Gina, anybody listening that would love to follow you and check up on your 30-day progress for me, where can they find you?

Um, I'm on Facebook, uh, Serendipity Lane on Facebook. Um, I'm not as much on Instagram. I feel like my, my followers are mainly on Facebook. So I do a lot more on Facebook. I would give out my website. I, it's in the process of changing because the website I had with my brick and mortar is way more than what I need for my online business. So it will soon be serendipitylanecreates.com. Um, but as of right now, it's enidserendipitylane.com. So those are the two places I hang out at, I guess.

Take your followers on the journey of the new website, show them behind the scenes, take that, show them what's happening and really engage them into going to your online shop, even your local customers.

Hours.

They're gonna love the process. All those behind the scenes stuff is great. So it is.

I like to watch that on other people, so I just need to do it myself.

Yeah, you got this. Okay, we're gonna check back with Gina in 30 days, and we'll be back with another Ask Sarah episode next week.

Thank you so much.

If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to Launch launchyourboxwithsarah.com, get on our waitlist, and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.