071: Ask Sarah: How Do I Introduce My Subscription Box to My Audience? with Holden Keepsakes

Have you been nervous to tell your audience about your subscription box idea? Not sure what to say or how to get the feedback that you want? Brianna is my guest today and we're going to tackle her fears and create a plan. Come listen.

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

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. We have another episode inside the Ask Sarah series. It's a good one for you today, but I've got Brianna here from Holden Keepsakes. We're going to learn a little bit about Brianna and then we're going to dive right into her question, which also might be a mini therapy session for all of you out there that are feeling the same way that Brianna is. Brianna, Welcome to the podcast. Why don't you just introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about your business?

Sarah Williams— Hi everybody, thank you so much for having me. My name is Brianna and I am the owner of Holding Keepsakes, where we make and sell glitter tumblers. I have been in business for about 3 years now. I started it just kind of as an escape from mom life. I just wanted to play with some sparkly glitter a little bit here and there, and then soon it needed to become a business to add some much extra needed income to our family. Whether just a couple dollars to get some gas or maybe even extra birthday presents. So that was always kind of the main goal. Always been a side hustle. I do have a full-time job and I also have 2 kids that are ages 15 and 6. So I'm kind of on 2 different worlds with the kid aspect.

That's a big span right there. Yes.

And so trying to maintain with them and work and everything, I can only really devote 4 hours a day to my business. And so I kind of have to remind myself to measure my success based on the hours that I have and not compared to everybody else.

Well, I love that perspective because that's exactly what it's about, right? Like, this is realistically, I have part-time hours, so I have my results have to be measured in part-time results and not comparing yourself that's working full-time in their business yet. So I love that about you. So now I'm going to just break this down for everyone listening, but Brianna is a Launch Your Box OG and she's been around for a while and she still has not started her subscription. Now we're just going to have a moment of silence for all the OG Launch Your Box members that have been hanging out with me for almost 2 years now and have not started their subscription box like Brianna. So What I want to do is I want to talk about why. Let's talk about why first. Let's talk through some of that and then we're going to get you on a path to finally do the dang thing and make it happen. So let's talk about why. Why have we been hanging around for 2 years thinking about this but not doing anything?

Yes. You know, there could be a why. And I think of a million excuses. Time, of course, is one of them. But fear and maybe self-doubt is a big part of it. In my mind, I know I want to have the big picture of what the box is before I introduce it. But then I also know, and I've been learning that if I just keep putting it off for the next day and for the next day and the next day, it never happens. And here we are 2 years later, not starting it. And so I've been listening to everything, but I haven't been implementing everything.

Okay. And I want to hold space for that because you are not uncommon to one, entrepreneurs in general, to other people that have been hanging out in Launch Your Box. And I love hanging out with everybody, don't get me wrong. But I also, you're here to take action and I want to help you to take action. But I want to read something that you wrote in your notes to me before we started the podcast, because I think it's powerful and I want everyone to just Soak it in because there are people listening right now to us that have the exact same feelings. So let me read it to you. You said, honestly, my biggest challenge is doubting myself, not making a final decision and not holding myself accountable to follow through. Like all the feels. I got all the feels for you when I was reading that. Like, I was like, oh, I feel this so deeply in my soul right now because that is what happens. That is what happens and it doesn't just happen to you. It happens to so many of us. It happened to me, too. I want us to talk about that for a little bit before we start the action, because here is the thing. You are never going to do the action if you are still holding on to that, right? So, let's talk through that because I guarantee you there is not a person listening that does not have any kind of doubt in themselves. We all deal with that and I want you to know that everyone deals with that. There are different levels of that and you might be dealing with it at a higher level than someone else is dealing with it. And it's a real thing. And I, and I want to hold space for that. That is a real thing. But the thing that I, I look at your area that you make things in, and you guys can't see this because you're on the podcast, but I'm on video with Brianna and there's glitter everywhere. Like clearly, you know what you're doing. It's like color-coded, organized, like it's amazing. And so I need you to step into what you know and that you know some stuff, OK? Like, we all know some stuff. It is how we put it out in the world and we think we are not good enough and we think we don't know the right things and we think we don't do the right things and we think, why would anybody watch me? Why would anybody listen to me? Why would anybody buy from me? So, all those things are in our head all the time going crazy, talking to us, giving us these negative feelings and telling us we can't do it and we need to push past that because clearly you have it together, OK? I can see the beautiful glitter tumblers off to your side. So you know how to do this. So now it's like, how do I push past that? And it's about making that final decision, like making the decision and then somebody following up with me and say, hey, did you do that today? Did you put that out there today? And having that accountability of someone checking on you because we're entrepreneurs, nobody checks on us. Nobody makes sure we clock in at work every day. Nobody tells us good job when they leave for the day. Like nobody's there to hold us accountable to anything that we do. And we have to do that for ourselves. But the problem is we don't tell ourselves good job very much. We don't tell ourselves we have to do anything. And so then we go through these periods of like, I don't want to do it, I don't have to do it. And that kind of snowballs on top of each other. Well, I have, and I would love for you to go back and listen to episode 69 because I kind of had a similar conversation with Gina about, she's like, Well, I've got this coming up, so I'll do that next week. And then next week comes and then she's like, well, I'll just wait 2 more days because I've already waited for a week. And then months go by. Here we're, we're in Launch Your Box for 2 years and we're like, well, crap, I haven't even done anything yet. And I, and I want us to break free of that like cycle. And you're laughing because it's true, right? True.

100% accurate. And before you know it, 2 years have gone by because there's not going to be a right time. The family's not going to stop life. Life's not going to stop. There's always going to be orders. There's always going to be something. And so if you don't actually do it, you're just thinking of the dream and not actually doing the dream and making the dream successful.

And I love that, you know, that, and you can just say, I know, I know, do it. Okay. So we're going to put a plan together so that you can just do it. And I think when you have someone giving you some step-by-step action that you then feel good about taking, you're more likely to take that. Step, right? So, you know, you know what to do. You have been around a lot of time, a long time. You know what to do. You know what I am going to tell you to do. And I love that your post inside the group says, Sarah is going to tell me, just do it. And I am going to tell you, just do it. But I am going to help you with it. I am going to help you baby step it because for someone like you, you are not going to just do it. You have to do a little bit at a time and you have to feel good about that. And that is going to bring momentum to do a little bit more. And then that is going to bring momentum to do a little bit more. And then you are going to look back and you are like, I just did it. I just did it. I did it my way and I did a little bit at a time. Okay. So I recognize that about you and we're going to do a little bit at a time. So you told me, I'm nervous to announce my box without having the vision of a completed box first. However, that prevents my audience in providing their opinion and interest. Let's talk about this. You're telling me you have very little interaction on your social media, right? Tell me about that. Tell me what we're doing on social media so I have an understanding of where we're at.

Social media, I have a decent following on Facebook, very small on Instagram. Um, I used to do lives, I was pretty consistent, and then about mid last year, um, probably about September, October, I just kind of disappeared. My husband stopped working at nights and he was home, and so I joined him on the couch instead of actually doing what needed to be done. And so as we know, if you're not on social media for very long, you're going to start over. So since probably about November of last year, I feel like I've been trying to rebuild myself. And then there would be a few days that I'm missing, and I just keep rebuilding myself. And so I haven't got the courage of doing lives again. I know that's a big one. And I try and ask little interaction posts to engage audience and kind of see what their interest is, is like You know, would you prefer coffee or tea? And I get very little engagement to it. And then, yeah. And so, and then in addition, I feel like I need to understand the box so I can be able to deliver it within a timely manner of it being spoken about.

Okay, awesome. So here's what I want you to do. The first thing that I want you to do, I want you to go listen to episode 68 that I just recorded with Lexi. We were talking about how to re-engage her audience. Now with Lexi, she's doing the post, she's doing the things, she has— it's crickets over there. So I gave her some very actionable steps on how she can start to re-engage her audience. So what I want you to do is I want you to listen to that. I want you to work on that. The other thing is you're making orders regularly, right?

Correct.

Okay, so can we record us making a tumbler, even if your face is not in it? Could you put the camera in a way where it was you and not the whole process? Maybe it's part of the process. Mm-hmm. And because I know it takes a long time, right? It takes some time to dry and things like that. But I think people love that, and if people could see your process behind what you do, it's interesting. And it may not be interesting to you because you do it all the time. But for someone like me that has never made a glitter tumbler, I love watching the process. I'm never going to do it. It takes a lot of time. I'm never— but I want to watch somebody do that. And in turn, I'm going to watch you make this tumbler, and I want you to talk while you're making the tumbler. Maybe you're putting the glitter on, maybe you're doing the whatever glue you put down, and then you have to put the glitter on, and they can see your hands and they can hear your voice. But if it's holding you back to show your face right away, just start with your hands and start with your voice. And maybe nobody's watching. Don't let that freak you out. Don't let that freak you out. I want you to just talk about the process and maybe talk about the colors or talk about, you know, why you chose this one to go together, or maybe tell a story about your kids. Maybe tell like, I've got to go, I've got to go dress shopping with my daughter who wears sporty everything today. So it's going to be like a stressful outing as a mom to try to find something for my daughter to wear for the sports banquet that she doesn't want to wear anyway. So you can like tell those mom stories, right? Like tell, tell like how many Cheetos you found in the couch this afternoon. Like whatever that is, talk about your life in a way that's comfortable for you, but talk about what you're doing for the day. It could be with work, it could be with home, it could be like a TV show or something that's happening, you know, in the news, but start to have conversations and let people hear your voice. People get connected to people from voice and video. So if you're not comfortable with the face yet, just do the hands. No one's there. Just tell a story like someone's there or invite some of your friends to come. And this is what I told Lexi. Say, hey, I've got to go live at 7 o'clock tonight. Could you just jump on and talk with me while I'm live? And that will create interaction and that will create algorithm changes in Facebook and that will create more people coming next time. And then more people are going to watch that on the replay. So I want you to Spend some time re-engaging your audience before we ever introduce the subscription box. Okay. Because what's going to happen if I told you today to go talk to your audience about your subscription box, nobody's going to hear it. And then you're going to feel defeated and you're like, I'm a failure. Nobody wants my box. Nobody commented. I'm shutting it all down. Let's burn it to the ground. I don't want to do this anymore. That's how you're going to feel, right? I don't want you to feel that way. So we need people to engage with us so then we can introduce it to the people. Okay. So let's start with some of that re-engagement. Go back and listen to episode 68 with Lexi and make some notes on that and you can start to re-engage your audience. How does that feel?

I love the idea of having the story and not a story about what I'm doing, because the problem I was finding when I was doing lives is I was, I was attracting other creators and not buyers, because I was given the details of, you know, this is what I use and this is how much I use, blah, blah, blah. But if I have an actual story that's life-related, then I really think that would really make a good turn in it.

Yeah. And I think if you can get someone, even if it's someone, you know, like your mom or your sister or your neighbor or anybody that's in your life, just say, hey, can you come talk to me on this live? It's going to make you feel relaxed. Um, I know when I first started recording podcasts, I'm just talking to myself, to a wall. Like, it's really hard. It's really hard. So I don't want to underestimate that, how hard it's going to be to tell a story to nobody. But so if you can get somebody, your support system, to just come ask questions in the chat and have a conversation with you while you're making, it's going to feel easier for you. And then that's also going to help more people. See what you're doing. And then you can connect with these people, like who's buying your product? What, what kind of things are they doing in their life? And you could talk about stories like that, and that's going to make you feel a little bit easier with showing up. And it's also going to help connect you with your audience and reengage them. So I want you to spend a little time doing this, and it's probably going to take maybe a month. So I'm going to say 30 days. I'm going to put you on a timeline because I feel like you need me to tell you when you need to do it and how you need to do it. So I'm going to put you on a 30-day timeline to re-engage your audience. Okay. So, okay, I'm going to give you this 30-day challenge to re-engage your audience. That means I want you to go live once a week, 4 lives. I don't care where you put them. I want you to go live and start re-engaging. I want you to be consistent with your posts every day. So if you haven't been posting daily, Game on. You better get that figured out because you've got 30 days. I want to see at minimum 30 posts over the next 30 days. And if you can do more, I want you to do more. 30 posts, 4 lives. And if you're feeling good about that, I also want you to do a couple short videos over the next 30 days. So take a couple short videos. You could be shaking glitter on something. That's a great, cute little video. Throw that on Instagram Reels, throw it on Facebook. Reels. Um, but that's really going to start to re-engage your audience and we need that lift before we do anything else. Okay. So now we're 30 days in, we've been re-engaging our audience. We've got people talking to us on a Facebook Live. People are liking our posts. It may just be 5 people, but people are there. We're going to keep building on that momentum. Now I pulled something before I got on this podcast episode with you. I pulled our subscription box social media captions. So it's this PDF that we sell in the shop for like $17, but it's a whole bundle of captions that you can use on social media for different stages that you're in. So I was looking for some ideas on that for you for this pre-launch that you're about to do. So after our 30 days, we're going to start to introduce our subscription box. And you told me I've got to make it perfect. I don't exactly know what I want in it, so I'm afraid to introduce it. We don't have to know what's going in it yet. We're just going to introduce the thought of it. So I've got one of the captions in the pre-launch section of this PDF. I'm pulling it up right now so you can read it to you, but we're going to do this word for word. Okay, you don't have to overthink it. I'm telling you exactly what to say here. It's going to say, I'm thinking about starting a subscription box. I'm so excited about it. If I were to offer a monthly subscription, what would you like to see in it? Let me know in the comments below. And I have some picture ideas that you can put. Maybe it's a picture of you thinking, maybe it's a picture of you holding an empty box, maybe it's a picture of just the box, maybe it's just a whole bunch of glitter stacked up. Like, you could do— there could be any images, but we need a good image here. And then this starts. Okay. So now we're thinking about it. What would you like to see in it? Now, if our audience has re-engaged with us, hopefully we're going to get some comments on it. And if we— do you have an email list?

Do not.

Okay.

That's something on my list.

Okay. If you had an email list, we could send this out in email, hit reply and let me know, and you could get some feedback that way. But it's okay if you don't. This is the first step. We'll show a box. Box in some way. It doesn't have to be your exact subscription box because you don't even know what's going to go in that yet, but I need you to start talking about it. And when you're re-engaging, I want you to mention that you're thinking about doing a subscription box, just like when someone's there, even if they're watching on the replay, just start to mention this idea and start to see what happens. Okay. And then once you introduce this, I want you to start talking about it often. And there's some other captions on this. Um, some other ideas. I want you to start a waitlist and I want you to pick a date, re-engage, introduce this, like plant some seeds. Hey, I'm thinking about doing this. Then I want you to build a waitlist and I want you to start planning towards a launch. Okay. So if I were going to ask you over the next— I'm going to give you enough time because I know you need the time. If I ask you over the next 4 or 5 months. If you could pick a launch date, could you look at a calendar right now and pick that?

Yes, I was thinking about July. Um, we've spoken through Inside Launch Box and we decided that August was a little too busy. And so, um, July is kind of what I was thinking. I was— my idea was the 15th or the 14th through the 15th, or those 5 days. And then, but my box wouldn't go out until August 1st, and so I wasn't sure if that was too big of a gap, but I also make custom personalized items. That takes time.

And the rule of thumb there is really you don't want it to be more than 30 days from when the time you take their payment to the time you deliver their product. So that's, you know, a couple weeks, that's going to be perfectly fine, especially because it's custom made. You want to give yourself enough time to customize that. So I love this. I love this. We have a date and now we have something to work towards instead of just a thought. Like, okay, I've been thinking about this, but I've never actually put a plan in place. So let's take the first 30 days. So the next 30 days, I want you to reengage your audience and I want you to start planting the seed. Then I want you to get a waitlist built and I want you to start driving traffic to the waitlist. Your customers that are buying tumblers, put a note in there in their purchase. I'm thinking about starting a subscription box, sign up here to be on the waitlist. Like, let's start getting the word out that this is happening, even if you don't know exactly what it is yet. Okay. And then as we're doing this, I want you to go back and revisit— I really, I want you to come to coaching week. I'm about to do coaching weekend. Let's go through the Post-it note challenge, the 6 in 60 workshop. Let's go through that again with fresh eyes. You might have some feedback from your re-engagement and stuff like that before coaching week starts, but that's going to give you a picture of what this is going to be so that you can talk about it in a more confident way as you start to launch it. And just remember, you don't have to have it all figured out. For me, I had 3 months figured out in my head when I launched it. So if you can think about what you want to include in this, whether it's the one thing of the month or whether you're going to create the experience, either way, once you have that figured out, then we can figure out the details. You're creative. You're going to be able to figure out the details. It's just determining what exactly is going to be in that box for amount of product, basically. And then you're going to be able to run with it. And once you can start to make some of these decisions, you're going to feel good about it. You're going to feel relaxed. About it. And that's a matter of just continuing to build your audience, continuing to show up, continuing to engage. You'll be able to build on that as you go, but we gotta get it out there. We gotta get it out there, but we gotta have people to get it out there. So it's like the chicken and the egg. What comes first, right? Is it, I gotta have the box so I can find the people, or I gotta have the people so they can buy the box? You gotta have the people first. Um, and you've already built a business, you already have customers that are buying from you, so you're already out there. We just need to let them know that we're planning on doing this. Okay. Perfect. Does this feel like a good plan?

An absolute perfect plan.

I'm going to push that.

I need—

yes, yes. So I'm holding you accountable. My team's going to hold you accountable and everybody listening that is a Launch Your Box member. I need you to hold her accountable and I want you checking on her in the group to make sure that We're making progress not only with our 30-day re-engagement, but also we're making progress with getting closer to the launch and actually launching. And if you need Launch Your Box members to help you get through to actually launch, then we need, we need that support. And don't be afraid to ask for that support because that's why we're there. That's what that group is for. We can help get you to the launch stage so that you can stop doubting yourself. You can stop overthinking it. You can stop pushing it off to another day, another week, another month, another year. I don't want to be talking about this next year, OK? I want to have you back on in 6 months talking about, why did I wait so long, Sarah? This is amazing. That is what I want. I don't want you to go another 3 months or 6 months thinking about this when we could be taking action and generating an income from that. That's the most important thing to provide that income for your family, to support your business, to support your family and all the things that you do, whether that is gas money, whether that is, you know, rent money or the mortgage, like whatever that looks like for you. I want you to be like, yes, I did it. And I, and I'm really, really confident in it. And it takes stepping out into that uncomfortable place. You've been hiding in that comfortable place. Because you're afraid to do that, but you don't have to do it alone. And people are there to support you in your life and in our Community. So let's start taking some action. How does that feel?

That feels amazing. And it's funny because it seems so simple, but once you sit down to do it, your mind kind of blanks. So having those templates is going to be very helpful and a big push that's needed.

Yeah, and it was the same for me. I knew I needed to go live. I knew it. Everybody around me was doing it. I knew that was growing their audience like crazy, and I couldn't push the dang button. And I just was in my head about it. And had I not had someone that was on the other side of the camera waiting for me to show up, like that friend that I told you about— where are you? I need to go to lunch. I'm waiting for you to go live. And I'm I was sitting there going, I can't go live. You know, I am like having that panic attack. And I was like, oh crap, she is waiting on me.

Just go live.

Just go live. And so it was that accountability because I could talk myself out of it 10 times. I could tell myself I had other things to do all day long, but because somebody was waiting for me to show up live because I had asked her to, now I was committed. So I need you to get committed. Let's do it. And if you are a Launch Your Box member or just a member of the community that listens to the podcast, I want you to put your eyes on Brianna's Facebook page to hold her accountable. So where can we go find you to make sure you're doing the thing? Tell us where that's at.

They find me at Holden Keepsakes, and that's on Facebook and Instagram.

Okay, so now all of my hundreds of thousands of listeners are going to go over and make sure that you are re-engaging in your community hold you accountable so that we can launch our box. All right. Perfect.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for opening up about this topic because I know it's not easy and I appreciate you for that. And I know it's going to help so many more people. If you're sitting here and you felt the same way, then I want you to go reengage your community, go set a launch date, and let's do it all together.

All right.

I'll see you guys back here next week at the Launch Your Box podcast. 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.