077: Lean Into Your Best Selling Products and Create a One Thing of the Month Subscription

Sometimes we lay in bed at night dreaming about our carefully curated box, but what if it was easier to start a one thing of the month subscription? Last month during Subscription Box Coaching Week, I interviewed Rhonda. Her journey took lots of twists and turns and landed into a successful subscription box business. Come listen, I know it will get your ideas going on a one thing of the month subscription box business.

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, everybody. It is time for another fabulous interview this week. This time I'm talking with Rhonda. Rhonda has an amazing story. It follows all the ups and downs of every entrepreneur, doesn't it, Rhonda? Absolutely.

Lots of downs.

Yeah, lots of ups, lots of downs. And it lands on a one thing of the month. And I love this story and I know you guys are going to love it because inside Subscription Box Coaching Week, Rhonda, we have been talking about this one thing of the month concept all week long. We started talking about it Sunday night when we were doing the Post-it Note Challenge. And as we've been asking questions and they're talking about like, I want to see this in real life, I want you to see, I want to see how this could be possible. So we're going to tell them about your story, Rhonda. Let's take them back to the beginning and let's just take them on the journey and then we'll talk about how you landed on the one thing of the month.

So my previous life, I was a registered nurse. I did labor and delivery. I brought these sweet little babies into the world and it was a really, really wonderful career. And then it's going on 5 years ago, I had an injury that I sustained that kind of, I at the moment thought was just postponing my career. And during that time of trying to heal, I turned to just something that I enjoyed— quilting and embroidery. I loved it. And as the months went on and I saw that I wasn't going to heal, someone said, you should start an Etsy store, you should do this or that. And so I, I didn't go the Etsy route. I, I just jumped into Shopify immediately and started a little monogram business that kind of quickly took off. I have a daughter who's kind of in the influencer world, and and she's really cute. And so I would put my pajamas on her that I had monogrammed, and, and it did really well. And so pre-COVID, my business really was online only, e-commerce, and I did tons of wedding PJs, like for bridal parties and stuff like that. Bridal parties. I did beach towels for their bachelorette parties. We did all kinds of fun things. And it was just— I did other things as well, but bridal was my main bread and butter. It really was, and it was great. It allowed me to bring on an employee to help me out part-time, and it was a full-time gig out of my house. And then moving forward, like growing, moving forward to January of 2020, I signed a lease on a space in my little small town in Comfort, Texas. And February, we moved all the stuff out of the house into the space, and I didn't know if I was going to do retail, but Anyway, then you know what happened in March of 2020.

The whole world shut down. So your business is growing, you're really thriving in the pajama monogram pajama space. Your daughter is a great influencer and she was wearing the things and that was bringing you a lot of traffic.

A lot.

And so you were like, all right, I'm doing well, I'm going to invest in this little business of mine, I'm going to get a little brick and mortar location. And you're getting ready, you're moving in, and the pandemic hits. And you're, you're doing bridal party stuff. So tell me what's happening with that.

Well, of course the bridal party stuff stopped, like ended. No weddings, no bridal PJs, no nothing. And so it was— and you know, I had this employee that I was, uh, so proud to have her because I knew I was helping support her family too. That's the beauty of entrepreneurship as well. There's so many rewarding things that are beyond whatever the revenue is. And that was one of them. And so my fear was that I was going to either have to let her go or walk out on a lease, or what was I going to do at that moment? And this was February, March, you know, around that time. And I had considered doing, before COVID doing a subscription with Monogram PJs. And I had kind of thought through the whole process. It was going to be quarterly because who needs 12 pairs of PJs every year? And I, you know, I had gone through that whole thing, but I was so busy doing the bridal stuff, I just didn't have time to see it through. So I just had to take a moment and pause and look at my sales and what other items was I selling a lot other than PJs. And it was super clear, and it was dog bandanas.

Okay, so let's get this straight. So number one seller, monogram PJs, particularly in the bridal space. And then a close second are dog bandit personalized dog bandanas, right?

Yeah, I come by it naturally. I'll tell you why they were so popular for me. I have 8 dogs.

You have 8 dogs?

I have 8 dogs. I have 6 Shih Tzus and 2 Dachshunds, and they're just so cute that if I showed a picture of them with a bandana on, I mean, yeah, so you had your built-in—

you had 8 influencers living in your house. And so it was like natural pieces of content for you, right?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And doing, you know, being on social media myself and going on live or going doing stories with Tootsie is my number one dog. She's a camera hog, like really, she really is. She's chocolate brown Shih Tzu and she loves the camera. And so all of my followers got to know Tootsie and love Tootsie, and, and it was easy to bring in the orders for the dog bandanas. And so I thought, what if, what if my subscription is a monthly dog bandana instead of a quarterly PJ? Because it's so much fun to buy the fabrics and curate these themes around dog bandanas, and people love to dress their dogs.

And you made it so simple, right? So you made it— we didn't overcomplicate it. And I think that's where we get a little bit overenthusiastic in the beginning of curating a subscription box. We want it to have all the bells and whistles. We want to have the cute packaging. We want it to be over-the-top fabulous. Like, we want to include all the things in it. But if we really step back, and I'm sure you're probably really grateful as you have grown and scaled that it didn't have all the bells and whistles to it because it becomes a lot of work. And so It literally is a dog bandana that's personalized.

That's it. It's that inside a poly mailer. And I do include, which I never promise, but it's just that little extra. I include one dog treat in a little thing and, and that's it. They get a dog treat, just one nibble for their pup and their dog bandana.

I love it. Okay, so let's talk about launching this thing. We're in the middle of pandemic and you're thinking, you've thought this through. You're like, this is my next bestseller. Everybody still has dogs, right? Nobody, nobody doesn't have dogs anymore. And we're seeing our dogs a little bit more than we normally would because we're at home, right? Like let's dress them up. Let's make them a little bit more festive. And so you go to launch this. Tell me, did you do anything different on your social media because you had a lot of this bride following, this wedding following? Did you do anything different on your social media?

I did. I started to just kind of like trickle out something new is coming. Something great is coming. Something that everybody will love is coming. And then I just did, you know, a countdown is what I did. A very simple countdown: in 5 days, in 4 days. And then the day of, I was like, it's Posh Pups. The name of my business is Monogram Number 29, but I wanted to differentiate this so that people paid attention a little bit, and I named it something. It— Posh Pups is under the Monogram 29 umbrella, but it just gave me a word Yes, kind of say that they would go, wait, what is she talking about now? And so I literally just did a countdown and we opened it. And I want to say the first day we had like 40 subscribers because I promoted it so big. And then my daughter of course threw it out there. I was like, holy cow, now I have to make 40 dog bandanas all at once as opposed to 1 or 2 a day, you know. But it was— the excitement was there. And then it was getting them out. And the best part ever was— well, okay, two best parts. One was reading all of the dog names. That was the funnest thing I've ever done, ever. And I still get a lot of giggles out of it. But the second was sending out their little poly mailer and then them opening it and posting a picture of their dog on their social media with our bandanas. And that's when it really took off, was they were posting, and of course I did a little card in there that said, if you share on your social media, we'll put you in a drawing for a free dog toy. And so it worked, it was so simple.

And the marketing is so simple because if I'm buying a bandana for my dog and she's gonna get one every month, you better believe I'm putting that sucker on and she's gonna be all over my Facebook page because she's so cute, right? And that's what happened, it was like this built-in marketing engine for you. Because every month, every month when their dog got a new bandana, they would get their dog, you know, put it on. We put it on, we'll take a picture. Everybody needs to know because it's a big deal when people treat their dogs like children, which a lot of people do. Like, it's just like me posting a picture of my daughter playing basketball, right? Like, this is my dog with their new bandana. And I think it's a genius marketing tactic. So you launched at 40 And then let's talk about your growth and where you are now. So how did growth come?

Well, you know, it was, we launched at 40 and I probably had half of that the next month, another 20. And then it was summertime and summertime was a little bit slower. And I, I think probably because I was busy with just summertime stuff and I didn't put it out there as much, but starting in August or September, I had another big push and I got over 100. By then. And I— well, let me actually back up. Hold on, Sarah, I missed an important part. I found you— my assistant that I still employ only because of this subscription service and recurring revenue— she found you on Facebook, and she was like, look at this, she does monogramming like you do, and she has this— she has a subscription service. And so I started watching, and it was just— you must I had— you were just starting a coaching week, and I'm like, oh, I'm totally doing this. I was winging it. I had no idea what I was really doing. So anyway, I found you. I did coaching week, the Post-it note challenge. Holy cow, like, rocked my world as far as, like, I was trying to figure out what fabric for my— you know what I mean? Like, I didn't have a system to it, and you helped me put a system to it, which made it so much more fun. And it— here was one of the problems was getting fabric through that summer. Getting, you know, sourcing stuff was tough. But when you made me think ahead 6 months, that helped tremendously. And so I was able to order out ahead, and then as I was more excited about what fabrics I was bringing and the everything that I was sending out, it just kept building upon itself. And we'll just fast forward to I want to say at the beginning of the year I had over 200, and today I send out over 330 dog bandanas every single month.

Oh, I love it!

And it's just the dog bandana.

It's just a dog bandana, y'all, and it fits on their collar like it's the cutest thing ever. Yeah, slides right into their collar. They're not, not tying anything extra around their neck, and that way they can't chew it off, right?

They can't chew it off. It doesn't accidentally fall off at the dog park. Honestly, my dogs don't even know. I should, I should wear one. They don't even know that it's on. Like, I slip it on and they just go about their business. But you know what they do know? They do know that their owner gets so excited when they put it on, and so they reciprocate. The dogs get so excited because I'll put their bandana on and I'm like, oh my God, look how cute they are! And the dogs are like, oh, I'm cute, I'm cute. So it is.

And that's how everyone else is reacting too. And that's why this marketing engine is like feeding itself.

Right.

And so tell me about, tell me about the plans for the future. So what, what does this look like for you? Actually, tell, tell them how much it— before we talk about the future, tell them how much it is. And then let's talk about what if I have 2 dogs or 3 dogs or 8 dogs? What options do you have?

Right. So the— we have 2 different styles, what we call a boy bandana. It's a straight edge and it's $19.99 a month. And then the ruffle, which I love, that one is $27.99 a month.

Okay.

And so if they have multiple dogs, there is a little bit of a discount for each additional dog. And the beauty of that too is I do not roll the shipping into the cost of my bandanas. And so if they have 8 dogs, you know, it's even less because they're shipping 8 bandanas to the same address. But these weigh nothing. Yeah, so it's the same.

And I love— can I tell you about these styles? Because I love how, like, I have a boy dog and a girl dog.

Yes.

And so they complement each other, but they're not exactly the same. So the colors of the fabric and the patterns complement each other. They just look stylish, almost posh-like.

Rhonda, imagine that. Yeah, no, and I try to do that most months. I try to pick coordinating fabrics. In some months they do get the exact same fabric, but I might do something cute like with the embroidery part. The little girls might have a little something something, and the boys, you know, I try to keep it fresh and different. Like, they have no clue what they're going to get each month, and they get so excited about it, let me tell you.

Yeah, I can't even imagine. Is this theme-based? It looks like that's a patriotic theme for this month.

Patriotic. Yep, this is this month. It's red, white, and blue, and I love the little stars. And then I'll show you last year's. Last year's was really fun too. Last year's was this red, white, and blue floral.

Okay.

And then the bandana for the boys, which I don't have anymore, was just a cute little bandana print, but it was adorable. I try to keep it— I call it Posh Pups because I want to keep it a little bit more posh and less cutesy. Cutesy, character-ish, cartoonish. Yeah, it's just You know, this is their wardrobe. Like, I— my— you want to talk future? My future is to build a closet for my dogs and have their little wardrobe hanging.

I love that. You better do that.

I want to. I said, because they have quite the wardrobe now, let me tell you.

And it does look like you have different sizes, right? So you have a smaller one so you can determine what size fits your dog.

Yep. And actually, I am an all-inclusive Is that the right word? Yes, you could, you could put this on your kitty cat. It fits kitty cats. We have done them for kitty cats, so it's not just dogs.

Can you personalize that little one too? Oh yeah, it's so cute. I love it, and it's so fun. It's so simple.

Yep.

Yes, you're personalizing them, so that adds a layer of complication, and I know exactly what that's like. Yeah, but let's talk a little bit about people that are thinking about doing a one thing of the month. What advice would you give them?

I would say— oh, I would say seriously consider keeping the one thing. But I would say to look around you. What is the one thing that you would buy? Like, what's the one thing you need every month or that you want that will bring you joy? Those are two things. Like, if I were to think about going outside of the dog world and doing something else, then I would think What do I wear every day? Or what do you know? And go along that line, but then differentiate yourself even more. You've said it a million times, the riches are in the niches. And just ask, take it down one more notch and just kind of keep taking it down, taking it down, and then get as simple as you can. Because I'll tell you, we did a box. And we have subscribers for the box that they get the bandana and a dog toy and a full-size dog treat and blah blah blah. But you know what, it's so much more work and the revenue is so much less considering the work that you have to put in it. Yes, you know what I'm saying?

Like, absolutely.

And if, if that's your thing and if you love curating, like, I watch you do the unboxings and so many people have so many wonderful things. But I will say that a year plus, almost a year and a half into this, I don't have the energy to do all of that. Like, keeping it simple and keeping one thing, I can handle that. But coming up with 10 things to put in a box, I personally get very overwhelmed by that. Yeah, yeah.

And it's a, it's a great place to start. Like, you don't really start with all the things in the box if you want to do that later and curate the, the bigger box later. The one thing of the month is the best place to start because it's the easiest, the most cost-effective, the most efficient. Let yourself get a handle on what it's like to have monthly subscribers over and over before you overcomplicate it. And it doesn't mean that a box fully curated has to be overcomplicated at all. But what we're trying to say here is that one thing of the month could be very profitable and a lot easier. So don't count it out because it's not the box. Full of all the things, it can still be a very lucrative business. Well, I kind of have a question for you. As we were talking, now that the world is opened back up, are you still doing pajamas?

It started up a little bit. It really has come back around. Um, it's not to where it was pre-COVID yet, and I am trying to make decisions around that as to what, what all do I want to handle. But I'll tell you this, because of this subscription, I'm still open to consider those options. Yes, I wouldn't have been if I hadn't have done this. I might have gone back home and just done a little bit or whatever, but I would not be able to do what I am now if I do want to go down that road. Because of the revenue from my subscription service, I have more options to make those decisions and market PJs if I want to, or whatever. Yeah, I have a brick-and-mortar boutique in Comfort, Texas, and I enjoy that part of it. I have gone full circle around that in a year because I thought, oh, I don't want it, and then I'm like, oh, I kind of really enjoy it. But again, I wouldn't have it if I didn't have the recurring revenue from Poshmark.

It just stabilizes your business.

Yes.

And you know, the way things are right now, it's still uncertain. We've been living in this uncertainty for years, right? There's Maybe a recession coming, maybe not. Nobody knows. What does that mean? How does that, how does that affect me? But when you have something like this that builds recurring revenue in that you don't have to like stand up and shout, buy me, buy me, buy me all the time, it really makes it effortless. It makes it, it makes it just, it just works. Like money just keeps coming in and you don't have to show up and sell when something happens and then you feel slimy trying to sell in it, right? That's what happened in the pandemic. It's like, okay, we're shutting down your brick and mortar. All these people are freaking out. Like, we don't know what's happening. We don't know if this 2-week flatten the curve is now 2 months. Like, what's happening? And how do I look as a person? Come buy my cute boutique things.

Yes.

And I didn't want to do that and I didn't have to do that. And that's exactly what happened. And now I can sell when I want to. I can sell when I'm excited about it. But I know that I have recurring revenue before. If I didn't show up and sell, I didn't have sales for the day. I didn't have sales for the month. So if I didn't show up and make sales, sales just didn't automatically happen all the time. And I think that's the benefit. That is what recurring revenue does for our businesses, which make things just a lot easier for us to relax, step away from the business, and and take days off and take weeks off and do different things with our life because we don't have to show up and sell every single day, right?

No, that's absolutely true. And you do have more flexibility to make better decisions. I will say on that point, I think during COVID and/or during— if we're in a recession or whatever, I think it's important to consider your price point of your one thing too, even though, you know what, cancellations happen and all of that. When that happens when you first start out, like, you feel like you're being gutted, right? But honestly, yeah, it is. It's soul-crushing for sure. But I mean, you get to a point where you're like, okay, that just is what it is. But there really is always someone right behind them that fills that spot, and then you get a few more ahead each month. I'm still ahead each month, but I will say that if this is a recession that we're going into, having a $19.99 or $27.99 a month one thing, it's so much easier. You know, people are less likely to say, okay, I don't want this. And also the joy that a dog bandana can bring, at least they can have that if they can't have the, you know, $500 purse, whatever it is. I don't know, you know.

Exactly. It's not gonna break, it's not gonna break the bank, right? And so I love having the option. I love having a low price option. I do have a higher price point subscription. I love my $20 a month subscription, um, and it does bring a lot of revenue into the business every single month. So don't discount it.

Don't discount it.

Rhonda, I have two important questions. The first one is, what is the funnest dog name you've ever embroidered?

Oh gosh, well, I had a duo. I had two brothers and they were Willie and Waylon, and being from Texas, that was fun.

Not everybody can get that, but we get that.

Yeah, right. Oh, we have a Sassy right now, and I— that reminds me of the— I don't know if you watch that show, um, The Big Bang Theory. I think that one of the characters had a cat named Stazzle or Dazzle or something. So every time I stitch Sassy, I just giggle. I think it's so fun. But, um, Duke and Tinkerbell are fun.

I have a— I have a monogram subscriber and her initials are LOL, like little. I love it. Every time we stitch it out, I love it.

I know, it's fun.

It's fun.

Yeah, I've stitched DNA a lot and I'm like as a nurse, you know, all those letters mean a lot more to me. It's funny.

What is your favorite part about Launch Your Box?

Oh, that's easy. It's the camaraderie and the community. You get so much more for your money just with the education, but the community is priceless because it's not easy being an entrepreneur, and it's lonely. Even if, like, even in my own home, it's very lonely. My husband's super supportive and he listens to me, and— but he I don't know. It's just nobody else gets it except for that one other person. And I feel like that has, you know, a business or a subscription service, because even having a subscription service is very different than just being an entrepreneur.

Yes.

And so to talk that same language with all of those people in the group, it is, it's invaluable. Is that the right word?

Yeah.

Invaluable. You can't put a price on it.

No. And I've watched you build these connections with some people in the group, and you guys are a very tight-knit group and super supportive of each other. And I know exactly what that is like because I found that early on in my entrepreneurial journey too, in a group like this as well. And we are so close. We talk every day. I'll have a great idea today, and they'll be like, that's dumb, Sarah. And I'm like, oh, you're right, it's dumb. Or they're like, that's fantastic. And if I went and said, hey kids, what do you think about that? They'll be like rolling their eyes at me like, what?

Right.

Your friends support that. Like, yes, you should do that. And they're always there to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly of the advice. No, they know what you're going through. And finding something like— that's one of the biggest things. Like, can you help me find this item? Boom, 5, 6, 7, 8 people are commenting that get it from here, you can get it from there, you can get it from there. Um, can somebody take a look at this for me? I don't know if my opt-in is working. I got it, I got it, I got it. Like, people are there answering your questions and just anytime you need support or anything.

We all get ideas that pop in our heads and it's like you just want to talk about it through and because you're either going to mull it over in your head for 2 days or you can say it out loud to somebody or type it in a thing and they can either confirm it or go, yeah, no, that doesn't work.

Let's rethink this. Hey, what, let's spin this, let's twist it, let's rethink this a little bit. And then that takes you in a different direction and then you're, solidifying your plans, and then your plans turn into action. And when the action starts to take hold, that's when starts to— things start to change for your business. And that's where the implementation of the training comes in, and that's where you start to make progress with your business. And then you look back and you're sending 330 dog bandanas out every single month. That is sustaining your business, and that's powerful.

It really is.

And I know there's been a lot of twists and turns in your journey, and you are not a quitter, and you hang in there. And I'm so proud of you, and I'm so proud of how far that you've come with this. And I can't wait to see what's next. I feel like I got some ideas in my head for you, but I can't wait to see your growth and what's next, you know, for you. But I, I can see it, like, you're ready for the next thing. You're ready. You're ready to grow. You're ready to step into it.

Absolutely.

So Rhonda, enjoy the rest of your day with your grandkids. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

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.