079: Give Yourself a Raise with a Subscription Box Side Hustle

Has inflation got you down? Are you waiting on a raise that might never happen? Today we're talking about how creating a subscription box side hustle could generate $1,000 extra a month with only 50 subscribers. 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.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. Today I'm bringing up a topic that has just been in the forefront of my mind lately. And I want to talk to you about how a subscription box business doesn't have to be your full-time gig. I recently was watching the news and there was a lot of discussion around people getting second jobs and people starting side hustles. And I was watching that thinking about how this could apply to the subscription box industry. And I started to think about inflation and the cost of everything going up. But a lot of times the cost of people's income is not going up. Like you're not getting raises from your employers because I mean, the cost of everything for them is going up as well. So you just, are taking on more costs with the same amount of income. And people are looking for ways to, you know, combat that. And they're becoming Uber drivers and they're becoming DoorDash delivery guys. And they're taking second jobs in different places where they've never had to do that before. And so I started to think about what this would look like for someone that has a 9 to 5 gig. How would they take on kind of a side hustle with a subscription box business and how they would do that? So I want to lay that out for you today. I've got some great kind of step-by-step things that I think you should do anytime you want to start a business or even start a side hustle. But what if you had an extra $1,000 a month to add to your everyday full-time income? How would that change your life? I want you to think about it. Think about $1,000. When I was working full-time, if I got $1,000 a month raise, that's huge. That could change everything about your life. And you can do that with a subscription box business with as little as 50 subscribers a month. 50 subscribers. That would all that you need to bring in an additional $1,000 a month into your family's income. And so let me break down the math for you on that. Cause you're like, Sarah, how's that work? How does that work out? Let me tell you, if you had 50 subscribers with a $20 profit, so whatever your subscription is, if you could figure in a $20 profit on your price point, it would give you $1,000 a month income. So say you had a $45 subscription box, and $20 of that was profit, gives you about a 44% profit margin. You could build in $1,000 a month back into your bank account, and it doesn't require you to have to hire anyone. Like, you could manage 50 subscribers very easily. You could pack and ship 50 subscription boxes a month. You could do it after your 9 to 5. You could do it on the weekends. If you have children, you could do it after your kids went to bed. Like, 50 subscribers is so doable. And it could mean everything. Like it could mean everything for your income and for your family. And all we have to do is just get started. If we start something new while you have the safety and security of your day job, like it doesn't seem so scary. It's not like we're quitting our 9 to 5 and we're going to build a business. I would not recommend that to anyone. You start the side hustle first, you build it. And as you grow, there becomes a tipping point. Of whether you go all in with the side hustle and make it a legit business, or it just stays a side hustle. And there's no right or wrong answer to that. It really depends on what you want to do, but I'm too scared. I guess I have this kind of risk analysis in my life. I'm not very risky. I thought I was, maybe I was when I was younger, but as I get older, I'm just not very risky with things. And so for me, I want to be able to generate an income before I lose my income, right? So let's start a subscription box side hustle. Okay. And you're like, okay, Sarah, I'm in. How are we going to do this? And so I identified a couple of different steps that I think that you need to take with your thinking about doing this. And so let's walk through those and we'll talk through some examples, but I want to really give you a great visual of what this would look like for you. So number 1, I want you to identify what you like or what you have interest in. Maybe it's knowledge that you have, maybe you have some expertise in some area, but you have to be passionate about the subject matter of your business or your subscription box, or it's not going to last. So don't try to be like anyone else. Don't say, well, oh, this other business is doing that, so they're successful, I'll do that too. That's not going to work. Make sure it's something you love or you're good at. So I was trying to think of a great example that I could share with you. And I started to think about like my husband, if he was starting a subscription box business, or if he came to me and said, hey, I want to start a subscription box business, what advice would I give him? And so I thought about this and for him, I think about what, what does he like and what does he have interest in and passions around? Like what lights him up? What does he want to do in his off time? And that's fishing. Okay, so he's like, he loves fishing. And so I thought if he were going to start a subscription box, he would have so much fun doing something fishing related. So then number 2, that I'm identifying what he likes. So once you identify what you like, what you're interested in, what you have expertise in, anything like that. And then number 2 is, are there people around you with the same interests? So we're going to figure out who around us would be interested. This is the first place that we go to potentially get customers. And, and I want you to think about where would I find more people like me? So if he's interested in fishing, obviously he has friends that are interested in fishing because they all go fishing together. And then how would he find more people that would be interested in fishing? And I think like, where do these people hang out on the internet? If you like fishing, if you're just, You are really into fishing. Where are you hanging out on the internet? And my first thought was YouTube, like you are probably watching some YouTube videos. But then something clicked in my mind that was just so— it is kind of funny. I watch these. I love reality TV, OK? I love dumb reality TV. And he kind of makes fun of me about it. But I always watch these dumb shows and I just love them because it just makes me feel better about my life, OK? But when I am watching these dumb reality TV shows, he is always watching someone fish on TikTok. Like, it blows my mind that someone is live on TikTok at all hours of the day and night fishing, and he'll find them and he'll watch them be on their boat fishing somewhere, and he's watching them on TikTok. So in my mind, I would tell him, number 3, start your social media business accounts. So he was like, I want to do a fishing box. These people hang out on TikTok and YouTube. They do videos. Okay, well, that's where you need to be. If you're hanging out on TikTok watching fishing videos or you're hanging out on YouTube watching fishing videos, you need to start your own account, your own fishing videos. You need to be sharing other people's videos. Like take that TikTok, share it on your page. You're going to attract more people that would want to watch that. I'm not watching a fishing video. I'm not watching a fishing video on TikTok. I'm not watching a fishing video on YouTube or Facebook. That's not my thing. I'm not interested. but he will do that all day long. So someone like him would watch that on his page too. So start sharing things, start sharing posts from other fishing pages, start sharing videos. Ask your friends that like fishing to go over there and like your new fishing page. Ask them to share with their friends if they have friends that like fishing. You want to speak the language on your page. Of people you're trying to attract. So for him, it's like, what's that lingo that fishermen, fisher guys, fishing people, what language do they use when they're talking about stuff? There's probably terminology that I don't know of. There's probably things that they would say that I wouldn't be aware of, but people that like those things are going to know exactly what he's talking about. And so we have to start speaking their language. This is how we start audience building. We're attracting people like us if we're our ideal customer, and we want to start putting out content that entertains them or educates them. And that's what will attract people to your page. So now that I've identified my interests, I've got some people around me that have the same interests. I started up my social media accounts. And this is what I'm going to start doing after I have a little time with my social media accounts, I would say probably about 30 days of posting regularly, sharing some video, creating some content, just establishing that account a little bit. I would run a giveaway next. So if you're thinking about doing, say he's thinking about doing a fishing box, I would want to put together a giveaway. With a box that would be similar to what I want to sell. So I would get a box, I would go out to the fishing stores, whatever stores those are, the sporting goods stores, the Walmart, wherever you buy fishing stuff. You can see I'm very skilled in my fishing knowledge right here. And I would buy products that I would want to put in my subscription box, and I may not even know what that looks like yet. I'm just going to get an idea. I'm going to curate a box and buy some stuff. I'm going to put it in a fun box. And I'm going to give this away to someone and I'm going to start to build my email list. There's a program that's free called KingSumo and you can run a giveaway on KingSumo very easily and you can ask people to like your social media pages. You can get their email lists, all kinds of things. So it's really great to build your audience with and you know, if you're giving away a fishing box, that the people that are signing up for that are interested in fishing. Okay, so it's not like an all hunting box. It's not a guy's gear kind of box. It is specific to what you want to do. We're going to test the waters a little bit with this giveaway and see what interest level we have out there. So we're going to start capturing emails because we need to build an email list from this giveaway. And once we have an email list, the best thing that we can start doing would be to create some weekly content. And it doesn't have to be hard, but I think about maybe some like weekly tips and tricks for fishermen. Like, you know, how to, I don't know, I shouldn't have picked this topic, how to change your fishing line in 5 minutes or something like that. Or my top 5 Things I like to take with me when I go fishing, or I don't know, any of these like weekly tips and tricks that someone that's in that niche would be like, oh yeah, I'm going to read that. And then you can also take those tips and tricks and create social media posts out of them. So you're writing an email, you're creating some social media posts, and now you're creating content regularly. And all it takes is like one topic a week. So if my topic is how to change a fishing line in 5 minutes, my whole social media this week could be like, what's your favorite fishing line? You could do some polls. You could do some this or that. You could do some different things on your social media that are directly related to the content that you created for that email. And this is how you start to create content and build audiences and nurture those audiences. So if we got them in on a giveaway, Now let's talk to them. Let's connect with them. Let's build a strong audience here. And it takes time. You can't do it in a week. You can't have your idea and do all of this in one week. You've got to build relationships with people. And once you start to do that, I want you to introduce the idea for your box. So say we're 2 months in. We spent the first month building up our social media. Then we started a giveaway and we gave away a great box of fishing gear. We've been sending out maybe a month's worth of emails. So maybe 4 emails and we've created some solid content from that. So now we have a little bit of a following. It doesn't have to be huge, but we need to introduce the idea for your subscription box and we need to start to get feedback. I also like to call this research. We want to, we want to have them help with your decisions. If they have buy-in to what you're forming, they, they become very connected to the launch of your subscription box. And so we would want to ask questions. What should I name my box? Get them involved. What would it have in it? What would you like to see in it? What would you buy? And maybe this is the point where we start to niche down a little bit. So we're talking about our example is fishing, but we're talking about all fishing. So is this ocean fishing, coastal fishing? Is this more of like lake and pond fishing? So we could really start to niche down on what type of fishing this is. For my husband, it's like lake and pond fishing. He's not fishing in the ocean. We don't live near the ocean. I call this like lazy fishing. Like we just go out, hang out with the boys, throw our poles in and drink some beer and have a good time. That's kind of lazy fishing, right? So you could start to niche down what this audience looks like. And what kind of products you might have in this. You can't be for all fishermen because all fishermen are different. Some are, you know, fly fishing, some are deep sea fishing. So you really want to start to think about who you're attracting and how you can niche down in your industry here. And then I want you to set a launch date. And we're probably about 90 days in at this point. If we've been very consistent, we've been building up our social media, we've been building up our audience, we've seeded the idea that we're going to do a subscription box. Now we need to set a launch date and we need to set a goal. And we want to just create excitement and generate some buzz. Like, just get people excited about this. Get your new audience excited about their new potential subscription box. And as you do that, there's 6 steps here. Let me read them to you just briefly again before we continue. We want to identify what we like or what we have interest in. 2, are there people around you with the same interests and how do you find more people? 3, start your business social media accounts. 4, run a giveaway. 5, introduce the idea of the box. 6, we're going to set a launch date and a goal. And then we got to keep asking for feedback. Okay. Keep growing the audience, keep serving that audience. And then until we get ready to launch. And the best part about a subscription box is that you're not constantly asking for the sale. So up until the point of where we launched the box, we're just serving our audience. We're serving them with some entertainment. On our social media. Hopefully we're serving them with some education, some tips and tricks and how-tos on our social media and our emails. So up until this point, all we've done is serve. And say that's 90 days. Say you started that and you really got consistent with it for 90 days before you ever even sell. But once you sell to them, you don't have to constantly sell because this is recurring. So once they sign up, hopefully they're going to stay. I could see most people in our community have over a 90%, you know, retention every single month. This is how you go from idea to launch. You've got to build it up and you've got to be passionate about what you're thinking about in order to really stick with it and be able to speak to that customer. There's just so many amazing examples. Of our members inside Launch Your Box who started a box as a side hustle. There's a few that come to mind right away. When I think about this, I think about Jamie with the CRNA Swag. She's a full-time CRNA. She started a box for people in the same profession as her, and she has over 200 subscribers. Additional income. She's building an additional income to her already great professional income, and she's passionate about it, and she knows these people, and she knows how to talk to them. I think about Dawn with Teach Sparkle Pop. She's a full-time elementary school teacher, and she started a box for teachers. She has hundreds of monthly subscribers. I also think about Pam with Stella Chroma. She's a full-time nurse practitioner. She created a mystery nail polish subscription of the month and she formulates and creates these nail polishes right in her basement. It's amazing. I think about Olivia. Olivia is a hairstylist and a boutique owner with her subscription. It's called Light of the Lamb. She's already self-employed, but she gave herself a raise by adding a subscription box. And I think it's doable for everyone. There are realtors, there are paralegals, there are account managers, there's teachers, medical professionals, and so, so So many more different professions, different jobs inside our community, and they're taking their passions and their expertise and they're creating a subscription box side hustle with it. And I know that everyone can do that. It's possible. And if this podcast episode has your brain working overtime, I want you to go over and take my free workshop. It's called the Six in Sixty Workshop, and it's right at sixinsixtyworkshop.com. We have those in the show notes today. But I'm going to help you lay out a plan to put together 6 boxes because I need you to visualize what this could look like. Even in this fishing example that I'm giving you. Okay, great. We're talking about a fishing box, but what am I going to put in it? And that's what stops people. In the Six in Sixty, I'm going to take you through month by month on how you're going to create this, how you're going to curate this. What this even looks like, because I know if you could lay it out in a 6-month plan and visualize what this could be, you're now ready to move forward. You're ready to move forward with starting your social media accounts, running a giveaway, looking for vendors to buy products from. Like, you're ready to move forward with it after you can visualize it. So I want you to do that. If this sparks some ideas for you, If you're thinking about all the different things that you're interested in and how you can narrow that down, go over and take the Six in Sixty workshop and let's put those ideas into a real workable plan. 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.