091: 50% Subscription Growth with One Live Launch w/ The Floral Project

Our Launch Your Box community got a play-by-play look at Nicola's recent launch. It was so good, I had to share it with all of you. Come join us as we walk through what she did to get 230 new subscribers in only 5 days.

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. Today we're doing a launch debrief. We've had some great successes. We've got some great launches that we're going to debrief over the next couple of weeks here on the Launch Your Box podcast. But today I have Nicola and we are going to talk about her launch, a very successful launch that she just wrapped up. She says it feels like forever ago, but it was just a couple of weeks ago. But when you get out of your launch, you're on a launch high through your launch. And then you just go dark for a while. So we're dragging her back out of the dark. We're going to talk through her launch. I can't wait for you to get to know her. Nicola, welcome to the podcast. Why don't you give everybody just a little bit of an intro to who you are, what your business is, and then we'll dive into your subscription box.

Yeah. So I am based in the UK, as you can tell from my accent, and I set up my business, which is The Floral Project, back in 2020. Very quickly that became a subscription box. So I'm a serial entrepreneur. This is my fourth business that I've built over the last sort of nearly 20 years. It's my first experiment with e-commerce. So I've never sold a real thing. I've always sold digital things before, pieces of software and things like that. But this is my first actual e-commerce. So like trying to figure out how to do boxes and seeds and packaging and all that kind of thing. And how the kind of subscription box bit got born, if you like, What The Floral Project does is we sow and grow and donate cut flowers to people all around the UK. So it started because I started growing flowers, and I very quickly started growing more flowers than I knew what to do with myself. And so that's where the idea of, well, I could just give these away. I don't, I didn't want to become a florist or a flower farmer, so I was like, well, I could donate them. 'cause I've got more than I can use. But as I started sharing that journey on social media, it was actually as COVID hit here, well, hit everywhere, right? But here in the UK, it's just as we all went into lockdown and everyone became very aware that there were people in their own local communities that were very isolated, very alone, that just didn't, didn't have anyone to even bring them food or medicine, let alone flowers. And, and suddenly everyone became you know, much more interested in what was going on in their local villages and things. And people wanted to give back, but they didn't really know how. And so I think it was a beautiful time where it caught the hearts and minds of people. And so people were like, well, I'd like to do that, but how do I start? And so I literally started by me buying slightly bigger packets of seeds than I was already buying and saying, who wants to get involved? And like 10 people were like, yeah, I'll share your seeds with you. So me and my daughter sat at the kitchen table and we chopped up bags of seeds and we put them into little envelopes and we printed off the labels on our home computer, on our printer, and we folded up the boxes and we designed the tissue paper and we posted them out the door to people. And that's, that's how it all started. 'Cause people were saying, oh, I don't know how to start. I said, well, you can just, I don't really know what I'm doing either, but you can join me if you want to. We'll all learn together.

I love it.

Yeah.

Yeah. So what started as really just a feel-good project for you as you were learning to grow your own flowers turned into this kind of movement, right? Like this movement of just sending these seeds to other people to help them learn how to do this. And also they were givers too. They wanted to sow the seeds for their own communities, bring the flowers to their own areas and neighbors.

Yeah. I love this.

Okay. So we're still in COVID lockdown. You're sending more and more seeds. I'm sure you're getting more and more traction with people watching and seeing what you're doing. How do you turn this into the business?

Well, I charged for it.

Did you do that right away?

I did. So yeah, I did it straight away because I couldn't afford to just be buying seeds for everybody and sending them out. So we, we did our little box. We got our box. It's still the same box that we designed right at the beginning. So we got our little boxes and we got our packets of seeds and we said, right, okay, it's— and I picked a price out of the blue, which was like, it's gonna be £12.95, or you can just buy the single kits and then it'll be, I think it was £14 or £15 and we'll post them out to you. So we kind of did like a quick sum of like, well, it costs this much for the seeds and this much for the postage, that'll be fine. And we started at that price point and just started posting them out. So the idea was we would send 5 seeds every month through the whole year. So you were sowing exactly the right seeds that you needed to every month. You didn't have to think about it. You wouldn't get overwhelmed by going to a normal online seed store and trying to find all the different seeds and figure out what to sow when. So we've always— and in fact, this has only become really clear to me in the last 6 months— but we, we always try and explain to people, we're not just— it's not just about the seeds though. You know, it's about that being part of something bigger. It's about the online portal that we have that helps support and train and teach and share with people about how to do this thing. But it's about this kind of community and shared interest that we all have together as well. So it's kind of more than just the seeds, but yeah, we would— I was charging and it's $12.95 and you've got your seeds. And that's kind of what it was to start with. It really was all about the seeds and the rest of it grew off the back of that.

So was it immediately a subscription or were you just sending one-time boxes first, or was this immediately a subscription?

Well, I'm a recurring membership. I learned from Stu in 2006.

Yeah.

So I've always had every business I've had has had recurring revenue streams in it. I wouldn't, I can't seem to run a business without that. So I know how valuable they are. I know how, um, like I just can't imagine not waking up, waking up on the first of the month without a massive load of money going into your account without you doing anything, you know, like so much effort to keep selling one-off, one-off, one-off, right?

Like once you get a taste of the recurring revenue, like you can't go back. Like, it's like, I don't have this, right?

No, that's it. My first recurring revenue was in, I think, 2007, and I've never looked back. So it's always been part of my business model to have that in there. So yeah, so I knew it was going to be a subscription box as soon as I started because I was buying, I was buying seeds all the time. So I knew that there was a need for it. And I was like, well, this is, this is going to be a monthly box, definitely.

Yeah. Okay. So then take me back to when you found Launch Your Box. And what made you decide to come join us inside Launch Your Box?

A friend of mine in another e-commerce group had recommended Susan, and I know she works quite closely with you, Bradley. That's it, Susan Bradley. Yes. She and her program and working with her in terms of doing online e-commerce stuff. And when I went and had a look at her things, uh, my friend also said, go and have a look at Sarah Williams Launch Your Box. And so I had a quick look at your stuff and I was like, oh no, I don't need to launch my box. I've already— I launched it. I did that 2 years ago. Like, I know how to launch my box. She's going to tell me like how to, how to design a box and I've got boxes, or she's going to tell me how to like get my first 10 subscribers. I don't need that. Like, so I don't need that. So I went into Susan's program and as I was working through the materials there, you have— you had done a collaboration with with her and you had talked about your next challenge that was coming up. And so you had worked with her to let, let people in her community know about you, because I know that you work closely together. And as I watched that material, I was like, oh my goodness, I— this is the really specific that no one else is doing this. The e-commerce stuff plus the recurring revenue, the subscription books, you know, you, you like own that area basically. And so I signed up and I got onto the waitlist and then I came and joined Launch Your Box. I emailed your team and I said, look, I've already got a box, so is it going to be relevant? And they totally were like, yes. And then, and then I listened to the podcast as well while I was on the waitlist. So the whole way that you had set it up so that I couldn't join the program straight away, but I had to wait. And so, but then you sent me all this really useful information, so I just fell in love with you even more and I could totally see you knew your stuff. And then I listened to the podcast with Edith, but Renaissance Ribbons, I think you said. And I fell in love with her as well. I was just like, I want to be part of that. So when a space came up on the waitlist, I was, I was in within like 30 seconds. And I was like, that's the experience I want my customers to have. So that I want them to be that excited about signing up for my stuff that I was about yours, you know, like you get to experience it for yourself and you're like, I want to do that for my people. So that's how I found you.

I love that journey. And I didn't know that journey, but I have had other members tell me that, you know, I had already launched my box before I found you. And I didn't, I didn't know if I should join because I'd already launched. And so, and what I wanna say, anyone listening is that we dive into so much information, whether you're just brand new and getting started or you've already launched your subscription box, because what I know, and from my own experience is that launching a subscription box is It's not a one and done. We, we keep launching, we keep, you know, we keep finding new customers. We've gotta keep audience building. We have to keep trying new things. We have to stay on top of what's changing in e-commerce and social media. And that's really what Launch Your Box is. It's not just for the people that want to launch for the first time. It's people that really wanna start, launch, and grow their existing subscription. And we just have the most amazing community. So I was curious for my own, you know, knowledge of how it came about because I have heard that in the past, people that already have a subscription box business think that Launch Your Box is just for beginners. So I'm really happy to hear your response to that.

So even as, even as a really experienced, seasoned entrepreneur, which is like, oh, I've done live launches since 2006, I know what I'm doing, actually, to come back and just go back to the, like, clean out all the ideas that I've picked out over the years, picked up over the years, and to come back and just go right back to the basics and see it really clean and simple was so refreshing. So even if someone's listening that's been in business and thinks, oh, I know, I've done all this before, I know how to do all of this, that was me actually just coming back and like just clearing it all away and having it be so simple was so valuable.

So let's talk about it because you did a lot of work and I loved the way— and I remember the very first post, you're like, all right, I'm gonna be posting all of this stuff. So you're on this journey with me, you are launching with me, and each day you would come in and give like a debrief of the day. And it was so inspiring and it was so just helpful. Like it was really, really helpful to other people in the community, especially people that haven't launched before, like to see, to go on this journey with you through your launch. And so I wanna break it down on the podcast today. So the first thing that I noticed that I wanna talk about was that you said I added 3,000+ to my list in the last 30 days, and that is huge. And I want to talk about that. So tell me how you added 3,000 people to your list in the last— in the 30 days prior to launch.

Facebook ads.

Okay.

So I'm not scared of Facebook, which I know a lot of people are like Facebook ads. I taught myself Facebook ads a few years ago. And I've used it in other businesses that I've had. And I really, I know that that's my main channel through which people find me, Facebook and Instagram, but, but primarily Facebook. And so I used what I have learned over the years and I basically, I had a free PDF on my website. It was called 10 Flowers to Start Your Cut Flower Patch. And every month I do a new one. And it's just a guide and it's a really simple graphic that I have and I put it out on, on Facebook and then I target it to various interest groups. And, and so I'm not scared of spending, like, I know how to see how much money is coming in and I'm, so I'm not scared of spending as much as I can on Facebook. Like, I'm happy to spend £1,000 a day on Facebook ads. Like, that, that doesn't worry me. If I can get it to pay me back, right? And we just had— it was just set up, it just seemed to work really well that I had people coming in and they would sign up for the PDF and then we would offer them our Floral Project starter kit, which is like 2 boxes plus some stickers plus a workshop, and we'd give them, you know, a welcome coupon to come in and and, and buy that starter kit. And enough people bought the starter kit that it covered the cost of the ads.

Okay, so let's break that down for them listening, because this is basically your audience building funnel right here. And so I want you to listen to this because we skip this step, this step a lot of times. We don't think about this step a lot of times. We just go after the sale when we run ads a lot of times, and we don't look at it for audience building. So what Nicola is saying is that she created this PDF and she puts out a new one periodically, but she created this PDF that was an email download. And so she ran ads to this PDF and on that PDF funnel. So once she was on their email list, she sent them an email with a coupon for a starter kit. And so they were buying a starter kit. And what was the price of that starter kit?

It was down from £70 to £35.

Okay. And you were still profitable on that starter kit, right? Like you were making money on that starter kit, but you were using the profit of that starter kit to fund your ad spend, right?

Yeah. So overall, this funnel was making no money.

Right. But it was, it was getting me for free.

Yeah. Yeah.

So it was that— it's called a sell. We call it a self-liquidating offer for anyone listening. Like we are putting this out there not to make money on it. But to liquidate our ad spend so that we can keep dialing in and finding new customers. So Nicola was doing this very well with her funnel here. Free PDF download, you gotta have your email to enter. And then she followed that up with an email sequence that gave a coupon and a starter kit. So she was taking the profits from that starter kit and put it back into her ad spend. And that's, yeah, how you grew 3,000 people added to your already existing big list was because you kept funneling that money back into your ad spend and growing this pool of people. And people that were interested in that PDF were your perfect person, right?

Yeah. So they were the only— my perfect person would, would want to download that because you wouldn't want to download that if you weren't interested in growing flowers. And then I was— the audiences that I was targeting were also interested in growing flowers. But I will say about that, like, that, that is the perfect— like, that's the holy grail, right? Getting one of those funnels in place. Sometimes it works, and some— like, now it's not working. I have to say that. I'm going to be really honest. Like, it— now it's not working anymore. The Facebook ad costs have gone up, so it's not covering its own costs anymore. So now I need to think again. And it's weird because nothing's changed, But just the world, the universe changes, and for no fault of your own, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But if you get Facebook working, put your foot down and go for it. Yes.

And then don't turn it off. If it's working, don't turn it off.

But then know that tomorrow you can wake up and it doesn't work anymore and you have no idea why. So you can't rely on it. So, but that, and it surprises me every time, but that rollercoaster of thinking you've got it and then not, and then think you've got it and then you've not. And I will tell you, it's taken me over 2 years to get that funnel working, you know, to find something that actually works in that way. So I kind of hit gold dust with it and it all worked. And it so happened to be just before I did a closed cart like you teach, and then I opened the cart again. So, um, yeah, so that, that's the Holy Grail. That, that's what like I want to aim for having that working all the time. Yeah, but it doesn't always. So I just want to let people know that as well. Like, if they're struggling to make that work, it's not necessarily your fault. It's just sometimes impossible.

Yes. And I have thoughts about that, and we'll talk about that here in a little bit. But let's then talk about, okay, you've got, you've got your audience building, it's working, your funnel's working, you're pumping the ad spend. Now we're getting ready to live launch. Can you talk me through how you're feeling about this and what you did to prepare for your live launch?

Well, first I closed the cart after listening to you, like working through your materials in LaunchyBox. I realize now I want to close the cart so that I can open it, right? Because if it's not closed, you can't open it. So I wanted to close. So I did that anyway. I just kind of— I did it very quickly. I did it over the space of that weekend. I didn't know really how to do it. I just did it. And then as we were coming up to the launch, I knew the dates I wanted to do it, but you hadn't recorded the video yet for that part of the module. So I was hanging out waiting for it because I kind of thought I could figure it out. But I knew, I knew from looking at your other materials that you were going to make it really, really simple when you did it. So I was kind of waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. You did the, you did the call on the Tuesday, and then I got on my computer on the Wednesday to the Friday and I wrote the whole lot. Just followed what you taught us to do, basically. So I listened to the training that you had done, and then I sat down and I created, like, I mapped out what you were saying in a way that made sense to me. So I just did an Excel spreadsheet that had a column for like the live launch part of it, a column for the email part of it, a column for the social media part of it. And then down the side I had day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5. And I just mapped, mapped out so that it made it really simple for me. And then I just worked through each piece of the material. So I looked at all the, I looked at what the theme was gonna be for each of the days, you know, am I gonna be sharing customer stories on this day or am I gonna be answering questions on this day? And then I went down like the live launches and I just put a couple of notes, like what I might talk about, the emails, what the theme of each email was gonna be, the social media, which pictures I was gonna use. And I just went through all of that and just mapped it all out before I started writing any of it. And then I just sat down and I wrote it, uh, which is quite easy for me because I've got a lot of years of copywriting experience, but completely, I just did exactly when you said do 3 emails on this day, I did 3 emails on that day. And when you said do a live on that day, I did a live on that day.

And it feels easier that way, right? Like if, if I— that's what I've realized over the years as a coach. If I just make it very simple and say, this is what you need to do and when you're like, okay, I have a plan. All I have to do is create my 3 emails. All I have to do is create my topic for my live and I'm set. And you feel more in control and you feel like you've got it, like you've got a solid plan and you're not like waking up every day in your launch thinking, oh gosh, what am I supposed to do today? What, you know, what I got to— what do I have to figure out today? Right.

No, no, it was all done. I did all of it. It was all written, scheduled and everything. And I started, I'd say I started with you, you told us like what to put in the 8 emails. So that was the framework, right? That everything else hinged off all the social media and all the, the ads and all the, you know, the lives and everything. So I wrote all of the emails apart from the final 2, because I wanted to be in the launch and see I wanted some space to be responsive to what was actually happening as it was live. So I didn't write the last 2 until later on, but the rest, but I knew kind of what I wanted to write in them. And then the rest were all written beforehand. Yeah, I didn't want to be waking up in the morning and then trying to think about what email needed to go out. I knew I was going to have enough going on. Well, I thought we would have a really busy time with the inbox and helping people answer questions and loads of social media questions. And I wanted to have space in my head for all of that, plus my family life and all the rest of it that was going on at the same time. So it made sense to do it all beforehand.

Yes, I love building the assets beforehand. And now here's the best thing. You have all these assets built for your next launch, so you're not going to have to create all of them from scratch for your next launch either, because now you have your assets built. So let's talk to me about where we were as far as subscriber numbers going into this launch? Where were you at as far as subscribers?

So I went in, I had about 500 subscribers when I, when I went to do this launch.

And your goal was— I think I remember reading your goal was like 130 new subscribers for this launch.

Yeah, because I thought I had kind of— and from listening to you, I thought, well, I've got— gosh, how many did I have? I had 470 or something people on my waitlist. Mm-hmm. And so I thought, well, 30% of that, Sarah always says you get 30% of your waitlist. So 30% of that is 130. So 130, but I'm, you know, I'll put an audacious goal of 250 and, and you know, that would be amazing if I got that, but that's not gonna happen. So 130 is what I was going for.

Okay. And so. As day 1 started, I saw your day 1 numbers. You start bringing people in, you had 26 sales on day 1. How are you feeling on day 1?

Uh, really, really pleased because that was just to the waitlist. It was just to like 400 people. Um, the fact that people were buying at all was great. And but what I also loved is that you, you had let us know like when we're likely to be the busy days and the quieter days and all that kind of thing so that I knew what expect in terms of what, how roughly, how many, like not roughly how many, but whether you'd get a lot of people or not many people, that kind of thing. So I was really pleased because that, that email went out to quite a small group of people and it let me know that everything was working, right? So let me know that the links were working, that people could sign up okay, that the emails were arriving and all of that stuff. So it was almost like a little test run the night before. Yes, which is great.

Yes. And that's your early bird bonus. So you sent that out the night before and it's just an email. We're not doing any big like jumping through hoops that day. We're just sending out the email to our waitlist and you automatically got 26 people. And if you had a 130 goal, you're probably feeling really good at this point because you're like, okay, well, I've got a big chunk of my goal already with one email. And so then you go into launch day one and you get 7. 76 new members on launch day 1, on the open cart day, which was actually day 2 of the launch, but it was your open cart day and you got 72 members. Now you're like almost to what, 100 members? And we just started, right?

Yep, yep, yep. So that was, that was brilliant. And then, and then my, and then my daughter ended up in the emergency room on day 1. So, um, so I ended up doing 5 hours at the launch next to next to my daughter's hospital bed. She's fine. Um, just so that you know, I was able to do that. And, and my social media posts that went out and the email went out that evening because I'd already pre-scheduled it all. I could, like, life could go a bit crazy, which it always does, right? Unexpected things always happen. But that could happen because I'd managed, because I'd pre-planned it all. So yeah, I was pretty pleased by the end of that day.

And then we get into the next 2 days, which I always say are like your launch goes dark. It's like the days we have to keep marketing because we have to give people time that haven't seen it already time to see it. But those next 2 days are usually the slowest. And I know from my own experience, I was the one like sitting at the computer hitting refresh, like I was on this high from open cart day because we got so many members. And then it feels disappointing on the next day and the next day. It's the slowest part of your launch. And this is the day that I said you need to go schedule a massage for yourself or, you know, get out of the house, quit hitting refresh, get away from the computer on these days, set your marketing promotions, make sure your posts and your emails and everything go out. But we don't want to just hit refresh all day long. And so you then got 20 members and 24 members those next 2 days. So now you've already hit your goal, right?

Yep. But that— so those 2 days, I loved it that you reminded me that those are quiet days, because that is the day where you should pre-schedule it and then step away from the computer. Because what I would do in the old days is panic and then start chucking out extra emails and creating extra social media out of a feeling of fear and insecurity, and there's no need for it. Stress yourself out and cause the extra work. And it's supposed to go quiet on those two days. And actually, we were all busy with the Queen's funeral that happened right in the middle of my launch. So there was, you know, people were not at their computers, people were out doing things for that whole day. I was too. And so it was a weird, funny old time. So that, you know, no one's going to be buying flower kits on that day in the UK. So, so, but I was so grateful that you'd reminded me. So I knew not to expect very big numbers on that day. On those days.

Then we get into day 5. Why don't you tell me how day 5 went and what you had planned for that day?

So that's the final day. I— you've probably got the numbers in front of you. I can't remember the number, whatever the difference was.

87 sales.

87.

It was huge.

Yes, it was. It was. And, and so that was on that day. I did 3 emails, which you told me about. I did a live. I even did the thing that you said where you get to the evening live and you don't want to do it. You really don't want to do it. So tired. I didn't.

But you did do it, right?

No, I did. So I did one live in the morning. I didn't do one. And I did my social media posts, but honestly, I just, I didn't do anything like extra, extra zazzy on the last day. I just followed the instructions you'd given me. So I sent them an email in the morning to let them know it was the last day. An email at lunchtime to remind them like why they wanted to be in it, and an email at the end of the day just to say— I even put your wording in, which is like, I know I've emailed you a lot, please don't unsubscribe, this is the last one, and just to let you know the cart's closing and I don't want you to miss out. So, you know, really simple, really common sense emails to send out. I didn't do a big push, if you like, but that's just the nature of it, isn't it? As it gets closer to the cart closing, people suddenly realize they do want to take action and they jump in. So that day always tends to be the biggest day.

Yeah, we have to give them a reason to buy. And so if we never give them a reason, if we never give them a deadline, if we never give them that reason, they'll keep putting it off thinking they can do it later. So that's the biggest lesson that we have to do when we're selling anything, whether it's our subscription box or a one-off thing. We have to give them a deadline. We have to give them a hard stopping point so that they have a reason to go ahead and take action. So now we're out of the launch. Let's clean up these loose ends here. But you ended up with 230 new subscribers, putting you over the 700 subscriber mark. So can we just celebrate that for a minute? That's a big deal, Nicola. That's a big deal. I'm so excited for you.

It was, it was like 50% growth of my membership. And I had been going for, so what did we start in February 2020? So I've been going for like 2 and a half years. I'd closed the business down once a year ago because I was just in despair of ever getting this thing to work. And our minimum order is 1,000 sets of seeds every month anyway. So you can imagine for us when we haven't got that many subscribers, we're actually having stock we can't use every month. So this was something we'd really been wanting to do, was to grow the membership and grow the membership, and it had been so slow. And to suddenly get more subscribers than we'd ever got in one go, times 10, all in the space of 5 days— yeah, it was, it was amazing. Not just because it's like, oh wow, that's cool, we did that, but you know, 250 subscribers, that's a lot of flowers that are going to get given. That's a lot of new people contributing to our community. It's a lot of excitement, it's a lot of passion, there's a lot of goodwill for us to generate and earn and hang out with all these people that are so excited to be there. It's so much more than just hitting the numbers, isn't it? It's what that means to you and your family, but also to all those other people people that are like all those people that are now engaged in your community. It's, it's so cool.

And when you think about that impact that you have and you think about the future of your business, what do you think about, like, what do you feel like this launch now makes possible for you?

I, it made me feel like I've, like, this works. I found something that works, right? And, and I know that because I've done live launches in the past. I don't know why I hadn't thought about it in this way, but it was like, oh, this works. Works, and I'm fully confident that when I do it in January again, it's gonna work. Like, I know it because I've tested it, and I can see that it works. I know why it works. It's so obvious when you know and not when you don't, right? And so it's given me a feeling of confidence. Also, you know, you do in the program, you do like the, you know, the annual planning strategy thing, so I could plan out my launches, and I can know with certainty I can do this again, if not bigger in January, and I can do it again in April, and I can do it again in September. And in between, I don't have to think about it.

You don't have to constantly sell it, right?

No. Yes. No. And that's huge for me because some of my kids have got special needs and I need to be around with them. I wanna spend time with my family and I love, love, love not having to spend What one of the things that gets me really frustrated in business is when you have to always look at bringing in new customers. Yeah. And I love being able to look after the customers we already have. And I get to do that now for 3 months. I get to look after the people. I turn all my focus and attention to the customers we already have. Yes. And, and, and then I'll ramp up to the next launch again. But I love being able to do that. If you're constantly looking for the next new customer, you don't have eyes for the customers you've already got. So they get not neglected. Of course they don't get neglected, but they get sufficient. Yeah, but that's being able to give them more than sufficient and actually like 100% love them up is to have the time and space to do that. It's a gift.

Your brain turns from this acquisition mindset, like I'm always acquiring new customers to now retention. And that was something I wrote down that, um, I think that that is huge. And I love that you recognize that because now you can focus on the retention aspect. You're giving them an incredible experience, you're creating an amazing community, and you're doing so much good. Now you can just focus on that piece of it instead of the acquisition piece of it, which is what we don't love anyway. We're constantly thinking of how are we going to acquire new customers. But now You know, you talked about your ads not working. Here's my advice for you on that. You know, this funnel did work. Yeah. Because algorithms, they love and hate us at the same time. My advice would be for you to turn it off for a couple of weeks. You just went through this massive launch and then turn it back on and select some new interests. We know that it works. Okay, so it's not that it's completely broken. We just need to give it a reset. So I would just turn, turn it off. You probably already turned it off. If it's not performing, give it a reset and then let's restart it. Let's grab some new interest. Let's grab some new targeting. Let's grab some retargeting from people that have gone through this launch with you, watched your videos. We can do video view retargeting very easily because you had a lot of lives through this launch. And let's just restart it and give it a fresh start because I think it can work again. I've seen that with my own funnels. Just turning them off for a time period, resetting with some new target interests, and they're performing better than they did the first time. So yes, so that's my advice for you. And then just focus on that retention piece, which I think your mind is already there already, and that excites you that you can just focus on loving on your new members, growing that community, strengthening that community of them together is what's going to keep your retention rate high. And then you're going to be ready to rinse and repeat this same thing in January. That excites me. Excites me for you and the growth. And I know you wrote this down and you may not even want me to share this on the podcast, but I'm going to do it anyway because it's my podcast. But you said, I'm excited because in 2 and a half years of experimenting, I've not made any money for myself. This is the first time. I'm excited if I can bring in $250 this time and keep them. And do that 4 times a year. In less than 4 years, this will be a million-dollar business, and I won't just bring in $250,000 next time. I hope to get better now that I have everything in place. And I think that's so powerful. Your brain, your mindset is like, okay, I've got this. I'm going to get better and better at this, and I'm going to do it in a way that it fills not only your energy but then your family lifestyle. You're going to be able to do this over and over again and tweak it. I think that we get in a place in business where sometimes we get into a routine or a rut or discouraged, and there's something that can just light us up again about our business. I think this is it for you, and I think we're going to see a whole lot more for you going forward.

I hope so. I hope so. Because yeah, I mean, I, I As I did every step of it, I wrote down exactly what I did because there was a lot of turning things on, turning things off and all the rest of it. And so it's going to be so much easier next time, which then gives me more room to be more creative, to swap out things that didn't work and just be more present when I'm live with things. And I think when I see people in your group though, Sarah, it's the same thing. Like sometimes you'll see someone who does a launch and they're like, I got 10 new subscribers. And if I can, I always comment and go, that's brilliant. Now you know how to do it. You know, so next time you can do it again and that's it. It's like getting in the game, trying it, getting 10 customers or, you know, 200 customers or whatever, just getting any number as a result of doing it. And the next time it's going to be better as with anything that we practice. Right. But it's, it's, it's so, it is so cool to know that I've got that framework now. I did all that hard work and now I'm just going to be able to use it over and over and over again.

Before we wrap up this episode, what advice would you give to someone listening right now that has maybe felt in a rut with their business and they, they need to do something different, but they're afraid of the live launching? What would you, what advice would you give them?

There's nothing to be frightened of unless you're scared of typing. I don't think that's a phobia, but that's all you have to do, right? Is sit in front of the computer, listen to Sarah's training. Sit in front of the computer and type some things like it's not scary. And then, and then yes, there's the adrenaline when you hit the first email or when the emails go out and you don't know if it's gonna go, like, you know, if it's gonna send properly or whatever, right? The links aren't gonna work. So there's a bit of adrenaline involved in that bit. What if you've got it all planned in advance? There's very little really that you need to worry about. I would say to people like, if you do— if what you're doing isn't working, then try something different. And this was the first time I tried doing a live launch for my business in 2 and a half years of doing it. I, before that, I just had the doors open and then that was it, you know, the doors were open all the time. There was a reason to buy now because I had a monthly, monthly kit. But yeah, so I did it that way. And the other thing that I did as well, I don't know if this is helpful to people, but I gave up a year ago and closed the business down because I couldn't get it to be profitable. And then in February this year, I opened it up again, but I had to resubscribe all of my— I had at that point, I had 400 subscribers and I canceled them all and I had to reengage every one of them in February. So I managed to get about 200 of them back, I think. And then I've had to start from there to build back up again. The thing that we did when we opened back up is we put our price up from £12.95 to £22 because what I realized was it wasn't profitable enough for me to be able to spend any money on bringing new people into the waitlist or on, you know, into my mailing list. So there just wasn't— I hadn't priced it correctly the first time. And if you haven't priced it correctly, it's very hard to do any marketing. And so I took that big step when I came back out and I wasn't sure whether people would still want to buy it, but they did. And that made a huge difference as well. So sometimes shaking up something like that, like price or what's actually in your box, but then doing something different that you haven't done before. And if you're going to try something new and you haven't tried live launching, I highly recommend it.

I love that. That's a great piece of advice, especially on the profitability standpoint. You've got to make sure that you have enough profit to not only help you acquire new customers, but make sure that it's sustainable long-term so that you can pay yourself. And it's okay.

We make mistakes.

When we start sometimes. And, and but a price adjustment is one of those things that you might have to make. Nicola, I just want to say thank you for being so open and sharing your wonderful launch with us on the podcast. I'm excited and I can't wait for you to launch in January. I can't wait to watch it again.

Yeah, let's hope it goes as well next time so I don't fall flat on my face. But I do feel really confident about it. So thank you. I just want to say thank you to you, Sarah, for putting that One simple hour of content that you put together that changed everything. So thank you.

Well, if they are in the UK and they want to get in on the Flower Project, how can they find you?

They can go to thefloralproject.co.uk, and if they're very lucky, the cart might be open, and otherwise they'll have to get on the waitlist.

Get on the waitlist. I'm sorry, I said the Flower Project, but it is the Floral Project, and the box is called the Flower Club. I got them mixed up. So we'll put that in the show notes today so you can go over, you can follow Nicola, and you can find out— she's got beautiful flowers. You're gonna fall in love with her feed as soon as you go over there. Thank you so much for joining us on the Launch Your Box podcast. We'll be back next week with another great episode. Make sure you subscribe to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'd love for you to take a minute to rate and review it. Let me know which episode is your favorite so far. Don't forget to join me next week right here.