097: Busting Through Challenges and Doubling Her Subscription in the Last Six Months with The Lit...

On this episode, I'm catching up with one of my past podcast guests. Last time Katie and I spoke, she was dealing with staffing shortages. She was running out of space in her home to continue to fulfill her subscription boxes, and she was really at a crossroads in her business, whether I need to shut it all down or I need to scale this thing. Here we are 6 months later. We're going to catch up with Katie and see what's happened. 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. I've got a guest today, a recurring guest today. We're catching up with Katie Eaney from about a 6 or 7 month stint that we last talked to Katie. So if you're listening right now and you're an avid listener of the Laundry Box Podcast, you're going to recognize Katie's story and Katie's voice from episode number 64. Um, we talked about, um, her journey starting one subscription, switching to the other, and we talked through what that looked like and how she was growing. She had great success in the beginning, but what's happened over the last 7 months is even more inspiring. So I brought Katie back. We're gonna go unpack what's happened over the last 7 months, talk about how she's broken through some of the challenges that she was facing even the last time we talked on the podcast. And I know that it's going to inspire you. And we were, Katie and I were just laughing because it's literally snowing out her window. She's like, it's only like 30 degrees. And meanwhile, I'm here in Texas and just took my cardigan off because it's 83 outside. So this is where we're at this morning. Katie, why don't you say hi to everybody listening and why don't you just tell them a little bit about The Literary Book Club.

Hey everybody, this is Katie with The Literary Book Club. We are a quarterly luxury subscription box and we focus on collectible editions of classic books along with wrapped page-numbered gifts to open as you read. And so we do 4 boxes a year of that, and we also do quite a few specialty one-time boxes like Christmas and Halloween and stuff like that.

Okay, so that's just the quick rundown. If you wanna hear more of Katie's getting started story, I'm gonna tell you to go back and listen to our fun episode from 7 months months ago. It's episode number 64. But here's why I invited Katie back. So a couple weeks ago inside Launch Your Box, Katie ran in there, she posted a champagne bottle picture, and she said, I am almost about to hit the 500 subscriber mark. And anybody in our group knows that that's a big deal. That's a huge milestone. And I was like, well, wait a minute. We were just at 200. Like, wait a minute. Like, that was like last week. We were just at 200. It was 7 months ago, but it seems like such a huge jump to me in the past 7 months. And 7 months at any particular time, but 7 months right now is, is a big deal. 7 months of 2022 where the economy has been incredibly shaky. 7 months in the summer months when we typically see a drop in sales. So I was like, Katie, I gotta get you back on the podcast because I wanna talk to you about what you've been doing over the last 7 months. And when we talked last, I know that you were having some challenges with a lot of different things. I wanna talk about those challenges and then what you did to overcome them. So let's just start with the, um, staffing issue. So when we talked back in March, you were like, yeah, Sarah, I really can't grow past this point because I can't manage any more of this myself. And I am having a really hard time finding anybody that wants to work, particularly what I do. And I'm just giving up on that. I'm comfortable at the 200 mark and I'm gonna make it work and I'm gonna do it myself. And I know that I encouraged you to keep looking. So tell me what happened with the staffing shortages that you were, you were finding.

Well, it's so funny cuz then I ended up actually hiring my two people in April. So it's funny that right after that, and now it feels like they've been with me for years because we're in such a good groove right now. But it is funny to think that I had not even hired them when I did that. So we did that and, you know, we kind of, I did a big trade show in March. I do one every year because I have kind of two parts of my business. There's another side where we do stationery and stickers and we wholesale that. So we actually have two things going on. It's not just the book box. And I came home from this big trade show and I was just like so overwhelmed. And I just was like, I'm either gonna scale or I'm gonna quit.

You were, you were at that crossroads.

And I was like, yeah, that's not unlike any other entrepreneurs.

Cause you know, there will be days like we either gonna go all in or we're just giving up. Like, and you were even at a place that it was not bad. Like you had, you had sales regularly, you had subscribers, but sometimes in our brains we just get to this point where like, I just wanna throw in the towel.

Right.

Because you get to a point where you're overwhelmed because you were doing everything in your business.

And I have two young girls and my husband travels a lot for work. And so it just was getting to be so much and so stressful where I was just like, I can't do this anymore. So I did start hiring. And what I did was I was like, I want people who— because it's hard to— we're in a little mountain town. So of course it's hard to hire here like it is everywhere. But I wanted to one, speak to moms because I need to leave at 3 to get my kids off the bus because a lot of times my husband's not home and I have to get them. And so we weren't going to work traditional hours. And I also wanted to get a couple part-time people because I didn't want to work 50-hour weeks. And I didn't, you know, and I just wasn't there yet at that time. I didn't know if I had enough work to keep people busy that much. And so I ended up hiring 2 part-time people. We work Monday through Thursday, 9:30 to 3, um, which works out great. One of my gals doesn't have kids, but one of my gals has 2 kids about my age, and it just works out good for all of us. And we also have total flexibility. If she's got her kids have a play, She's like, I gotta leave at 1. We're like, that's fine. So we just, we really try and make it more about our lives and our family. And then work is almost like second, like we do the work, but first we want to have like a good life because that's just so important to me. And so I ended up hiring these two gals and they are awesome.

Where did you find them? Because I know you were struggling to find them. So how did you put it out there?

That it's funny, people always say, oh, try and hire friends and family. That was what was happening to me. And it was not working out. Friends and family were not even showing up on the first day. So I just put an ad out on— I actually used indeed.com, I think, or one of those job websites. And I just put it out there and I said, you know, we're gonna pay a good starting wage of $15 an hour. In my town, that is the minimum you have to start people at, and it's a good wage. And we're part-time and we have great flexible hours and all that, and tried to really play it up. And then when people came in, I just told them, said, you know, it's kind of a lot of monotonous stuff. We're packaging, we're packing. It's not the most exciting job in the world, but it pays good. And it's a casual and comfortable environment. We don't do retail or anything, and we're very flexible. And so I was just honest with people and I told them, if you don't like it, it doesn't hurt my feelings. If you want to quit, let's just give it a chance. That's what I ended up finding. And I also, once I hired the first person, I tried to find someone who I thought was going to fit personality-wise really good in with all three of us, because the job's not hard. I mean, putting things into boxes is easy. And so I wasn't looking for a particular skillset, just someone who could handle you know, the volume that we were doing and everything. So I got my two gals and they are awesome. They, I mean, they not only want to work, they show up early, they get there before me every day, which is so wonderful. And we love what we do and we love that we're not retail, so we don't have to deal with people because we're all sort of introverted. We know we don't love to be around the public, and so we just lock our little doors and we do our little work and do your thing and go home, right?

Lovely.

Yes. And it works out great. And you know, we've been in the summer, of course it was a little crazy because with kids home, we all had to adjust a little bit, but it's been working out really great. So that was kind of the first step that allowed me to even grow at all. Like, because I was maxed out with what I could do myself. I was making my poor husband come in and help me pack boxes and he was quite frankly completely sick of it.

Like, I feel like we've all been there. I feel like, I mean, my husband has folded some boxes and packed some, my kids, the whole family. Like, yeah, it's a whole thing. I feel like we all have to go through that. It's a rite of passage that you're having to move out.

At least then they understand what you're going through. Right. Cause he kept being like every day, like, you know, I don't actually work here. Right. I mean, I'm just here.

You're like, oh no, I've got your list of everything you're going to do when you get off your regular job, you're going to come work for me. That's hilarious. But you bring up another topic that was one of your challenges the last time we talked, which was also the space factor. Like you were busting at the seams. You were still working from home at that point, weren't you?

Yes, I can't remember if we— when we were— we transitioned into a space that we have now. It's still not like this dream, the space I would have picked if I had anything to pick from, but we are very limited on real estate. This was one of the number one towns that people moved to during the pandemic, and so there are no warehouses or big spaces really. I got lucky and I found a large space downtown that was within my budget, just barely. And at the time it was bigger than I even thought I needed. It was 3,500 square feet. And now we're actually starting to almost max out on that. We have about a year left on our lease and I'm like, oh man, I don't know what I'm gonna do now. My challenge is growing again into the next space cuz I'm going to probably need a bigger space at some point.

So you took on, now you have rent to pay. Yep. And you have new employees coming in and you're like, okay, well if I've gotta pay all these new expenses, we gotta grow, right? Like you're either gonna quit or you're gonna scale, right? Like this is the— so let's talk about what you did next.

Well, and it was, and this was of course right after I hired them, coming off of the busiest year we ever had in 2021. Everything just kind of went, woo, you know, and there was war and there was inflation and all these things going on. And so the other half of my business that is, you know, stationery wholesale did slow down quite a bit. And it was a little freaky at first because I was like, oh my gosh, I just hired these two people and now we're doing half the wholesale orders we were doing in last year. Um, and so, but then I was like, that's it. I'm just going to ramp up the book box because if wholesale is down on this side, I have this other side I can work on and it's more niche. And so we just really, I'm trying to think of what I even started doing. It's hard because there's no one thing. It's like I've been incorporating all the things together in order to grow. So we, in the course, I'm a huge learner. And so I like consume your podcast every time I walk the dog and every time I get my lashes done. And like, that's all I do is listen to like, watch watch trainings, listen to your Launch Your Box podcast. And so I've been taking all of your things and kind of putting them together. We've been focusing a lot on social media. We picked up a couple influencers to open our boxes and started paying them a commission. So that's, you know, we're really just working on— because we're a niche box— word of mouth. Yeah. And, you know, and we've been doing a few more paid ads and Facebook ads. And this summer, because it was so slow on the wholesale side of my business and I had these two employees, I at the last minute threw together a summer book box.

Okay, let's talk about that.

Yeah, seeing it.

So yeah, you decided to put together a one-time box that was different than your subscription because one, you had these employees, you needed to make some revenue, the wholesale side of the business was down. So how am I going to generate some more sales outside of just adding in more subscriptions, right?

Right, exactly. And so we ended up We did a small amount. I want to say it was like 150 to 200 of those. And so, and we started doing that. And then when that was fairly popular, we thought, okay, let's do a Halloween box. And then let's do a couple more one-times to really fill in those gaps. As we were doing that, we also ended up experiencing a growth in subscribers, which we didn't know. I mean, I keep telling my employees, I don't really have a baseline anymore because you can't go back to 2019. That was pre, pre-COVID, life was different. And then 2020 was weird, 2021 was super weird, and now this year is weird too. And I just was like, I don't even know, it's going to take 5 to 10 years before we get a new baseline. Yes, I know what to expect. And so because I had projected trying to hit like 400 and some subscribers in December, well then when all of this stuff started happening, I thought, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be stuck with so many boxes, like I'm not gonna be able to hit that big number. Because I just didn't think we were going to see the growth. But we just kept chugging along. We did— we really started to push, um, we have a bigger Instagram following than Facebook. And so I started, you know, I remember you had said post 3 times a day, and so we were doing once a day. We tried to up it, add more video, just be more interactive and posting more. So one thing that I did was when I do a flat lay, instead of just taking a couple pictures of the box, I'll take like 60 pictures. I'll do videos, pictures, different angles, and that way I just have more content, but it doesn't feel like I'm reusing the same picture over and over again. And so that's been helpful because then I can talk about it more and post more, because like you said, a lot of times people just aren't seeing anything that you post when you're small. So we've just been doing that. And then I posted the champagne picture, but before that I posted in the group and I was like, I'm at like 450, should I just go for it and try and get into this 500 because it's just that mental milestone. And everyone was like, yeah, go for it. And so I did. I ordered some more product and pushed those last 50 spots and we sold them. And I was like, I can't believe that we hit it this year. We were not really trying to hit that goal until next year, but we ended up kind of going for it. And I even told my employees, I'm like, can we pack 500 boxes? Like between the 3 of us, do we have enough space? They're like, oh yeah, just go for it. I'm like, okay.

I love that because I feel like sometimes my employees are like, what are you doing now? Instead of like, I've got like a couple of them that are like the cheerleaders, like, yeah, that's a great idea, let's go. And the other like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing now? You know, like back up, we've got all this other stuff to do. They're like the voice of reason when I'm like, let's go, you know? And so I love that they were cheering you on. But you know, I would suspect that the promotions of these one-time boxes that you did over the summer, it was something new, fresh, and fun. It was different. It attracted different eyes. It attracted different people. Yes, I'm sure some of your subscribers purchased those boxes, but I'm also sure it attracted new people that maybe weren't ready to make a commitment to you in the form of a subscription to buy one box, and then they fell in love with it, and then they were instantly ready to give you their money every, every quarter. And so I would suspect that the traffic that you were driving for, whether that was ads or videos or emails to sell those one-time boxes, was driving traffic overall to your business. It gave it a collective lift. You got this lift in sales because you had something else to sell them in between the subscriptions, but it also gave a lift of traffic, new eyes, new potential, new people having experiences with a box, not just a book with the box. And, and then that probably leveraged into the growth of your subscription. So like you said, it was not one thing, but you did a combination of several things. And I think that's what I love the most is that you weren't relying on, okay, this one thing is going to fix everything. I'm going to do it. It's going to be great. And then if it doesn't go well, you think you're a failure. You tried a series of different things. You were trying, I'm going to make more sales like this because the wholesale side is down. I'm going to do more video. I'm going to get more visible. I love how you said I'm going to get more interactive because that's what people want. They want to connect with you. And it's definitely a combination of all of those things. And so you hit the 500 mark.

Yes.

And I want to talk through, like, what does that mean for your business right now?

Um, it's— well, we haven't actually packed the 500 boxes yet, so we're about to find out. No, we're gonna do good. We're actually— we did a Christmas box and we sold about 300 of those, so we've just been packing like crazy. You know, we're gonna pack thousands of boxes by the time we are done here, but it's been good. I feel like we're at a place now where this is a really good spot to be in where we can have a little churn, we can pick up a little more, and we can either decide to stay here or we can grow a little more. Um, so it's a good place to be. And you know what, I've been at 100, I've been at 200, and I've been at those for a while with other—

with—

and with my last box that I did, but that never really felt worth it. Like, it was harder to get discounts on product because I wasn't getting that much. It was impossible to manufacture anything yourself because you couldn't just get 100 of them at a good price. And now I feel like I can say, okay, I want to custom make something and I need 600 of them, you know, and it makes it just easier. Now in some cases it's more challenging if I want to get something from a small maker because I'm like, hey, how would you like to make me 500 candles? And they're like, huh? But you know, once they figure out what you're doing and that you're not just like pulling their leg, then they're, they're excited. But yeah, I mean, it definitely feels like a better place. It's easier to order boxes. It's just It's easier to order things in larger quantities. Um, and so I feel like it's finally gotten to the point where a lot of that hard work is really kicking in and it's starting to be worth it. And we're getting a little bit of momentum where the more we sell, the more people post about it on their Instagram and there's more word of mouth. And it is sort of like when you're watching a football game and the other team just starts to sort of pick it up and you're like, what are they all of a sudden? They're winning all of a sudden. And then they just get excited and confident and they keep winning. And that's kind of where getting to 100, I feel like has gotten us where we feel like good.

Yeah.

Okay. What we're doing is working. Our people are really thrilled with everything that we're doing. And because we're niche, we're not just book people, we're classic book people, which is even more niche. That helps a ton. Um, because when people are cutting out lots of things, the more niche you are, they feel like they are going to maybe cut you out last.

You know, that's a great point. And I, I just did an interview last week, Julie, and then we had the same conversation. She had a previous bot, box that it was okay, but it was really more of a broad box. And when she really dipped into this niche that she was really passionate about, her business just exploded. Like, she went from 0 to 400 subscribers in like 9 months. And we were talking about just really honing into that niche and stop thinking that you have to be for all people. And really, that's what's happened. And anybody that sees your books or your box, actually, it's the experience. And so for me, I have to think that when someone opens that, they're taking pictures of your beautiful book and your beautiful packages that go along with the pages and the beautiful outside of the box. Like, they're really proud of it. Like, it's really something special. And so sure, they're sharing it more, and sure, you sent a ton more boxes because they got to share a summer box and their quarterly box and then their Halloween box and then their other quarterly box. So they're sharing more of your content because you're actually producing more content because you're curating and putting more boxes out there. And so So does— is that something you think about continuing into 2023, doing an extra quarterly box every quarter that's a one-time box? Have you thought about that?

Yes, because the one-times have been so— a lot of time. So when we do the quarterly boxes, we just have a certain number that we open up, and when they're gone, they're gone. And the wait can be long because it's quarterly. So sometimes people are waiting 3 months to get in, and I don't want them to lose interest because that is kind of a long time to be on a waitlist. And so I like to have something available like a one-time, although we do those limited too, so that they can try it out. Oh, I'll just try the Halloween box. Cause I do that a lot with subscription boxes. Well, I don't want to subscribe, but maybe I'll try your Christmas box. And then if I really like that, I'll try your subscription. So I feel like it gives people a non-commitment chance to try us out. It's cheating a little bit because our one-times are usually more expensive than the subscription. So they're really deluxe and they're really amazing, but the subscription is luxury too. And so it just gives them a taste of what we do. I think we are planning on doing at least 3. We want to hit Valentine's Day, Halloween, and Christmas for sure. I tend to be a little bit last minute with the one times I'm like, oh, let's do this, let's do a Thanksgiving box. My team's like, really?

Like, what?

Okay, do you have anything planned for that? And I'm like, no.

You're speaking my language. This is me this week. Hey, do you think we could throw a little mystery bag together for this week's sale? Like, oh, what do you want to do? I'm like, I don't know, let's just create something brand new, brand new packaging, brand new item, new design. I'll get some stuff ordered, we'll sell it Thursday, we'll just ship it out by the end of the month, it'll be fine. And this is how we roll, right? Like, this is how our brains operate.

People, you know, we're like trying to hire people that are really like detail-oriented and methodical, and then we're like throwing stuff at them like, hey, just do this, don't worry about it, it'll be fine.

But it's those people that can pick up that ball we throw at them and carry it on to the finish line that make or break us. We need that, and you needed that, right? When I look back at our conversation 7 months ago, you needed that. You were at, you were at that point where I'm stuck here because I don't have any help. I'm stuck here because I don't have any space. And sometimes that's okay if it's bringing in a good income and you like being there. I'm not telling you, you have to be above that. You have to be different than that. But when you're at that place where I'm either going to grow so I can get out of this rut or I'm going to shut it down, like the option, we need to grow. We need to find that one hire. If we've not been successful with hiring in the past, it doesn't mean it doesn't work. It just means we need to try again. And we need to continue to look at space because I know when things got out of my house and into another location, it brought a whole new sense of peace to me. I could be home when I was home. I could be at work when I was at work. And it wasn't all muddy all the time. Like I'm home, but the work's staring at me from the other room. It's in the hallway, in the kitchen, in the dining room. Like it's everywhere. And so I think having that separation, when you hit that point of like, I need some space, is okay to say, this is an investment, not only for my business, but for me mentally too. Wouldn't you say that?

Definitely. I mean, when it was in my house, I'd be working till midnight and I would just be, I could not let it go. Like if there was something to be done, I just had to do it. Now my office is 20 minutes away. I'm not going to drive down there to take a picture of something. I'll just do it when I'm at work. And so it just helps with that workaholic, I think anyone who runs their own business has that workaholic gene or we would not be doing what we're doing. It's that drive, but sometimes we need someone to save us from ourselves and say, okay, like it's okay to take a break. So that's been really good. But oddly enough, now that I hired my gals and they really do everything that's hands-on, the packaging, the packing, the shipping, I'm amazed at how busy I am. Like I am so busy photographing, marketing, planning, budgeting, and doing all that stuff that I think, how did I ever have time to pack things into boxes. I mean, like, I don't even know how I was doing it. And I obviously was half doing all of it.

You were half doing the marketing, you were half doing the big picture, you were half doing the budgeting, and anything, any of that was getting like your last few hours of the day. So you weren't able to think about how could I make this promotion better? How could I do more video? How could I show up in a different way? Because you're so in the weeds with packing and shipping the dang boxes that you couldn't think big picture. And so many of our subscription box small businesses are in that exact same place and they feel like they can't afford to hire someone, but you really can't afford not to when you're in that position. If you don't have time to work on marketing and content for your business, you don't have a business and you're gonna run yourself down and your numbers are gonna dwindle down because you're so in the weeds with the labor-intensive part of the job that you're not thinking about the big picture, which is the content and the marketing of your business. And I think that's where you were like, I gotta quit or I gotta grow, right? Like, I, I can't even do halfway of this and have— and I found myself, Katie, and I don't know if this was you, but when I was still in that labor stage of the business, I was making a bunch of mistakes. I was sending boxes that were wrong. I was monogramming things that were wrong. I was shipping things to the wrong address. I was so mentally exhausted. That I was making so many costly mistakes.

Definitely. Oh yeah, I remember I did a December box and I forgot to put an item in for the first time ever, and it cost me probably $600 to ship out that item then after the fact individually. And I just— that was part of the— I'm at a point where I'm just done.

I call that the stupid tax. I made stupid tax mistakes before. I remember I was so tired one year I spelled something wrong on a t-shirt and I had to reprint 1,800 t-shirts at my own expo. That's stupid tax. That's exhaustion. Um, so yeah. So, okay. Let's talk through what, what does 2023 look like for you? I wanna talk about business and personal, like what does this mean now for your personal life?

Well, it's helped a lot in just being able, I mean, my kids are 7, I have 7-year-old twins and it's just a busy age. I mean, they are old enough where you would think they'd be more independent, they're really not. And so it's just allowed me to— if we can't find childcare in the summer, I can pick up the slack. If my husband has to be out of work, I'm able to spend that time that I need with my family. And that has been huge. And also just to be present when I'm home and not just be constantly in my office on my computer thinking, did I order that, that tread that I need? Do I need to go pack some more boxes? And just being able to have that separation, really the physical separation that the office is over there and my home is here, has been so nice. And I mean, who knows what 2023 is going to bring? I mean, us small business owners have been through the wringer the last few years. I don't even know what to predict, but we are— I always tell my employees, we are going to keep chugging along. We are just, we are, we love our people. We have a small but devoted group of buyers who really like what we're putting out. And the more classic books they read that they've never read before and really enjoy, the more excited they are to get the next one. The next one, and we're building on that. And then we are going into trying to be more creative in this time too. Like, I was really inspired by your— you know, you always talk about make it giftable.

Yeah.

And so we had a lot of things sitting in our marketplace. You always have a couple extra items that you list later individually on your website. So because we were sold out of a lot of things, I started putting together little gift sets where I would take a book and maybe 3 things that kind of went with it and package them really beautifully and price them as a giftable gift set. And they have been really popular, and we're able to reduce a little bit of inventory in this busy time, but make it so people can just— it's giftable, it's done, it's already wrapped for you from us. I mean, it is like ready to go, or you can just treat yourself with it too. And so we've been trying to just get really creative. How can we use packaging we already have? How can we take inventory we have sitting on our shelves and make it into something special and new, even though they've seen it on the website? But let's make it giftable. Let's theme it. Let's add a teardrop or something different to it. And so we've been really trying to just get really creative in this time and just kind of maximize our Q4.

It's really smart, Katie. It's really smart because you already have the inventory, you already have the raving fans that wanna buy things and now they're looking for things for other people. So even if they have that book because they're a subscriber or whatever, they can now gift it to someone else. It's really smart to just take a look, work with what you have, and continue to make progress with that. So you're making progress with your cash flow, you're making progress with liquidating your inventory, you're making progress because you have these loyal customers that are coming back and buying more and more. So you're increasing your revenue. And so it's just really smart businesses decision. I think sometimes we think we always have to have something new, we always have to have something fresh to be able to generate sales. But if we just take a look around and see what we have laying around, how can we turn that into something different than they've seen before? That's when we start to make progress with that. So I love how you're doing that as well. Now I know 2023 is really unpredictable for all of us, but I'm excited. I'm excited for you. I'm excited for your business. I'm excited to see what happens over the next 7 months with your business. And I would love for you to— I would just love to ask you, like, what advice would you have for maybe someone listening right now? I want you to think back to Katie with 100 subscribers, and maybe I've had 100 subscribers for a while and I feel like I can't afford to hire anyone and I— and my space is complicated and, and I'm kind of stuck at this 100 subscriber mark. What advice would you give someone that's in that stage right now?

I would say that because I've been in that stage, I was in that stage with my old box Wildflower Club, which I loved doing that box, but it was more general. It was like a lifestyle type box. I would say, is your audience at all interacting with you? Are they talking with that box? No one would ever say a word. I would send emails, I wouldn't get a response. I'd post, no one would ever watch my lives. And now that I'm doing this book box and it's very niche and I'm a book nerd myself, so it's very up my alley, but I get so much feedback and conversation and interested active people that I love it. It's made it more fun for me to do it. And so I would say if you're getting no warmth from the audience, like no talking, no love, no feedback, Maybe it's time to niche or change because once you find your perfect person who loves what you're doing and is also giving you really great feedback all the time, it makes it so much easier to grow because you don't— you're not guessing what they want, they're telling you. And that like helps me a lot is that I'll throw stuff out there and I'll say, do you guys want a Valentine's box? Yes. Okay, do you want it like fancy or simple? Do you want a mini box? And they will just give me tons of feedback and it and it helps me plan my business. And that has been the biggest difference for me is having that niche box. It's been easier to grow and to know how to give them what they want. And then once you start putting out that quality product, they trust you and they know that even if I just show them a picture of the box in the book and I don't have anything else yet, they trust me that I'm going to deliver that gorgeous product later. And so building that kind of relationship is something you can do in a niche box, and then they trust you to give them something that they're going to love. And that just makes life so much easier. So finding that perfect person, I think to me is the biggest thing that's helped me grow. Okay.

And then one more question for you. Um, if someone is sitting here listening to your story and they're like, this is me, this is me. Uh, but they're afraid to make that first hire. What advice would you have for them to kind of get over that hump when they're thinking about hiring someone?

Well, I think that you just have to, or you have to quit. I mean, you do reach that point where, unless you want to do it in your basement part-time, which Jackie said is fine, you just have to. And if it's something you're really passionate about, you don't really want to quit. You want to keep going. And so I would just say hire someone part-time because that's what I did. I didn't feel ready to hire full-time people and explore the whole world of like health insurance and full-time stuff. That felt too overwhelming. So I hired 2 part-time people instead, which is the equivalent of 1 full-time, but it just felt easier and more manageable. And it's also nice because I didn't want to have 1 person stuck working if I had to be gone with my kids or something. So I wanted to make sure I had at least 2 people to work together because just working together is just easier. Nobody wants to work alone. So I would just say, just try getting 1 or 2 part-time people to work with you, even just a couple days a week and see how much more you can do. And it doesn't have to be forever. You could even start with a seasonal Christmas employee. A lot of people are looking to pick up money in the holidays. Yeah. And then once you see what you can do, you'll be so excited that you'll either keep that person or find someone else because it really is amazing what you can do when you have that help and you can let your creative brain just go and you can be yourself.

You can step into that role of owning the business and not being the labor.

In your business. Yes, exactly.

Katie, it was so amazing to catch back up with you. We're gonna have to do this again, I'm sure, in 6 months or a year. In the meantime, if we have those classic book lovers listening today, where can they find you?

Yeah, it's theliterarybookclub.com, and on Instagram we are @theliterarybookclubbox, and there's lots of info on both of those places for them.

And we will add that to the show notes so that you can find Katie easily. And then we'll be back next week for another great episode. 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.