105: Scaling Your Subscription Box Business with Cheryl Ham

When you're just starting your subscription box business, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks. I'm talking today with one of my past guests. Last time she was on the podcast, she had just doubled her subscription box and was figuring out how to handle the growth. Now she's doubled again and stepping into her new role as a business owner. Come catch up with Cheryl and I. It's time to start scaling your subscription box business. Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box.

Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast, y'all. Today is gonna be one— just, I don't know what you do when you listen to podcasts, go for a walk, sit by the patio, go for a drive, whatever it is, because this one's gonna be a good one. It's gonna be like, 2 old friends seeing each other for the first time in a few years. But it's not— we've seen each other, but we're catching up on all the things. Today I'm talking with Cheryl Hamm, and if you know, if you're in the Lunch Box community, you know Cheryl. If you've been listening to the Lunch Box podcast, you might know Cheryl from a previous episode, but it— we're going to go way back to episode number 16. Cheryl, Oh my goodness, it's episode 16. I was like a baby podcaster when I first interviewed you on episode number 16. Like, it's so crazy, but so much has happened and changed with Cheryl's business, and that is the reason that I'm catching up. I've been doing a series of catch-ups with past guests, and I was so excited to jump on this call because here's what we know. We know that a subscription box business is ever-changing. We know that our business is not a one and done. You don't just launch it and then the end of story. It is an ever-growing, changing business that we are constantly pivoting. We are constantly growing ourselves personally. And, um, just taking a look at where somebody was and where somebody is now in this industry is really inspiring and it's really eye-opening The things that we've been challenged and we're probably gonna talk about some challenges today with Cheryl, and we're gonna talk about how she's overcome those challenges and what the past 2 years has looked like. Because if you remember back on episode 16, we talked about her business exploding over one launch. And so write that down. If you've not heard that episode, go back and listen to it so you can kind of see the difference in Cheryl as we're talking today from where she was then and where she is now. So Cheryl, Gosh, it's so good to talk to you.

It is so good to see your face. It is so good to be back on the podcast. I was thinking the same thing, like, oh, Sarah's podcast is very fancy now. Like, it's so fancy. And I was like, oh, it's so exciting to be invited back. I'm just beyond thrilled to talk to you.

I mean, I probably recorded our podcast in my closet the very first time because I was trying to get the best sound and buffer the noise and all the things. So we've leveled up for for sure.

Yeah.

But I want— let's go back because I want— if people don't know who you are, or even people in our community, they may not know the journey. And that's just another thing that we're going to talk about today, because sometimes when we have wins, and especially I see it in the community— I talked a little bit about this with— in our 100th episode when I talk with the Mastermind ladies— but sometimes you just see the now and present and you think, oh, they always win. They just always win. Um, but you haven't seen like where they, what's taken them to get to this point, right? You haven't seen like what they've struggled through or how long their journey has. You're just seeing their win right now and you're not really seeing what came before that win. And so I want to just go back. I want you to tell them a little bit about your business and let's go back to, uh, how you started.

Yeah, absolutely. So I am an independent yarn dyer, and I started a yarn dyeing business back in 2017. So it's quite a journey, right? When I started, I was, you know, I have no formal training. I have no business training. I am just somebody who saw this thing in the world, hand-dyed yarn, and I thought I could do that. I was a knitter. I was like really into yarn and all of those things at the time. And I thought, you know, I want to, I want to try that. And I always knew I sort of wanted to have a business for myself. And so I started this business and I saw some success with it and that was great. But then in 2019, I decided I wanted to launch a subscription. I was tired of just hustling so hard every day for sale after sale after sale. Just, it just seemed never-ending and And I really did not enjoy that part of business, and I thought, I need a subscription in my life. So I launched Yarnable, which is a hand-dyed yarn subscription. You get yarn every month. It's been amazing, but it was really slow for me to grow, and it took a couple of years for me to really, you know, see any sort of decent number of subscribers for it to get to a place where I thought like, okay, this I could actually make this a real part of my business. And honestly, I feel like my business grew up in Launch Your Box.

Okay. I was gonna ask you, at what point on that journey did you come into Launch Your Box? Because that's where I met you.

Yeah. So I, so I launched Yarnable, the subscription, in 2019, I think in June, and then I joined Launch Your Box in October of 2020. So it'd been about a year and a half.

Okay. Okay.

And I was struggling, just struggling through how can I grow this thing?

What happened then once you kind of jumped into Launch Your Box and you started going through trainings and just being around the other community, what kind of happened in your business?

So it was really eye-opening what it is like to do something on your own and struggle through by yourself. Even if you're really good at teaching yourself things, you know, with the internet, YouTube, all those things, even like I think I'm pretty good at that. But even still, I, when I joined Launch Your Box in October and learned as much as I could through my next launch in February, I doubled my subscribers. I had 300 subscribers coming in. I launched in February after learning everything I could from you in that kind of short period of time, and I hit 700 and something subscribers.

Yes. In like overnight.

Like, yeah, like so fast. I remember like that freak out where I, where I posted in the group and I said, I need to shut this whole thing down. Like, you know, the launch, it's going too well.

Yeah. And I was like, girl, you're not shutting anything down. We're going to get through this. Let's talk about it. And you did. And so You doubled your business in a matter of days by putting into place some of the things that you were learning inside the group. And you had done an amazing job launching on your own and getting to where you were. But I think that the struggle— and I felt this way early in my business too— was that I didn't know what I didn't know. And so while I built a super strong business on my own, there were just things that I thought, God, there has to be an easier way. There has to be a better way. There has to be a more streamlined learning experience than me Googling and YouTubing and, and all the things that I was doing just similar to you. Yeah. And so, okay, so now your business is crazy. You've got over 700 subscribers. And I remember talking to you, this is what we talked about on that episode almost 2 years ago. You needed help and, um, it was really hard for you to hire help because you were doing everything outta your home. Right?

Yes. We were still in my house, which at the time was not a very large home. And I lived in a small ranch and we were packing 700 boxes every month in my living room. I did have a VA, so that was good. I had a little bit of help and I had somebody who would come in and, and help me pack. And, and my husband and son would sometimes chip in and, you know, I would drive them crazy and beg them to please help me. Yeah, what I learned was, you know, I wanted all these subscribers and I did, and that was great, but I didn't think as far ahead as, well, what happens when I get subscribers that quickly? You know, like, oh, I need a whole nother set of skills. I need to do a whole nother set of things. My business kind of had to catch up to where I was at with the subscriber count, and I was so grateful that I was already in Launch Your Box at the time because my business kept growing. Like, it didn't stop at that 700. The very next launch I did, which I think was maybe a quarter later, we added 400 people in 24 hours. Yeah, like, insane. I, I mean, it was like, I struggled, I feel like, for a year and a half to learn all these things myself. And then, like you said, just having a more streamlined way to, to learn and to see what other people are doing and what other people have done that worked and didn't work, and, and all the trainings that you provide it just, it was so much easier to grow. Yeah, it blew my mind.

But then you were almost outgrowing yourself, right? Yes. So you were, you were growing at such a rapid rate. You were just so in the weeds with the day-to-day that you couldn't even see or figure out what you needed to not be in the day-to-day, right?

Yes, yes. I couldn't, I didn't even have the time to sit down and think, how am I going to run my business? How, how can we best ship these boxes? It was just like hair on fire every day just to, just to meet our commitments to our customers.

Yeah. And it was to the— and I know because I've been there too, Cheryl. Like you get like all the shipments out for that month and you're like, oh my God, I can breathe. But you can only breathe for 5 minutes because you got to start prepping the next month, right?

Yes. It's like, okay, now I can go to sleep at, you know, 11 o'clock at night and wake up tomorrow morning and it's day 1 of a whole new cycle, which I loved and it was great, but I knew, kind of like I knew at the beginning when I joined Launch Your Box, like there has to be a better way to do this now.

Yeah.

Right.

And I, and that was probably near that summer that I was working on the beta version of Scale Your Box. And that was really a need that a lot of you had been asking me inside the group, like, hey, will you do training on how you scaled, you know, to thousands of subscribers, like, will you do a more in-depth training for people where we're at? Because there was this group of you that had come into Launch Your Box, you've grown and grown and grown and you've grown together. You've been working with each other, talking with each other, but now you were ready for something more. And I was really afraid to like dig into that inside Launch Your Box because at the same time we had people that were brand new to business coming in and launching for the first time. And if I start talking, you know, Facebook ads and, and and deeper content and all this, I, I was worried that I was going to just overwhelm them and I don't wanna overwhelm people. So Launch Your Box became like this great place to get started, which you came into Launch Your Box having already started, like so many of our members do. But it, what it was becoming was this hub of subscription box owners from all over the world on all different levels. And it was amazing to me how this community was just driving each other's success, cheering each other on when we're all in the same industry. Yeah. And I really just wanted to provide training on every level for all of these people to just stay and hang out. And so Scale Your Box came along and I worked with a group of you guys that had been in Launch Your Box for a while, begging for more. And we went through about 6 months of training and I, I know this is where a lot of things had changed for you as well. And you know, someone asked me the other day, I don't know if it was on a live, I think it was on a live about what, what did you do first or what would you do first in order to scale? And then their question was, would you hire more people or would you get a bigger space? And I think that you were right at that cusp of that exact question. So I would love to talk through that, like when you were going through through the, okay, I am growing so fast. How did you deal with those two things in front of you?

So it is such a tough place to be because it's scary to take some of these leaps of faith, right? And, and commit yourself to that next level because, you know, moving out of your house, getting a lease, doing these things, like you're committing to something.

Yeah.

And sometimes, you know, it's scary to do that. Before, you know, like you're busting at the seams, before you're busting out of your house. I wish I had done it sooner. And it's one of those things in retrospect, you know, easy, easy to say. But I kind of feel like every leg of my journey, I wish I had made certain decisions sooner because I think it would have been a lot easier if I had trusted myself and trusted the process and maybe made some of those decisions a little sooner instead of waiting until I was absolutely, you know, beside myself and then having to backtrack and, and sort of fill in all the gaps that, you know, were, were kind of being created all over the place. So for me, I think it would've been really great to learn, had I learned some of these skills prior and took them with me as I was growing, that really would've been ideal. But you know, that just isn't the way it worked out for me. So that's fine.

But So tell me what you did next. Yeah. You're at the point where you need to both hire and you needed a bigger space. And I think that what held you back and what also holds back other people is that I don't wanna hire because I am working out of my home. Okay. So that's number one. I don't want people in my home, in my space. My space is bit not big enough for me to have more people in it. And so that was, That was issue number one. So we put off hiring.

Yeah.

And then that kept our space getting smaller and smaller because as the business was growing, we needed more product. And you hand-dye everything. So you were not only just taking product in, but you were having to manufacture your product in your home. So the space became to close in on you. And so now you're at the point where, like, I know I need both, but where do I invest the money first? And I think that what you said a minute ago is the exact reason that people don't do either of these two things, because you weren't trusting yourself.

Yeah.

You had created this business, you know, in the hopes that it would create an income for you and you loved what you did, but you probably didn't imagine that you would be an employer. You probably didn't imagine that this would be maybe more than just kind of a hobby that brought in some income for your family. And so now you're trying to take something that you started out of fun and out of need, and I'll make some extra money on the side into like a full-fledged business without any business training, without any business education, without any, you know, like where's this step-by-step checklist on how to start a business, right? But the problem is you were already knee-deep into the business and it was growing faster than you could even imagine. And so when someone asked me the other day, do I invest in space or a team? And I think you need to do both. Yeah. And I think if you can do both simultaneously, you're just going to feel more comfortable about those investments. Because if you went and said, okay, I need a space so I can hire people. Okay, so I'm gonna go rent a space and then I'll hire. Well, you got all these subscribers. You got to move all this stuff. You've got to get set up. You've got to get this going. You need people to get into this space, to learn the space, to be a part of the growing this space. And so for me, it was both. And you were probably at the point where you knew you had enough money to cover someone's paycheck. You had enough money to cover a rent for a warehouse or a space somewhere because you had so many subscribers. But I think what holds us back from doing this sooner is that we don't have the money or we don't think we have the money because we're, one, reinvesting almost everything right back into our business. So there's not a lot of money left over. And typically, two, we're not even paying ourselves for a long time when we start our business because of the cost of running a business and getting more inventory. And we're on this time timeframe with a subscription box where I need inventory and I need it now and I need to use this money I just made to buy more inventory. So we're kind of in the cycle where we don't really have excess money to invest in these before we need it. So we kind of have to wait till we get it and then we invest, but then we're behind. Am I talking through that? Like, you're—

yeah, it makes sense because for me, like you said, I did have the money, but I don't know that I knew I had the money. Because the other part too is sometimes, you know, we're starting out as kind of this hobby business and we're not, you know, we're not mathematicians, we're not CPAs, we're not, you know, doing all these things. So our money is kind of like, oh, well, I'm just gonna look at my bank account and see how much money I have. And then I, I know I gotta buy my product and I've gotta buy these things, but I don't know like how that really all looks on a month-to-month basis, how much I'm gonna have left over. And, and so that was all scary. Like I had to kind get over that hurdle of, well, I got to get my finances in check and see, like, because I am not super risk adverse as a person. So I knew the money was there because I always, you know, I had leftover money every month, but I was more like, well, but what if I need it for something? What if I need it for this? And once I kind of got my finances in order and realized, like, and hired a bookkeeper to sort of take care of my money, um, I realized, oh, okay, like I really can't afford these things and I can, I can handle my business more intentionally instead of just looking at my bank account and seeing what I need to buy this month.

Yeah. And if you look at it, not I'm spending money, I'm reinvesting it back in my business. I'm investing in people that will grow my business. So I'm going to get a return on that investment for hiring and I'm investing in space to be more efficient and then I won't be paying so many labor hours because we're moving crap from here to here to here all the time just to be able to work. And so I'm being super inefficient with my time, and my time is worth more dollars, right? And so I think if you can look at spending the money as an investment on your business, you're going to do it sooner than later.

Yes.

And, um, and that's really where things changed for you. So let's pick up on your journey.

Yeah.

Hiring some people. Moving into your first space, then let's talk about what happened with the business at that point.

Yeah. So, you know, I was lucky because I did have somebody when I was at my house sort of coming over and helping me, and it was a friend. And I was lucky that when I, I moved into the space, that friend agreed to become an actual employee. So she was my first employee and she made it easy on me because she let me test all these things out on her. Like I didn't really know what I was doing and you helped me through. You know, how to handle, like, where you can kind of go to find help for payroll and all of these things. And it turned out it really wasn't as hard as, as my head told me it was going to be. It was pretty simple. And so now that I had this space where I could store all of my items and they weren't in my home, one, my home and my family life became so much better because, like you said, I was doing production in my home. I was storing thousands of pieces of inventory in my home. Like it was absolutely bananas. And suddenly I felt like an actual business owner. Mm-hmm. And I think that helped my confidence because now, okay, we had the space, we had a way to keep things organized where before it really wasn't possible to be organized because there was just nowhere. And so having the space and then having an employee to come in earlier than me. So when I walked through the door, work was already being started. It felt so different, like this massive weight had been lifted off of me. Like, oh my goodness, I can just kind of step in and the day's already going. And that, that was really cool and it was addictive. And so I've continued to hire and we have hired several more people and we have a little team now, which is phenomenal because I can do things like take a day off. I can do things like like, you know, I had some minor health issues over the summer, and I could be home, and my yarn was still getting dyed, my boxes were still getting packed. There was no emergency. I could take a trip to Sub Summit, right? And like, the business didn't collapse even though I was gone for a week. So that was fabulous. Yeah.

So, okay, so we, we're now in kind of this next stage of business for you.

Yes.

And we've got the bigger space, we got the hiring. How has the growth continued? Are you still seeing growth? Have we plateaued at all? I mean, 2022, gosh, that's a hard year for all of us. Talk a little bit about like what's happened with the subscription box.

Yeah, it's been a year for sure. So what has happened for us is basically 2021, we just exploded the whole year. I mean, it just continued the entire year. We ended up probably around 1,600 subscribers is where we had, like, yeah, end of the year. And we thought like, oh my goodness. But what I learned is that not every year is going to look the same in business, right?

Yeah.

And so 2022 looked very different from 2021, but I wake up every day so grateful grateful that I have had the opportunity to take all the trainings in Launch Your Box and all the trainings in Scale Your Box, because I mean, 100% honesty, I really think that that's what allowed me to stay consistent, maintain my subscriber count. We did not see a ton of growth in 2022. However, I think I realized early on that, that we were gonna be in a season of maintenance for 2022 with everything that was going on. Yeah, we just sort of accepted that. But also my subscription business allowed us to make a move and purchase our dream home. And so a huge part of 2022 was us doing a massive remodel on our original little home that we had packed all those boxes in. And then, you know, sold it, bought a new house, moved in. And so that really took us straight through September, that whole process. And with the economy and things the way they were, I was really focusing on retention, which you taught us in Scale Your Box. I was focusing on streamlining my fulfillment, maximizing the value of our customers. Like, these are the things that you had taught us. And I didn't know it at the time when I took Scale Your Box in 2021, that like these skills were gonna be so important to me almost a year later.

Right.

But I really think that had I not had those skills and, and built that, like those muscles in my business already, that I may have been in a much different place. Mm-hmm. But instead we grew, we still grew 25%. Our, our gross revenue was 20, up 25%.

That's incredible for 2022. Yes. That's incredible.

Yes. And so, and we're still like maintaining our subscriber count. And Sarah, we work a 4-day work week. We work, I work from 9 to 2:30 Monday through Thursday.

That, that is worth more money than anything you could have ever told me.

I mean, are you kidding me? That's crazy.

That's what it's about. And I think that I, I am so excited for you because is when we start our businesses, and there are people listening right now, Cheryl, that are just in the grind of it, and we go through the grind. But hear me say, hear Cheryl say, the grind doesn't last forever. We hustle our faces off when we start our business because we have to. We don't have the money to just throw in a whole bunch of resources and pay for someone else to hustle for us. We're doing this, we're bootstrapping it ourselves, and we're building this business, and it takes periods of hustle. And it takes periods of a lot of hustle for periods of time. But you will get to a season where you get to just be, you get to just be still in your business. You get to focus on different things in your business. And it takes a lot of work to get there. It doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't just happen one day that now I'm like this CEO that comes into my office and I work 9 to 2:30 and I work 4 days a week like Cheryl Hamm does. He worked really, really hard to get there. But just know if you are in the season of hustling right now, building that business, that you are going to get there. And it just takes layering those pieces one thing at a time. And for Cheryl, she did one thing at a time and she stayed focused on one learning. I heard her say over and over, she took time out of her day and her business to learn and implement what she was learning. And we have to, we're just, we need to be lifelong investigators. We need to be lifelong learners. We need to continue to think that what I'm doing now is great, but it might not get me to the next step. What we do in the beginning to build our businesses is not what it's going to take to grow and scale and sustain our business. And I remember making a prediction at the end of 2021 that 2022 was going to be about maintaining, and it was going to be if you could maintain your subscribers through 2022, that, that was a huge win. And you did just that. We saw so much online growth in 2020 and it continued through most of 2021, but there was a point where that was going to plateau and we just had to stay strong. We just had to maintain and we couldn't expect unicorn years over and over and over again. And like, if you look at my, like, I was going through this exercise myself with my bookkeeping team, but we look at my years of growth, like double, double, double, double flatline. But you know what? That flatline that I experienced this last year is incredible. And that's what I have to be excited for, to have a repeat year of the year I had before that was was completely amazing. Yes. Give me that again. I'll take that in 2023. Again, give me that in 2024, because what we are seeing also with Cheryl's story is that she's not only, she's, she's not only growing because she grew 25%, but she grew with her family. She grew with her home. She grew with her time back. And when we look at The value of that stuff, it outweighs any other physical growth. There's no need for Cheryl to be like scrambling and trying to get to 5,000 subscribers and people. That's hard for entrepreneurs, right? Because we are driven. We wouldn't be sitting here today if we weren't driven because it takes a lot of self-motivation to get up every day and work as hard as we do. But to be okay with what we've got and to learn that our time back for ourselves, for our personal growth, for our family, that is almost more value. It is more valuable than anything that we could grow in our business. So we don't need to get in this rat race of I've always gotta be better. I've always gotta do more. I've always gotta do this. We're getting our time back. We're getting our life and to live this life that you never even dreamt was possible. Like, that is the ultimate win. And that's what's happened over the last couple of years.

Right? It's amazing. I mean, when I started, I was working a full-time, high-pressure sales job and doing this on nights and weekends. You know, like, that's where I started. And I just wanted to make the car payment. I just wanted a little extra. And I wanted it to be consistent. So I knew every month I could like pay some bills and yeah, to what it has turned into. And to your point, you know, I feel like could I have worked longer hours this year and tried to do more launches and tried to do more things? Like probably I could have. But I also feel like coming off of that growth, you know, at first I was like, oh, I, you know, I really wanted to hit 2,000 subscribers in 2022. And, you know, man, I didn't do that. But I really enjoyed this year. Like, I really enjoyed my life this year. And, and it turns out I'm perfectly okay with where I'm at. And hopefully next year, or this year now, 2023, you know, we can, you know, put a little more hustle in maybe. But I, you know, I think taking care of yourself is so important too, right?

Like, absolutely.

Yeah.

And I just like, I see this smile on your face. You guys are listening, so you can't see Cheryl and I, but I it's such a different— it's a, it's a whole different place that you're in. And whether we grow to 3,000 subscribers or we get to 2,000 or we stay at 1,600, like you have created a life that you have dreamt about.

Yeah.

And that's most of the time why we start our businesses. And I don't want that to get lost in the hustle. And I think that that is the difference with sometimes people think it's transactional. And it has to be really something that fills you up and fulfills you to continue doing it because we work a lot of hours. But when you can sit back and see what you created and the life that it's given you, that's why we do this. That's why we continue to grow. That's why we continue to learn what we can learn to take us to the next step, because we keep dreaming about this life that we want for ourselves, for our kids, for our families. And it's not always about the hustle. And so I appreciate that so much. And, you know, I'm excited about this new year. I love a new year. I love a fresh start. I love looking back and having perspective. And, you know, I, I know that you're coming back to Scale Your Box this year. We're going to get started next month. But, you know, I'm, I'm curious at— I— and, and people ask me this: why do people keep going through the course again? And I, cuz you came to the beta version, um, which was a membership and we learned a lot about what we needed in that 6 months. And then I created the course last year and I, oh my gosh, it's like the best thing I've ever done. That course is like the best thing I've ever created. And, but you're back and there's not a lot of material changes, um, from last year to this year, but you're back. And I wanna talk through why that is and what, what your game plan is this year.

Yeah. So honestly, for me, as soon as I saw that you were launching Skill Your Box again, it was a no-brainer for me that I was going to come back for a number of reasons, really. One, you know, you can only focus on so much at one time. And so what was my main focus the first time I went through it is going to be a little bit different this time. And even though I have the materials, you know, because you get the materials from the first course, it's different to go through it with a group. It's different to go through it with you leading the course. And I know I'm going to get something different out of it because I still have challenges. You know, there's no— it's not like, oh, we have this great business now and we're challenge-free. No, we have all kinds of challenges that we're still trying to, to overcome and things that we just, we want to do better, things that are going well, but we know we could really kick it up a notch if we did some tweaks here and there. And And, and I, I'm really ready to get like re-energized and just double down on what we've been doing well. And then like I said, tweak the things that we, you know, maybe need a little bit of improvement because that's all it is, right?

Sometimes it's just these small little tweaks to what you're already doing that make a huge difference. It's not like you're going out there and you're starting a new subscription box this year, or you're going to go change everything or start something new. It's It's like taking what's already working. We already know your business is working and how can we be one more efficient? How can we tweak a few little things and how can we dig a little bit deeper into what you're doing? And I saw that with you last year when you went through Scale Your Box and you did some, you did some great content that really drove your business and it also really helped you with a connection with your existing audience. Do you want to talk a little bit about what what you did last year to kind of help retain your customers?

I feel like we really doubled down on the community aspect, and it was important to us to make our customers feel really, really special and make them feel like they were getting something really exclusive and that they weren't just purchasing a product from us, but they were part of a larger community. And I think that really helped because the people that have stayed with me, you know, some of them have even canceled and then come back because either, you know, their, their financial situation has improved or they just realized, wow, I really missed this in my life. And to me, that speaks volumes even more than maybe some of the people that have stayed. But the people that have canceled and then 2 months later they've resubscribed and now they've been with me for another 8 months. And I'm like, you know, wow, they see the value in being a part of this community. And I've tried to put myself out there a lot more by, you know, doing— showing up on video, showing up on the reels. And a lot of people have reached out to me, customers, and said, we really enjoy seeing you. We really enjoy seeing your face and getting to know you. So I feel like a combination of that, that, that marketing, that multilevel marketing plan that you— well, maybe multilevel is not the right word, but you know, that you taught—

we're not running an MLM.

Multi-channel marketing, multi-channel marketing plan that you taught us. I feel like I tried to implement that as much as I could and it wasn't perfect by any means, but just doing something is better than doing nothing, right? Doing, you know, if you're at level 1 and you kick it up to level 2, you're going to see some improvement. And so I did as much as I could of that and I think it paid off really well.

Yeah. And I think that once you get consistent with like your level 2, right? Like you're just saying you went from level 1 to level 2, then it's like, okay, this year I wanna go to level 3 cuz now I've gotten really consistent with level 1 and level 2 things. And so now I wanna build more into that. And that's what I encourage you to go through, whether you're in Launch Your Box or Scale Your Box, or you're just watching me on my public page. I want you to get really consistent at like 1 or 2 things first and not try to do everything at once because it's impossible to keep up with that. And it's about layering those in. Okay, I want to do this next, but I'm not going to try to do 40 things at once. And so how do we do that? How do we build a plan for that? And I'm really big on creating a plan for things so that we know what to do when, not just these big picture fluff ideas like, oh, you should do this, go figure that out. It's like, you should do this. This is how I do it. This is the structure I put behind it. So that it becomes repeatable and it becomes just part of your everyday routine. And it doesn't feel like this big, giant, hairy, scary thing that I have to figure out on my own. And so, yeah, that's what we're doing. When we think about what you wanna do this year, you've talked about, I wanna get to 2,000. And when you think about, okay, how do I get from my current subscribers to that next goal? What do you think about, what are you gonna dig into this year? To kind of do that. Have you thought about what you want to do?

Absolutely. I'm really excited for this year. Um, we, we have some big plans for this year. So, you know, you've taught us a lot about our, you know, setting our rocks and setting our big goals and sort of like not overwhelming ourselves with all of these huge things. And I really took that to heart. And this year we've put in a plan to We want to grow to 2,000 subscribers, but this year we're focusing more on infrastructure first. So our first half of the year, we're, we're focusing on moving into a new space. We're focusing on purchasing some pretty hefty equipment that is going to allow us to just be super efficient and maximize our time. And we're focusing on hiring. So the first half of 2023, we're really gonna be working on systems processes. And we have a lot of that in place now that we've, we put in with Skill Your Box the last time and we're doubling down on that hardcore. Mm-hmm. And I feel like what is going to happen is when we hit June, we're gonna be able to take on so much more. We're gonna be running so smoothly and so well that will be able to handle the growth that we're hoping to obtain in the, in the back half of 2023. So yeah, that's really our focus is on, you know, we're going to be flying to some showrooms to look at some of these equipments. We're going to be doing some like really cool stuff that I don't know, I just, I never thought could even be possible.

When you're dyeing yarn in your kitchen sink.

Yeah, right.

You never thought you would be in this place a few years later. Right.

Yeah, it's, it's absolutely bananas. And my goodness, I'm so excited for it.

I'm so excited for you. I know that there are people listening that might be in that hand dyeing in my kitchen sink stage in whatever business that they're in. What advice would you give to them as they're maybe beginning their journey?

Yeah, so I think that people need to believe in themselves. I think that people sometimes give up a little too early. Mm-hmm. And in, when they hit that, that breaking point, instead of investing in themselves, they stop because they don't believe they can do it. Yeah. And I really think you're, you can't really achieve something that you don't believe you can do. It's very difficult if you think this isn't possible. Possible, because why are you going to try to do something that you think is impossible?

Yeah.

So I think you really have to believe that I can achieve this as long as, you know, you put the work in, you do the things you need to do. It's not going to happen overnight, but that's okay. We kind of have to enjoy the process and enjoy the stages that we're at. And not everybody wants to have a big business. So sometimes we need to take a step back too and think, what, what is my actual goal here? Because you might right? Your goal might be have 500 subscribers, it might be have 100 subscribers.

Mm-hmm.

And that's absolutely perfect, right? So I think we need to figure out what we want for ourselves and then believe we can do it. And then once we do that, invest in yourself, invest in the learning because you'll get there so much faster. You don't need to spend a year and a half like I did struggling through all of these things. Like I was like, oh, if I had I could have done this, you know, so much sooner. Like, I, maybe I could have been somewhere else now, but you know, I'm—

But it's also like surrounding yourself with other people that are like-minded. Right. And I think that's where the communities have just the training's there and, and the training's good. I mean, I, I created it. The training's good.

Yeah.

But I, I always look back and I never imagined that the community would be so amazing. I just thought people would be there to learn and that would be fine. But the community has just changed everything and it's just made, it's just made everybody go further faster together. And I think that when we're entrepreneurs, it can feel incredibly lonely because we a lot of times do business alone in our homes by ourselves. Sometimes we don't have adults to talk to during the day. And I think that can become very lonely and you can feel you don't have a boss telling you good job. It could feel like your efforts are for nothing, especially when you're in the beginning of your business and you're kind of in that really like tough growing stage. And so having a community that not only gets it, but really encourages you to keep going, to keep looking at different things in different ways. And that's really vital to our success as business owners. It is.

It's 100% vital. I feel so supported in the Launch Your Box community, and that's why I'm still there. You know, I might not always be in the group every single day, but I know if I need something, if I just— if I need somebody just to tell me I'm doing a good job, I can post in there and they'll be like, you got it, girl. You know, like, I know in the back of my mind that even though I'm maybe working alone for 2 months if I show up in that group, I'm supported with anything that I might need. And that's an amazing feeling. I think people don't, don't put maybe enough value in that all the time. They think, oh, well, you know, I only need a group if I have a question. I only need a group if I need to learn this very specific thing. But you don't know what you don't know, and you don't know in the future what might pop up too. You know, you just, it's good to have a community in your community is one of the best, or the best really, that I think I've ever been a part of because I've been in other groups before. But the people in Launch Your Box are so, so supportive. They are so willing to just cheer you on and lift you up if you're having a bad day, if you're having a bad month, if something didn't go the way you wanted. Because that's the reality, right? We have a lot of wins, but sometimes we don't.

And we need to be able to have a space, space for when we're feeling defeated, when we're feeling, um, alone and like, I'm the only one failing at this, right? But because that's not true, we all go through these periods of failures and successes. But I think what else is really what I love about the group is how helpful everyone is, um, and also sharing what they're doing and what they've had success on. And it's opening our mind like, oh, Oh, if that works for her, let me try this for me and see if that works with my audience, or see if that works with my subscription, or sharing suppliers, or sharing products, or sharing all kinds of things. And so, I mean, I'm just, I just, I love it every, I love it every day that I get in there and answer questions, and I feel inspired and to do something different in my business as well. And you We're gonna kick off Scale Your Box at the beginning of February, and I can't wait to see your face on those Zoom calls every week and all the other people that have joined us. We have a lot of alumni that are returning for Scale Your Box, so that's gonna be great. It's gonna be like hanging out with old friends, and we have lots of new people that are jumping in and they are ready to take on Scale Your Box. And if you're not at the Scale Your Box stage, it's okay. We've talked to Sarah, we've talked to someone like you that has has over 1,000 subscribers. We also talked with Carrie the other day on the Facebook page that she came to Scale Your Box and she didn't even have her box launched yet. And so I feel like it's for people that are just ready to learn and implement the next thing. It's ready. You've got the basics down wherever you're at on your journey with your subscription box, but you're ready to learn and go deeper. But you can't just keep learning, learning, learning. You have to like implement it. You have to take a piece of the training. It doesn't have to be the whole training. You have to take a piece of it and implement in your business so that you can get results. So then you can tweak whatever you're doing and continue to grow.

Absolutely. I like to say, like, for me, I pick the lowest hanging fruit, right? Like, yeah, if you give a training, yeah. And I'm like, oh, that I can do, that piece I can do. Maybe I can't focus on the whole thing. Well, that's great. I have it here and I can rewatch these things, but I can take this piece and do something really great with it.

So yeah, Yeah, well, I'm excited. If you need some hand-dyed yarn in your life, Cheryl, where do you send them?

You can follow me on Instagram. I'm @hypnoticyarn, and yeah, that's probably the best way to connect with me.

And go check her out on Instagram, check out her reels and all the great things that she's doing. And I hope that you feel inspired by Cheryl today, because it's about taking that one next step. So what is your one next step? Step that you're going to take in 2023 to continue to learn and grow in your business. Cheryl, thank you for joining me on the podcast today, and we'll be back with another great episode next week. 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.