120: Adding Value and Increasing LTV with Paul Chambers

Hey everybody, on this episode I'm catching up with the co-founder of The Gentleman's Box on ways that they've added value and increased LTV on their subscription box. Paul is also the co-founder of SubSummit and we talk through so many topics. Come join us for a really fun episode. Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box.

And now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. Today I have a special guest for you. I've gotten to know Paul over the last few years as I attended my first SUB Summit in 2021, and we've been fast friends ever since. Paul, why don't you just introduce yourself? And man, it's so good to talk to you.

Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks for having me on, Sarah. I really appreciate it. You know, we, we launched Sub Summit first back in 2016 when we were running a subscription box ourselves and we wanted to meet other awesome subscription box owners. Fast forward to today, we're the largest direct-to-consumer subscription conference in the world with so many great subscription brands that show up every year. And this next one's coming up in Dallas, May 31st to June 2nd. We couldn't be more thrilled to have you coming back again, Sarah, along with so many great members of your community.

Yeah, they are getting so excited about it. They keep talking about it in the groups and they're like, who's coming? What are we going to do on this night? What are we going to do? Like, they're already making plans. It's so much fun. And I love seeing them connect like that and really get to know each other. It's different when you see each other through Zoom calls or Facebook Lives or just in comments in a Facebook group. But to actually get to meet the people in person, it's a whole nother level of connection that we have with each other.

Yeah. And that's, you know, I always say like selfishly we started SubSummit because like I mentioned earlier, we wanted to meet those other subscription box owners out there because we were, you know, we were grinding out every day trying to find new marketing channels, trying to find new ways of doing things. And I have to tell the story, that very first SubSummit, we built it with the intention of like, hey, let's bring all these awesome people together. And we learned something that had such a significant impact to our bottom line. About manufacturing at that time and co-branding. It was Michael Burkeen from FabFitFun. We're sitting there with him. He's like, guys, you should be, rather than buying the socks from Happy Socks, what you should do is you should make the same exact socks and put their label on it, and you can buy them for much cheaper than they can sell them for you for wholesale. And we're like, will they, will they allow us to do that? And he's like, yeah, they for sure will let you do it. You just, like, it doesn't hurt to ask. So we went and did that and we asked, and we were saving at that time, like $3 or $4 a pair on the socks off the rip. And then I think at the time we were doing about like 1,000 pairs of socks. So immediately had like a $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 savings to our bottom line from this, like from that one sub summit where we first launched. And, and that's what we love seeing. We love seeing people have those conversations. And, you know, that's— I, as I was— we were starting to prep for the podcast today, I was like, how can— what are some of the things that I've learned over the years I can share? You know, not only from what we used to run a box business, but also hearing people, what they're talking about at SubSummit and what are we seeing out there in the field. And so I'd love to share like ways people can like, you know, continue to grow their bottom line, increase the LTV of their subscribers they have.

Yeah, well, I would love for you to talk a little bit to my audience about your subscription box, the Gentleman's Box. I'd love for you to just give us a little bit of history with that. And then I know you've got some great information to share with us about some additional offerings that we can layer in, some ways ways that we can drive up our LTV and some ways that you guys did that with your own subscription box.

Yeah, so I mean, I'll share the good, bad, and the ugly with you. I'm never one to hide anything, and I love having transparent conversations because that, for me, I always learn the most from entrepreneurs who share their, their in-the-trenches stories. And so I'm always happy to share that. So I'm an open book, Sarah, and happy to offer as much as I possibly can. So I'll kind of take a step back for a second. We launched The Gentleman's Box, which is our subscription box, back in 2014, coming to the holiday season of 2014. And it was a monthly subscription box designed to help make any gentleman, any man, a true gentleman. And in hindsight, we're like, man, we should have done a women's subscription box because they tend to have higher purchasing power, higher purchasing rates, and subscribe to more subscription boxes. But that's the decision we made at the time. But it was rooted actually in my partner, John Hodge. He loved to style his outfits together and the way it would work for $25 a month, you would get a tie, a pair of socks, some pocket squares, create an ensemble to go with any outfit that you had. And we, you know, he didn't have time to go out shopping, so he's like, I'm going to create this box that would give you everything in one experience. And it was great. We launched, you know, got our first 100 subscribers after a few months. You know, we a lot of friends and family really hustled it out to get it out there. Had some great growth when, you know, little influencers would pick it up. At the time, we had a professional hockey player pick it up in Canada one time, and we scrambled to turn on Canada sales for our subscription box, you know, and over the course of time really like evolved the membership and grew it. One of the things that I recall from when we, when we did it was we wanted to find a way to get more value out of our subscribers. I don't know, have you ever done with your, with your box layered in like a special one-off purchase of anything?

Oh, that's what we do. That's what we're so good at all the time. Yes.

So you've, you've cracked the code. We were, we were just figuring it out at the time. And what had happened was John's like, I could build this like premium box, like a premium limited edition box, cuz he has all these like high-end things, I was like, oh, that's brilliant. Like, let's just sell one-off. And we sold, I think we had planned to sell 100 of them and all of a sudden like sales took off and we had to open it up and figure out a way to source more and get more out of there. And that limited edition box, so we ended up then eventually selling 500 after we found we could get more. Like we are, I kid you not, we're like going to like TJ Maxx to find socks to fill in these boxes. We're like, whatever it took to be able to like make people happy.

I love that. And I know that my listeners actually love that too, because it's not above them to go be scrappy and find some products to fill some boxes.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, and, you know, so the profit margin wasn't as strong, you know, it was versus like the $3 socks we were paying, you know, $9 at retail, but we were filling more orders. We were getting more customers. We were making people happy. And we knew down the line we would course correct that, make that better. And so, you know, we sold like 500 of those and we realized there was an opportunity to turn that into our quarterly premium subscription at the time.

Okay.

And so it was something that we just kind of happened across and we're like, so then we did another one, like another limited edition one, and we found at that time that this is a great way to, to build into this quarterly box where it's a, a $99 price point or $100 price point. And, you know, we found— and the other crazy thing we found in our data, people were subscribed to both, $25 monthly as well as $100 quarterly in there.

Okay, so that's what I was going to ask you. So your Gentleman's Box was $25 and it was monthly at that time. So now you built in a second subscription which was premium, more high-end products. Did they complement your monthly products?

It did, yeah. So they weren't overlapping. Um, it was more, you know, higher-end stuff that, you know, it started getting more lifestyle. We called it the lifestyle type offering where the Gentleman's Box was the outfit ensemble. The other one would be, you know, be a, uh, like a cool like Bluetooth speaker that you could get that was a really nice high-end, or a case for your ties that they would go into. Um, or, you know, maybe like a, a shoe, shoeshine kit or something like that. So more of the the lifestyle type items rather than the ensemble. The other thing we did that wasn't as strong as a little bit of a failure was we created a lower offering at the $10 a month, which was either a sock or tie of the month.

Okay. And you said that didn't go well.

It didn't go well. We didn't get as many people as I thought we'd get in it. I always thought like, yeah, if you did socks for $10 a month, one, you could use it as a hook to like save people. So if they want to cancel the $25 a month because they were getting too much stuff, you say, hey, we know a lot of the feedback we got, people really like the ties or the socks. Hey, stay subscribed to just the ties or just the socks for this. That's where we saw the success, but we didn't see a ton of people flock into that subscription. And I think it was just the way we positioned it and priced it because what I've learned over time about pricing is having multiple having multiple offerings can really help you be successful in driving people down a path that you want to send them down. I try and learn as much from Nancy Harhut as I possibly can. She's one of our past Sub Summit speakers and actually coming back this year. She's an absolutely brilliant marketing mind in terms of like consumer psychology and consumer behavior. And, and when you give people choices, they tend to lean in a certain direction. They'll take that like middle package. On things. So we thought it would— it actually did work. It drove more, you know, people to the monthly. But I thought we would see some more of the entry level and we really never did.

Do you think the price was too low? Do you think your entry price should have been $25 and there should have been something between $25 and $99?

Our monthly subscription box was too low. The number of times we like, we would have conversations around raising the price of our monthly subscription box and I'd always go like, guys, there's no difference between $25 and $29. In my mind. And you know, the number on the 2 on the front of it is really all that matters. And we're leaving $4 on the table. And I would get pushback from Chris and John time and time again. And Chris will tell you this story otherwise. He'll be like, no, no, no, it was always for $29. I promise you he was wrong. So he finally, one day we made the switch and it had no impact in our subscriber numbers. You know, they kept thinking people would cancel or we'd see less subscribes. It added to our bottom line. Unfortunately, like we waited so long, we needed those additional 'cause freight shipping was going up. Our cost of goods were going up, our credit card, you know, like all the different things. And so we had to raise the price at that point. And for us it was more of a regret of wishing we had done it sooner. In hindsight, what I would've done is I would've tested it on new subscribers only and kept existing legacy at that price point for a fixed amount of time. And just see what happened with new subscribers and how it drove it. So you wouldn't run the risk of losing all those current subscribers until you're ready to like, till your confidence in that number is not going to change things.

Yeah. Do you ever, have you ever seen anybody else, you know, cause I do this, I grandfather in the existing subscribers at their price for their lifetime. So that's another retention tactic where if you cancel, you're now, you're, if you come back, you're going to have to pay the higher price. Have you ever thought about that or seen another subscription box that does that?

Yeah, you know who does it that I really admire the way they did it was BarkBox. Okay, BarkBox emailed out and my wife forwarded me the email because she's the, the subscriber in our household to that, and she's like, this is interesting. It said, we will never raise your prices as long as you're a subscriber. And the cool thing that they did in that email too, they said, hey, by the way, we would also love to introduce you to our new offerings that we have that we just love for you to consider because we're going to do this for you. Can you— didn't quite phrase it that way, but that's the feeling I got out of it. And they were layering in a dog food subscription as well as a pet vet subscription in there. And this is where I think if you have a loyal fan base, one, rewarding them and saying thank you, and then two, rewarding them by Hey, we're never going to raise your prices as long as you're subscribed. One, it creates that loyalty because I had this the other day, Sarah, where I was like, man, we've got a lot of dog toys laying around. Maybe we should cancel BarkBox. But I'm like, oh, but we've got that price and it's never going to change. So, you know, that, that definitely works.

Well, I'm, I'm right there. We're about to do our second price raise in the last 6 years. And so I still have a massive amount of people on my OG price. And I wonder if one, do they even know that they're getting their subscription cheaper than everybody else? Do I need to remind them of that? Because maybe I need to do a campaign that reminds them, thank you for being a loyal subscriber. Maybe I need to give them a bonus in their box. Maybe I need to give them a coupon to my shop and remind them that they are on the lowest price and we're getting ready to raise prices again for the second time in 6 years. And so just reminding them of the benefit that they have. Retention strategy combined, combined with that. And then doing that again with the current customers that are on the second, you know, the first price range, you know, hey, we're going to raise this again, sending out, maybe segmenting them a little bit and reminding them that they have those benefits of never having their price being increased. Because what amazes me is the amount of people that I have subscribing to my box that have been getting their box for 60 months or longer. That amazes me. And so I want to make sure that they understand what they're getting.

Yeah, that's tremendous lifetime value, by the way. Like, I think that's fantastic. I don't— I think sending the reminder is a really— I think it's just— I think it's nice. It makes you feel special too. Like, hey, you know, congrats on your anniversary. We've had you locked in this price. Thanks for continuing to be loyal. We're going to keep doing this. You have to be careful you don't overcommit yourself. I think sometimes in those instances, because there could be a point in time where you're forced to either— it's, it could be unprofitable at that point. Um, so as long as you have the right margins in there, I think it works. The other thing that I saw one time, uh, KongBox did this to us. I think they've since, they've tweaked this subscription a little bit, so it's not the same anymore. But what KongBox did after 6 months, they— and I talked to them about this and got the reason why. They noticed that after 6 months, a lot of their subscribers started to drop off. That was like their highest churn point. So what they do is at like month 5, they would say, thank you so much for being a loyal subscriber. Starting next month, we're going to include an additional gift in your box every single month, an additional item inside your box every single month. So now, and they say, as long as you're subscribed, we'll keep doing that. So they mitigated that drop-off point or lessened that drop-off point a little bit. By giving you an added bonus. And it worked for us. Like, we stayed on for an additional, like, 2 or 3 months. I'm like, oh, we're getting an extra item now. We got to keep this for a while.

Yeah, it was like that free gift with purchase kind of thing. Like, you've, you've earned this now, and to hang on to it, you got to keep earning it. So I love that. I love that example.

Yeah, I see Liam Brennan doing this over at, uh, Buster Box from time to time, where he does a, um— and, and Buster Box as a whole, they do this gift with purchase right up front. We never explored that a ton. Is that something you have explored much?

Yes. So we do, we do a launch basically. And so we're getting ready to launch the Monogram Box. And basically it just means we've opened up hundreds of spots. So we have our— we've increased our product manufacturing for this month. So now we want an increase of subscribers. It's not like a steady growth like we've had maybe the past few years. We're going to go with a fast growth. And so we do it in a launch, a live launch style. And so with that, I give an early bird bonus. And so that bonus will go to every one of my existing subscribers that are currently a subscriber, and then anybody that purchases within the first 24 to 48 hours, depending on how I segment out the email campaigns. And so with this one, we're going to do like a travel size self, uh, sunless tanner. And so that's going to go in our summer box. Um, they get, you know, spoiler alert, they're going to get some really cool items in their May box. And this sunless tanner is going to go with it. And so that's— we need a reason. We need to give people a reason to buy. And if they don't have a reason, they put it off. We're all busy. We got a million things going on. But if I know that I'm going to get this free sunless tanner if I subscribe today, I'm going to go ahead and stop what I'm doing. I'm going to get signed up. I'm going to put my credit card information in and I'm going to go on about my day. If I think I've got a few days, I'm going to put it off and I'm going to forget. So we need to give people a reason to buy. That's one while I like to do the launch style. We'll add in subscriptions periodically throughout the year, and typically we can just put them up and sell them and it's no big deal. But when we do a big launch like this where we're expecting to get hundreds and hundreds of new subscribers, then we do a fast action bonus, basically early bird bonus. And so typical things like that. We're also going to do it. We're running our t-shirt subscription in conjunction with this launch. If I'm paying for ad money, Paul, I'm going to get the most benefit possible. And so we are running our t-shirt club Because again, it's that pricing thing. Some people will not buy the $60 box, but they will buy the $20 box. And so we're going to run that in conjunction with this launch. So if it's— if it comes down to, I don't want to sign up for the monogram box, we've got a t-shirt offer for them, and we'll have an early bird bonus there too. We're going to give them a reason. And if they want to upgrade and get both of the subscriptions, we do a combo subscription, they'll get two bonuses. So that's what we're doing.

The combo, that's a good way to— no, you only have the $20 and the $60. Is there anything above that, like a super—

I have a couple different levels, and it, it came out of— it has stemmed from— I feel like I've just explained this because it's a lot of offers, and I don't typically teach people to have multiple offers because it confuses your consumer. And so along the way, I had this box and I kept selling out and selling out, and every time I would get hundreds more, I literally would send an email to the waitlist and they would sell out. And I didn't have to launch this thing for years because I had so many people waiting for it. Well, in the meantime, I had started the t-shirt subscription, and that's about 4 years old. So it was 2 years after I started the box. And so I kept thinking, oh, let me create an accessory add-on because the profit margin on the t-shirt and the profit margin on an accessory— I have a 70% profit margin on an accessory and I have a 50% profit margin on t-shirt. I'm gonna have a huge increase in profit margin by adding this accessory in. I've sold out of everything else I can sell. Let me get some more earrings and I'll continue my launch. This was during one launch where I had sold out of everything I had and I was like, I just want to keep selling. I had all this momentum and I didn't want to like shut everything down. And so I added on this t-shirt and more subscription where you got a matching accessory and it matched the t-shirt that you got each month. And I have 60% of my subscribers that upgrade to the t-shirt and more. And that profit margin on that t-shirt and more, that the profit dollars is the exact same profit dollars to my completely curated and personalized box. And when you, when you think about the labor it takes to pack and fulfill this subscription, it's minimal to what it takes to fulfill our completely custom personalized box. And so we saw that happen. And so then we saw also people that were subscribers of both to the Monogram Box and the T-Shirt Club. And I thought, well, let's combine them and give them a discount for having both. So then we created the Combo Box. Okay, so this is where this came. And that was basically they got the $45 box, the $20 t-shirt, but you got your t-shirt for $15. Now you want a completely custom designed by me graphic tee every month for $15. It's a no-brainer to add that to your box. I'm not— it's going inside the box. I'm not shipping them separately. It lays right on top of our subscription box and those get sent out. Well, then people are like, well, I have the earring upgrade. I still want the earrings. And so, yeah, I call it the ultimate box. So you get the box, the t-shirt, and the earrings. We just call it all the things. If you want all the things, all the things you want, the ultimate box. And so those are the levels. It's $45, $60, and $70, or the t-shirt is $20 or $30. And so those are the different subscriptions that we have. But it's basically getting those upgrades. When people love you and they are subscribers for years, they want everything that you sell. And that's why we continue to sell one-off items all the time. If I've got this black t-shirt in my subscription and you're going to get the matching earrings, you know what else I'm going to sell you? The turquoise kimono that you could put over the top of it. Or turquoise kimono, there it is, that, um, that can go with it as well in the wintertime. Or let me give you this cute little bracelet stack that matches the earrings that you just got, that matches the t-shirt you just got. So I just keep adding, increasing their order value because I'm— it's like you with the accessories of the Gentleman's Box. Yeah, it all goes together. They all want that, especially if I'm wearing it on social media. They're like, well, I gotta have that too. And so we create opportunities to sell one-offs, we create opportunities to add items to their subscription in about quarterly. So if you want this kimono, you can preorder it. So I know how many I need to get and we'll just add it to your subscription next month. So there's different ways that we can do that.

That's awesome.

The levels.

And you're delivering such great value to your subscribers. One, like now they're, they're saving on shipping by getting all together. You're creating something that they're really excited about. And, you know, and they're you're just giving so much more, creating such a stronger relationship too with your subscribers because they're excited about it. They're like, oh my gosh, yes, you know, the turquoise kimono is going to be awesome as part of this and the matching earrings. And, you know, they go out and they feel confident and comfortable and everything looks great together. That's what a cool experience.

And you put it together for them. Like a lot of people like, well, I have to go to this store to get this thing and this store to find something to match with it. And so you're creating a convenience for them and they do feel good about themselves. They do feel put together and they're just ready for the next one. To show up. And so I think that that's important. It's when we get into this randomness, right, of things, adding things to your subscription that don't add to the main thing of your subscription, it just creates a bunch of randomness. And it just becomes stuff, where this becomes an outfit, it becomes a feeling, it becomes, it becomes an experience versus a bunch of random stuff that I have to put together in a different way in my closet.

Yeah. And you know, in hindsight, in thinking about kind of this conversation now, reflecting on like our Sock of the Month Club, they weren't connected. So there's no real reason. If the Gentleman's Box never featured socks, that's where it would've made sense to be like, hey, by the way, we're sending you this ensemble of a tie and a pocket square. Do you want to add the matching socks for just $10 more? That's where we probably would've seen a ton more upsell onto it. And if I went back in time and could tell Paul of the past to do that, that's, that's 100% what I would do. That's brilliant.

Well, that's another reason that we match our t-shirt with our box contents. So I start with the box every single month, the main piece of the box. Then I curate the pieces that go with it. So like next month, everything in the box has a blue tint, light blue, navy blue, royal blue. Everything's blue in that it's got a theme to it. It's a travel kind of theme and it's monogrammed in pink. Okay, so that is our subscription box. So now when I go to design the t-shirt, I've got a blue t-shirt. Pink ink, I've got a pink accessory because it's going to pick up the colors of the box. So now if I have this combo or ultimate subscription, when I open the top of that lid, everything match. And people that just get the box and they see the shirt that's going with what we're getting in the box, like, well, now I want that too. I want— it goes with it. It's not a separate subscription. It's that combined feeling.

Yeah. Yeah. And that makes that makes it that much more exciting. And when you open it and it's, it's just, that's what a really cool experience. Let me ask you this, because this is something we've been talking a lot about in terms of layering membership. And so you have experience with membership on the other side of your business with the Launch Your Box community and, and everything you're doing there. And so one of the things I've started to see from some subscription box brands is where they layer in a membership where you get additional value behind it. Within the community. Is that anything you've ever experimented with on yours? And I've got a great example of that, but I'm curious. And I'm like flipping the interview here.

Like, tell me, I feel like just get on the mics and talk all day long about—

I know we can.

I don't have an experience. Like, I don't deliver a box with Launch Your Box and I don't deliver a membership with the Monogram Box, but I have a ton of members that have the subscription physical product box and a digital membership that go with it. The first one that comes to mind is, um, Casey Hope with Whatever Letter. She sends out a physical box that has lettering supplies in it and project-based items teaching you how to hand letter, and then you get a membership with it too. You get lettering tutorials, you get a Facebook group where you can share your projects, and she gives lettering tutorials inside the membership. So you get a combined— now at some point, if somebody decides they don't want either comp— like if they don't want the supplies, like maybe I have a lot of supplies and they're stacking up on me, they can still be a part of the membership. So she's still— she's not doing anything extra for these customers except getting more income from them from something she's already doing. She's already delivering the tutorials, she's already going live in her group, she's already created support in this membership group with the community. And so now she has members that just aren't getting the physical component, and that will keep them from canceling.

Yeah, yeah. And that's what, you know, that's— I think I was talking to you before we started the podcast about this a little bit. Our theme of our event this year is Engage and Rich. I'm actually wearing last year's— for those who are just listening, we're in last year's theme t-shirt, which is Shift and Discover, because, you know, what What we're building towards with our themes is guiding the community to create frictionless, remarkable, amazing experiences for subscribers. If you can do that, if you can accomplish all those things, it's not thought as like a subscription of something like, oh, am I going to keep it? Am I going to cancel it? It's part of your life. And so last year's Shift and Discover, shift your mindset, shift your attitude, and discover what's possible and where you can go next. This year with Engage and Rich, it's, you know, engage your community, engage your subscribers, find ways to then enrich the experience. And so it's that, you know, we talked about earlier, that no-brainer of how you can continue to be part of their lives and you, you enrich that connection between the company, you know, between the brand and the customer that's out there. One of the ones I love talking about is Vinyl Me, Please. And they originally started off as like a vinyl record subscription. Matt Fiedler has done an awesome job building the brand. Now he's out. I don't know what he's doing now. He's chairman of the company still, but he doesn't run the day-to-days in it. But what they do, you know, so they launched this vinyl record subscription, but over time they integrated this membership piece into what they were doing. And so they saw, you know, we built this awesome community and they love talking about their vinyl records that they're getting and they do trades and swaps and different stuff like that. So he created that part of the experience within the community. And so you don't just subscribe, you're a member and you get the benefits of being a member of— you get your vinyl record every month. But guess what? You get access, early access into special limited edition prints. And not everybody can get them. Not every member can, but you're going to get early access. So if you're not a member, you don't get a chance at those. And then within the shop, you can buy additional vinyl records, you get a discount for being a member. And I love doing things like that because it creates that, that greater sense of community as well.

Don't they also let you pick out of their assortment for the month so you can— they have this customization factor, which I think is so important this day in subscription world. It sets you apart from other things. But you could go in and select what you want, kind of like FabFitFun where you can go in and pick. There's a couple items that you have you know, early access to choose before they all get taken or whatever. But I thought that was really cool with Vinyl Me, Please as well, is that you could go in and say, oh, I want that one this month. I don't just get what I get, right? Like, I get to pick which one of those options I want.

Yeah. And it helps take away from that sort of like what, what we tend to refer to as like box burnout, where if people, you know, get this, get what's sent to them every month and maybe they don't have that option to choose. I think there's a lot of different ways through that, but that's one of them of personalization. Personalization can be— person is trying to say that 10 times fast— personalization can be a little tricky sometimes though in terms of, you know, I always had fears of it from a fulfillment side. We'd always be like, oh, we should layer in t-shirts, but you know, worry about sizing and different things like that. How do you work through that?

I mean, we just talked about this in LauncherBox last week. Um, I feel like it's We have so many variations because we have sizing. Yeah, we have monograms, so your initials are on something in your box. And then we have the option to upgrade, so we have the monogram box, combo box, the ultimate box. And then we have the option to pick it up or ship because we have— 33% of our subscribers are still local to my town, and so they come into our warehouse and pick up. So we have 4 variables for every single box. And I feel like over the past 5 to 6 years that we've been fulfilling subscription box, we have just nailed the ability to have variables. And so it's all about batching stuff. So if you just like when we're doing T-Shirt Club, those aren't monogrammed. This only comes in the monogram box, but t-shirts are just one graphic tee by size and then whether you have the upgrade or not. So that's easy. Let's start with smalls. Let's pack all the smalls that don't have an earring upgrade. Boom, those are out the door. Now let's pack all the smalls that have the upgrade. That way you're not shifting from size to size, or this one has earrings and this one doesn't, and you're liable to make more mistakes. So if you batch all smalls with no earrings, all smalls with earrings, all medium no earrings, all medium with earrings, you're just going through and there's less error for mistakes. Now with the monogram box, because every single box is personalized, we usually start monogramming them 14 days before payments run. So we run a little bit of risk of monogramming something that obviously we will have a bounced payment for, but a lot of data showed us the risk is very minimal and it actually serves us a lot better to get a head start than to wait for the payment minutes to run. So we start monogramming, and we— everything in the monogram box, we fulfill alphabetically by person because their monograms are in alphabetical order. So we start monogramming, and they're just stacked in alphabetical order in bins or tubs or whatever we're monogramming. Then when it comes— when we're done with monogramming, we start packing, and we can usually get packed in a day and a half, all thousands of our subscriptions, because we're so efficient with the alphabetization. Like, we are al— alphabet masters around here, but we start— every box has a label on the side that says whose box it is, what their monogram, what their shirt size, what box they have, regular, combo, or ultimate, and then if they're being picked up or shipped. So we have a label that goes on every one of the boxes. So if you look down the row, you can just see, and someone will take shirts, and I'll have like the mediums, and I'll go through M, M, M, M, and I'll drop mediums in. I'm not going back and forth. Someone behind me has smalls. They'll drop smalls in. Someone has larges, they'll drop larges in based on that label. Then we'll go back and we'll put the monogram item in, and they should be in exact order for those labels to be. So you can check the monogram as you're dropping the item in that has the monogram, and then it's whatever else is in that box. And then you're going to check that label for what upgrades do they have. Do they have the t-shirt? They have the t-shirt and more. And it's just going down the row and marking them. And then the best thing is When we get done with, say, the batch— so the batch is probably 300 or 400 at a time that we do— we get done with one run, we'll go back, we'll start closing them. Everybody will take a table, they'll pull a box, they'll check the label, they'll check the 4 points, close it. This stack is for pickup, this stack is for shipping, and everybody starts closing boxes. And that's how all the checks and balances happen with variations. And we've just gotten very good, and we can do all of that in a day and a half.

Sarah, this is— so let me, let me tell you something that I recognize. I've recognized over the course of time as like a business owner is you never give yourself enough credit for the things that you're doing. Have you taken a step back to be like, I've built an amazing process and an amazing business here? Do you? Because you really are deserving of so much credit. Have you taken a step back to recognize this yet?

I think you just don't because it You do it every month for 68 months. And I think the best thing, Paul, is that, and I'm never shy of saying this, I started with 44 subscribers. Okay. And the things that you figure out with 44 subscribers or 100 subscribers or even 300 subscribers is way different than when you get into the thousands. So we perfected this process with 44 subscribers and then 70 subscribers. And then I finally got 100 subscribers, which I thought I was on top of the world with 100 subscribers. But you perfect You select things and you try things and you streamline and you get better as you go. Yeah, it was never perfect from jump. It was something like, hey, let's try it this way. Yeah, let's pack alphabetically because that's how the monograms are coming out alphabetically. So let's try packing alphabetically. You don't know these things. There's no— there was nobody to teach me this when I started. It was just something that we figured out and we got better and better as it— and we figured out better processes. More productivity as we went. And now it's just locked in. Everybody knows their role. Everybody knows what they need to be doing. And it just seems like clockwork.

Yeah. And I think that's an important thing to remind the audience. I'm sure your audience already knows this from listening to you for so long is like, I know I build businesses for a living. Like I've built, you know, over 25 years, I've built a dozen businesses. I've sold a few. And even listening to what you've just described to me there, I feel immediately like overwhelmed. I'm like, How on earth do you do that? That sounds so complex and so amazing. But recognizing the fact that just like what you just said, over the course of time, you got to like, you layered in these things, you layered in the lessons learned, you figured out like, okay, this, all right, this didn't work. Uh, this is a little bit of a struggle this month. Let's fix it, fix it for next month and find ways to make it better. And that these things don't come overnight. They don't come, you know, layering additional subscriptions. With Gentleman's Box, if you look at the way we finish, you'd be like, oh my gosh, it's so intimidating. I could never do anything like that. We launched the first one to like begging our friends and family to buy it and figuring out the way through it. And that's the thing I like to remind, you know, fellow entrepreneurs is like, there's always somebody else to admire and aspire to. I have this disease called entrepreneur never satisfied syndrome. Like, you're like, man, I need to be there next. And Once you get there, you're like, I need to be the next one.

We all have that, Paul. Everybody listening has that. Yeah.

You know, like, and like once you even get like beyond Elon Musk, you're just still for some reason not happy, which I don't know if he's the pinnacle of it, but like, you know, somebody out there who's like got tons of businesses and lots of success. But, you know, I think, I think it's always recognizing that taking that step back and to give yourself credit, like I've done a really cool thing here. And I've built an amazing business and I'm loving what I'm doing. You just have to kind of give yourself those gut checks.

Thank you for that. I appreciate it. I think that people think customizing anything is not scalable, and I'm here to say that it is scalable and you figure it out along the way. And that's, that's what we're talking about, adding these additional offerings and increasing your lifetime value. You don't start a subscription box immediately, think, oh, what else can I sell them? You're trying to get your legs on the ground and figure out how this process works. And then you see it, like it becomes very visual to you. Oh, and they need this just like that premium subscription that you had. And when you tested it, not knowing how it's going to land, we have to be willing to take a risk like that. You tested it, you didn't, you know, put $500 out there in the beginning because it was all a test for you. We have to be willing to experiment with stuff and take an L if we take an L and not be in our head about taking an L if that's if that's what happens, but you got a W and then you realized, oh, I'm going to try this again and you got a W again and you're like, oh, well it's the same people buying all the things. I'm just going to put it on subscription. I know how that works. We've done it successfully. And so you just create, keep creating the offers to serve the audience that you have instead of always looking for a new audience.

Yeah. And I think that's exactly kind of where my head was going there is you're describing all that, taking those and, you know, recognizing too, as we've spent a lot of time here together and we're coming up on our time, I think, you know, recognizing those losses and those wins, like you said, and listening to the customer along the way and listening and finding areas of opportunity and finding those areas to enhance those relationships together and build on those relationships is just— is the way you can continue to build success.

Yeah. Thinking about that experience. Versus the stuff. It's not about the stuff. It's about the experience you're creating with your box. And that's what it's about. Well, we did hit our time. So let's give them a little, let's give them just a little sneak peek about what's coming up really soon in Dallas at Sub Summit. Tell me who's going to be there because there's a lot of cool people that are going to be there.

We are so excited. And, and, you know, the thing about Sub Summit is we work really hard to provide value for everybody that's going to be in the room. It's different. People come to conferences for different reasons. It's whether it's to network and meet, create new friends there, to see some of the sessions and listen to the speakers, to walk around the expo hall and meet new suppliers and partners and vendors. We really work hard to bring that experience because we've been in the trenches before ourselves. And so we want to make sure it's super valuable. And, you know, as you look at the schedule this year, we've got some massive brands that are going to be joining us, speaking on the stage, and some, some great new brands that are just getting started and in the trenches and doing the nitty-gritty every single day. And I think no matter what stage you are in your business, you can learn from those speakers at so many different levels. In addition, we've expanded our expo hall this year, our hosted buyer program, creating more great ways for people to serendipitously meet and interact with each other. Don't forget the pitch competition, the Cube Awards. So really just kind of bringing it all and continuing to elevate the experience in every aspect of it.

Yeah, I'm really excited, not only for you guys, but really I'm excited for me because number one, I I have, I got a member or two in the pitch competition right now. So that's really exciting to see her go all the way. We did have a member that was in the final round of the pitch competition last year. The Cube Awards. Hello, we're ready for the Cube Awards again. We're hoping that our members walk away with some big wins again this year. We had Jennifer Nicole win big at the Cube Awards last year. We also have— I'm looking forward to the stage talks, and I know that I'm a little busy while I'm there with, you know, loving all my members and stuff like that. But I always make sure I catch the replays for— I love the app, by the way. I love the app. I catch the replays for the ones that I miss. But here's my advice for people. Being an entrepreneur is lonely. A lot of us and a lot of you listening to my podcast right now probably are working from your home. Home by yourself. That gets lonely and it takes getting out of our comfort zone and getting into a group of people that understand where you're at and what you're dealing with and can share your love for the things that you love. There are probably a lot of people in your life that don't get what being an entrepreneur is like and that's okay. They're not built like that, like us. They don't understand us. But being in a room with other people that do is really great. If I can walk away from Sub Summit with one new idea or one piece of clarity or one action plan, it's totally worth the time that takes for me to get out of my business for a few days, learn about some new things, network, meet other people, and then I come back refreshed. I come back enthusiastic. I come back ready to take on whatever I've been struggling with. And so I would just encourage everybody to look at it with that perspective. It's in Dallas, really, really close. You're coming to Texas and come hang out with me at Sub Summit. We have an amazing Launch Your Box lounge in the expo hall where even if you come by yourself, it is great because you will find a Launch Your Box member in that lounge at all times, day or night, to hang out with, have meals with, chit-chat with, go to sessions with. Plus, you're going to be able to come hang out with me. I'll be there all weekend. It is May 31st through June 2nd, and there's still tickets available, and we would love to see you there.

And I will tell you, I'm a little bit of an introvert myself. I don't admit this very often, so I know sometimes that can be challenging to, to get out there and to to talk with other people and maybe if you're coming by yourself, meet other people. But I always say I have to channel my inner Chris Chambers. He's my brother, our conference emcee, and just strike up a conversation with somebody because you never know what it's going to find and what it's going to lead you to. And you just got to kind of get up the energy and maybe ask a question and just meet some other fun people. But I promise you, it's always so valuable. Any conference I ever go to, including our own, it's just the the people you meet and that time that you spent, always a good investment.

Always. And I'm going to challenge them too, Paul. They know I'm a huge introvert. And if I can step my foot on that stage not once but multiple times while I'm there, you better just bring it. Because if I can do it, you guys can do it. And I would just love to meet you. So, all right. Thanks, Paul. We had such a great episode talking about lots of different ways that we can increase— we kind of got off track and talked about a lot of different things today. But it's all good stuff. If you want to hang out with Paul and I, you want to come to sub-summit. But think of ways that you can continue to layer in offerings within your own subscription box business because it's only going to help you generate additional revenue, additional profits, and additional bottom line. So 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 launch launchyourboxwithsarah.com, get on our waitlist, and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.