122: From Bakery to Food Truck to Subscription Box Owner with The Frosted Cakery

Launching a subscription box is only a piece of the puzzle. What happens when months go by and you just aren't growing? Join me on this episode as we go from bakery to food truck to subscription box owner with Kimberly from The Frosted Cakery. Come listen.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. Today I have a Launch Your Box member with me. I have Kimberly Turner. She's the owner and baker at the Frosted Cakery, and she recently launched a biscotti box. We're gonna talk about the journey. We're gonna talk about what she did after she watched the 30 Days to Launch. Masterclass and how she doubled her subscription. We're going to get into all the details. I can't wait for you to hear her story. It's a good one, y'all. Kimberly, welcome to the podcast. So glad to have you.

Thank you so much for having me.

Why don't we just go way back? Okay, let's, let's go back because there's a good story leading up to this biscotti box, and I want our listeners to hear it because here's the thing that we don't think about. A lot of times we just see somebody do something and we think they've always done that, or that's just who they are. We all have a story behind us. We've all started something, stopped something, started something again, taken our life in different paths, had different careers, and then all of a sudden we're subscription box owners. And so it's no different for Kimberly. So why don't you just tell us a little bit about where we started this journey?

Oh gosh, well, I guess if you want to go way back, we can start out with— I'm an Iowa farm girl, born and raised, grew up on the farm. And actually, my grandmother, who I call her the OG cake lady, so she had decorated cakes for everybody in our community. So I grew up watching her decorate cakes, so I consider that my formal training. I didn't go to culinary school or anything like that. I did take one Wilton class, but that's about it. I think I learned The most just by watching my grandma and trial and error, and then grew up, married a Marine. We moved to Florida, then we moved to Hawaii and lived there for 6 years, loved it. And when he started deploying, I was like, I need something to do. So I started baking, which is baking for military friends, for their birthdays, for their kids. And if you know anything about military spouses, we have a huge circle of friends all over the world. So every time we would move. I would get more customers or more requests for cakes. And so I just feel like I got busier and busier. So then we moved to Virginia, then we moved to North Carolina, and I feel like when we moved to North Carolina, I was getting cake requests before we even unpacked our household goods.

We knew you were coming. They were waiting for you to get there.

Yeah. Yes. So I was very busy baking custom cakes and cupcakes. Um, loved it. Figured I should probably make it official and set up my business. And really, it just took off. And after maybe, I don't even know if it was a year, we had someone reach out and say, hey, we have the storefront, you need to have a storefront bakery. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm a military spouse. We don't know how long we're going to be in this location. It's just one of those things where it's kind of hard to commit to something because of that. But I thought, you know what, this is, this is going to be a chance of a lifetime. So I just jumped in with both feet, signed a lease. It was very successful. The community didn't really have anything like that. It was a very small coastal town and they just accepted me even as a military spouse. It's just a really great community. And we were open for almost 7 years. And of course, during that time COVID hit. Okay. There was a lot of challenges with that. You know, a lot of it, it was like, we didn't know as a bakery, you know, they had standards for a restaurant. They had standards for, um, like boutiques or, you know, other stores. But it was like, as a bakery, what do I do? So I kind of just followed along the restaurant guidelines. So we closed the doors to, you know, uh, people coming in. So I was like, okay, what can I do to continue to bring in revenue and keep my doors open, per se? So we had the girls do deliveries, and I did online cake decorating classes. I would make cake kits for the local people who could come and get like the cake, the buttercream, and all the tools they needed, and then they would just follow along live on Facebook with me. And so that was just something, you know, that I was like, what else can I do?

Yeah, it's like, I gotta make money. Yes, I've got to pay these bills. They still want my rent even though they won't let me open my store. They still want my rent, and I've got to take care of my family, and I've got to feed my family. And so I think so many of us in that time period were just like, all right, let's figure it out. What can I sell and how can I sell it and how can I get it to my customers? And I think it's amazing the way that we just— I think entrepreneurs just have that in them. Like, we'll figure it out. Like, okay, shut my door. Okay, I'll figure it out. You know, like, we're not new to challenges. So it was just a really big challenge for us. So you go through COVID. Now you start delivering. What happens after you can then reopen the bakery?

So we reopened, things had kind of lifted and things were going good, but I feel like it was just different. And it was also coming close to my husband retiring from the Marine Corps. So I was, you know, in the process of trying to find a buyer for, for the business and everyone was still so scared about the unknown. And so I had a couple of interested people and it just kind of fell through because they just didn't know if it was, it was gonna be worth it to purchase a business.

You know, it was unpredictable, especially a brick and mortar food type business. We saw so many like mom and pop restaurants go outta business during that timeframe. And it was a really scary thing for somebody to take on not knowing what was gonna happen.

Yeah. So many businesses just didn't reopen in our area. And so, I mean, it was frustrating because, you know, I knew I had a great business. It was successful and it was, you know, it outlasted other bakeries during the time I was open. And, you know, I was like, listen, I made it through COVID.

Yes. Dang it. Dang it. I made it through COVID.

But I, you know, it got close enough to the time that we were getting ready to move back home to Iowa. Where my husband and I are both from. And I was like, you know what, we're just gonna close the doors. This is too stressful to try to continue to find a buyer. So we closed the doors and I thought, well, I'll just bring the brand to Iowa, you know, and see what happens. So we moved back home to Iowa, we built our forever home. And during that time I was like, I'm gonna hang up my apron. We're just gonna take a break. 'Cause I was burnt out, you know? 'Cause it was a lot during those last couple years. Yeah. But then of course, you know, Gosh, as soon as we crossed that Iowa state line, there were the messages asking, can you do a wedding cake? Can you, you know, do my son's birthday cake?

They were ready for you, right? Right. They're like, oh, Kimberly's coming home. Let's get some cakes.

I was like, guys, let me get my, my house built first and let me get my kitchen set up. And, you know, so I started back slowly. My brother managed a cafe, so I brought some desserts in there to sell. Once we got my my kitchen done in our new house, I was like, ah, do I really want to do this? But I thought, you know what, from what I've learned owning a storefront, like, I can manage the crazy, I can manage my workload, and I just have to do things a little differently. And then we, you know, I thought a food truck would be really fun, but like on a smaller scale. So I started looking for little campers because we have so many local farmers markets here in rural Iowa. So I thought that would be something I really would enjoy. So we found this tiny little 10-foot vintage camper and my husband helped me refinish it. And that's the cutest little thing. I just love it. And then got that all set up, signed up for some farmers markets, and then just opened, you know, set up my kitchen and got it inspected. And then it just kind of took off again.

So you have this mini rolling food truck. And what are you baking out of it? Like cupcakes?

So I don't actually bake out of it. It's so tiny. It's basically just like a tent on wheels. So I just serve out of it. So I bake, do all the baking out of my kitchen. So I do cupcakes, I do cakes. I also do the biscotti. I do cookies and bars, cake cups, things like that. So, you know, a little bit of something different.

Bakery on wheels.

It is.

Yeah. Okay. So bakery on wheels. I like it. You cook it at home, throw it in the camper and you're going out.

It's like an ice cream truck, but way Yeah, I need to get some music on it, you know, you can hear me coming. But, you know, and then it got really busy again. I thought, this is more than I kind of wanted to do. But I mean, I love it, I do love it so much, but I wanted to move things online because any product maker knows that you only have so many hours in a day and you can only make so much before you're maxed out or have to go to the next level and hire employees and things like that. And I just didn't want to do that. It's, it's a whole other level of bookkeeping. And, you know, I'm just not great at bookkeeping. So I, you know, took a course on some online business options and that's actually how I found you. And honestly, at the time I was like, I do not want to do a subscription box. That was not even on my radar, to be completely honest. But, you know, I watched your training in this course and I thought, let's just It's interesting. And you had shared some examples and it just, you know, my little business brain just started spinning. I was like, maybe I could do something. And so I, you know, went over and followed you and, and watched some of your videos and started listening to your podcast and loved it. I just, I loved hearing all the different stories of the different businesses who had taken their business and, and taken an item from their business and turned it into a subscription box. And it just got me thinking like, Okay, what can I do now? Because it kind of— it was just— it was exciting, and it's something new, and I just love the idea. Um, but I knew I didn't want to do like just bakery items because my concern is quality. Like, I want to make sure to send out quality items. I didn't want anything to be melted because in Iowa in the summer it gets hot. So I knew I would have to really kind of think through the things that would be in the box.

I think it's super smart the way that you chose this product, because you really thought about the logistics, like sending cupcakes, not the easiest thing, right? And you knew you were gonna have a lot of logistical issues with sending cupcakes or whatever else that you bake. So I think having this product, when you chose biscotti, I think that was the genius move for you, because you knew the, the packaging that was involved. You knew the temperature, like you knew that it was hardier than sending a cupcake, right? Like you could efficiently have better results for your customer by getting a biscotti than getting, you know, a cupcake. So I love the way you thought through this.

Well, and it was something different, too, you know. I, I knew that my customers were hoping for like, send me cupcakes, send me cookies, and as much as I would still love to possibly do that in the future, or maybe do one-off boxes, I just want to do something that was different that you didn't see everywhere, and not everybody knows what biscotti is. But I know that a lot of people drink coffee and tea, and so I just figured it was something unique that would pique people's interest, that they would really enjoy. And because it has a longer shelf life than, say, like a cupcake or cookie, I knew that would be logistically easier to organize and manage every month.

Let's talk about the first challenges that you had, because we think, okay, I'm brilliant, I'm doing a biscotti instead of a cupcake, but it didn't come without challenges, right? So let's talk about that a little bit. What were the challenges when you, when you started figuring out how to pack and ship this?

So at the point where I was ready to launch my subscription box, I had joined your group and, you know, listened to a lot of training and read through everybody else's struggles. I'm like, okay, no struggles for this girl. I know, you know, I know what to do. So I knew I had to like measure out my product and know exactly what size of box to get. Going through the different trainings. I wanted to do something fun for my, my very first subscriber. So I created a, a mug to include in their first box, and I thought, you know what, I'll just stick one of the bags of biscotti in the mug, and it will fit in that slot in the box, and we're good. So I had my boxes ordered, and of course, you know, I think there may have been a little delay, so they were showing up the morning I was supposed to get my biscotti boxes shipped. So I had all my biscotti baked. I had my mugs ready to go, and my boxes show up. It's like late morning, you know, the post office closes at 5. I'm like stressing a little, and I couldn't get the biscotti inside the mug inside the box. It was— the box is too small, and I was like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? So I had, you know, we live out in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. So the closest store is at least half an hour away. So I had to drive to a nearby town and I think I hit 3 different places before I could find a box and the number of boxes that I needed to ship my first round of biscotti boxes. But I found them. It was stressful, but you know what? I made it work.

Yeah, you figured it out, right?

Yep.

So you came into the group over the summer, you did your first launch in the fall, end of November, and it went great. You left your cart open and you You have these notes for me, so I'm just gonna read 'em out here for a little bit.

So, okay.

She left her cart open, you know, hoping to increase the visibility and increase her subscriber numbers. So she launched December, she got no new subscribers. It's fine. December's really, really noisy. January, she got 3 new subscribers. I bet you were excited about that. February, she got 1 new subscriber. March, she got 3 new subscribers and she's like, you know what? I'm gonna take this 30 Day to Launch masterclass. That Sarah is teaching right now. Talk to me about that. When you saw that and you went through that masterclass with me, tell me what you were kind of thinking and feeling about what you needed to do to really increase your numbers because you weren't having very much traction over the last 4 months. Right?

Right. So I knew, I knew December wasn't going to be a great month because of course it's so busy with the holidays. But I was frustrated with the fact that I only had, you know, onesies and twosies here and there. Every month after that. So I was like, okay, and I saw your 30 Days to Launch and I was like, let's, let's just check it out. And I'm, I'm the kind of person that really does well with like a list and, you know, tell me what to do each day. And so I loved that and I, I wanted to be able to continue to grow my box but obviously at a much greater scale than I had been the last few months. And so going through that, that course with you, I loved it because you broke everything down, you know, you talked about the different emails to send, you broke down how to do a giveaway to grow your email list. It was just, it was everything I needed to just take it in, take my notes and implement it. And so I did that the month of April, I believe, and doubled my subscribers that month. Yeah. And I was thrilled. Doubled.

Did y'all hear this? She doubled her subscribers with the 30 Day to Launch Masterclass launch plan when she'd been trying to, you know, we do this like we work so hard. We, we're do, we, we're doing all the things, we're We're posting, we're advertising, we're making sure that we're doing all the things and we just don't get a lot of traction. But what we do when we have a plan like that is all you have to do is execute it, right? And that's what I have learned over the last few years as being a coach is that people, they just want me to tell 'em what to do. I, in the beginning, thought a lot like, they, they're entrepreneurs, they'll be creative, they'll think about it. I'll give them an idea, I'll give 'em some inspiration, they'll run with it. It'll be great. No, they honestly just want me to tell them what to do. And I'm really good at bossing people around, so I can totally do that. So That's when I put together— it was one of those days, Kimberly, inside the group. Like, I'm in the group every day answering questions, and I was in the group, it was probably a couple of days in a row, and there's just like, woe is me. I'm doing everything and nothing's working. I'm doing everything and nothing's working. And then I go click on their— I go click on their social media and I'm like, or their website, and I'm like, you're not doing the things. And so I'm like, I just need to spell it out to them. So clearly that they can't mess it up. That's what I need to do, and that will help them move forward because we get stuck, we get paralyzed, and then we have this inability to move forward a lot of times. And so I'm really bossy and I can really just tell people what to do. And I think the fun thing for me is that I do it every single day. Like, I'm doing this all the time. I know it works, so just do what I tell you to do, right? Like, just— I want you to have fun with it. I want you to be creative with it. But if you're stuck at a place where you just don't know how to make progress, let's put one of these plans together. I got lots of strategies. We could talk about that all day long, but I love that you just took that masterclass and, and you had the worksheets and the printouts and everything, and you said, I'm going to lay mine out exactly the way Sarah is telling us to do this. And then it's on you because you're the one that has to show up. You're the one that has to implement it. You're the one that has to do the things and have the messaging and have the product and do all the things. Then it's all on you. But if you can execute it and, you know, and even if you don't execute it 100%, right, like even if we get 75, 80%, right, we're still in a much better place than trying to figure out things on our own all the time, trying to spaghetti test stuff. I've already spaghetti tested it. I know it works. I know other people— it has worked for other people. And now you're listening. Hey, it worked for Kimberly too. So if you are thinking like, yeah, but will it work for me? It worked for Sarah. Will it work for me? Yeah, it worked for Kimberly too. It worked for a lot of other people in the group too. So just do the things, just go do the things and double your subscription. Because what Kimberly wasn't able to do in 4 months, she did in 30 days just by having a game plan. And I think that that takes so much of the guesswork out of, out of it for us.

Well, and I think too, it might sound overwhelming at first because it's 30 days of posting, but what's great is that a majority of that stuff you can schedule. So I was sitting there scheduling things out 30 days in advance. So it wasn't like a set it and forget it type of thing. But for the most part, if I had everything scheduled, I had my emails ready to go. I had all my social media planned. I had pictures taken. You know, my giveaway was all scheduled and everything that went with that. And so it wasn't as overwhelming as what I might have initially thought it would be having to post 30 days. And I remember thinking like, oh my gosh, people are going to get so sick of listening and seeing my biscotti. They're going to be like, Kimberly, enough.

But they weren't, were they?

Nope, not one single person did tell me to stop posting about my biscotti. So I guess it's— I guess it wasn't so bad. And I, you know, and I know I've been posting cupcakes and all these things for years now, having a business, and I know that not everybody sees every single post, and I know you need to be consistent. And it was just me needing someone to say, okay, Kimberly, here's what you need to do on this day. Here's what you need to do on this day. You know these things, just do it. And so I just needed that little kick and, um, a little accountability. Yeah.

And, and the thing about it is, is that I bet there's still people following you that don't know that you used to have a biscotti box even after that 30 days. We get in our heads about that a lot too. Like I'm posting, they're sick of me talking about my biscotti. They're sick of me talking about my subscription box. And what— because we live it every day, all day, and we don't realize that there's so many people that don't even know what we do. If we can just bring that visibility to our product, it's amazing. And that's why I love the 5-day launch plan too, because we're just focused on nothing but our subscription box for that 5-day launch plan. And it really puts this surge of energy behind that one thing, and we're not distracting anyone from that one thing for 5 whole days. And that's why we have good results from things like this, because we just have to be consistent with it. You talked a little bit about emails, so talk to me about the emails that I asked you to send during the 30-day to launch.

Well, so I love that during, during the course and during the masterclass, you really— and I think that's something a lot of people struggle with too. It's like, I don't know what to say in an email. So you literally went through and said, okay, here's what mine say. Here's the picture I use. And we could literally just take that and make it our own. And it's not— I mean, none of them were really very long. They were just quick little, hey, here's this. You want it? Great. You know, I'm going to email you again tomorrow or, you know, in a few days. And, and so it was super easy to be able to replicate from what you showed us. And, and that's what made it so easy and doable. And I feel like, you know, when people do open an email, they don't have to read this novel. It's just little bits each, each email. So I think it's easy for your email subscribers to take in as well because they won't read it.

They won't read a novel. And that's what we sometimes— we, we overthink like what we need to say. We just need to be clear and to the point and have fun with it, be casual and have fun. And that, that's enjoyable to read. Nobody's going to read a professional, dear so-and-so, and all of this. They want to see what you're talking about visually. They want little tidbits of information that they need to make a decision and then it's bye. They don't need a long drawn out email. And so yeah, we just need to do that more often and keep serving it up in front of people in different ways. So now that we've doubled our biscotti box, what's on the horizon for you and this wonderful subscription box and the food truck and all the things?

So at the end of my launch, I did close my cart. Um, because I, I needed to kind of know how much I could manage, you know, how many boxes, how many hundreds of pieces of biscotti can I make each month and still have time to bake for all the markets that I'm doing this summer. So once the summer is kind of getting close to ending, I, I'll probably launch again and go through the exact same, you know, steps and just do it all over again and see what happens. I will probably also maybe have some little surprise openings, you know, here and there and say, hey, I'm gonna, you know, add a few more boxes to my waitlist for those people to sign up. But just trying to keep things manageable for now and see how far we can take it.

Yeah, I would encourage you to funnel people to your waitlist all the time. Every time that you talk about that biscotti box or show it or reveal it or anything, drive them over to your waitlist. And as you have cancellations, because you will, you can add someone to fill their spot so that when you get to the fall and you wanna relaunch, you're just growing, you're not replenishing. So we wanna keep that really leveled out so that we can continue just to grow and not replenish. And I think a fall for you is a great opportunity, like all the fall cinnamon, apple, pumpkin. Yes. Sign me up when you open back up. Let me, send me an email. Yeah. And yeah, because you'll have, you'll, you'll have it down. Like that's the thing. We don't have to grow to, you know, 500 subscribers overnight. That's not realistic, especially for someone like you that is baking every one of your items. So you need to make it manageable. I didn't grow to 500 overnight either. I grew 25 a month until I could kind of get my processes down and then really have that locked and loaded for a while. And then when I went from like 300 to 600 or 700 overnight, that felt like, oh my goodness, what did I just do? We've got to figure all this out. I need to hire somebody else. I gotta have more space. Like, I— it was crazy. And so you don't want you don't wanna just do that and be stressed out and overwhelmed. You wanna grow with it. You, you're gonna learn a lot about your processes with baking and packaging. Mm-hmm. And, and all of that stuff too. And so I love a steady growth. I think steady growth is, is, is really healthy for a stable business. And so stop it where you're at, get that under your belt, kind of catch up to your growth that you just doubled and fill in the spots if someone cancels and then be ready to grow when you're, when it's time for you to grow. And I love the way you're managing that. So if somebody needs to go get on your waitlist for when someone cancels, where would they find you?

So my website is frostediowa.com. You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram at Frosted Iowa, and then I do have a website for the biscotti box. It's at getbiscotti.com.

That's a great website. I love that. And let's talk about this because I always ask my guests, because you're, you've been in the shoes of someone listening right now that has been thinking about starting a subscription box. Maybe they've stepped back because they've gotten a little scared. I mean, we didn't even talk about your first box idea, which was the sprinkle box. But what advice would you give to someone listening that is really wanting to start their subscription box, but they're just paralyzed with decisions or making progress?

I would say, you know, just, just do it. Just start it because it doesn't have to be perfect. Because the more you delay, you know, you're just missing out on that monthly income. So just start it and you can make changes along the way and make it better as you go. I know Marie Forleo said everything is figureoutable, and I just, I always remember that. And I just think, you know, if I hit a struggle or a challenge, you just figure it out and you just move forward. And, you know, most of the time your subscribers have no idea, you know, they're just happy to get your box every month.

So, and just so you know, if you're listening, we still have challenges. I would say even at my level, every single month there's a brand new challenge. We got, we got a major challenge going on out in the warehouse today. So you're never not going to have challenges. So if you get it started. Just like Kimberly said, just make a step forward. That's probably the hardest part is getting it out there in the world, and then we'll make it better and better as we learn and grow and we get better as business owners and entrepreneurs and subscription box owners. It's all just a learn— it's all a big learning lesson in life, and we, we never stop having challenges. It's never perfect, right?

Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alright, so we're gonna hold you to that. Go get started. Let Kimberly and I know how it's going. If you need some of this amazing biscotti in your life, we've got the links for Kimberly's sites below in the show notes. Kimberly, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.