127: From 0 to 500 Subscribers on the First Launch with Art Shattered

Have you been selling one-time boxes? Have you been thinking about turning that into a subscription? My guest today had been selling one-time boxes for years and finally took the leap into subscriptions. Come listen as she breaks down how she went from 0 to 500 subscribers in just 5 days.

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

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. I have one of my mastermind members and also one of my BFFs here with you today for a very special interview. Cindy and I have known each other for several years right now. We make it a point to go on vacation together at least twice a year, and we're actually getting ready to go on vacation next month together, and I'm really excited about it. But I have to share Cindy with you today because she did something really incredible last month and I just knew she would be the perfect guest for the podcast today. Cindy, welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast. Why don't you just do a little introduction to who you are, your business, and what you actually do?

Okay. Hello everybody, and thanks for having me, Sarah. I feel like I'm talking to my— just talking to my little friends. My name is Cindy Manley, and I have a membership called The Shattered Circle. Now, that derived from my main business, which is Art Shattered. I started Art Shattered in around 2011, just basically making glass and resin art for myself and selling on Etsy and selling in a couple of shops around my little town I was living in, and I kept getting people asking questions about the specifics of how to create the art. You know, where do you get your glass? What resin do you use? How do you do this? How do you do that? And I felt like I could make this into a business. And so when you and I met, I think we were just starting a subscription business together, memberships, and that kind of catapulted me into the Shattered Circle, which is a membership group where I actually teach start to finish how to create art using glass and resin. And we teach all aspects of art in there. We use plasters, we use paints, mixed media, papers, all kinds of stuff. And then we add glass and beads and resin to just create a 3-dimensional, very different art look. And it has been wonderful. It has been so much fun. I think that everybody who sees this art for the first time are just mesmerized by it. And so it has really opened up some doors for me. So I'm having a great time.

So we met, I think, 5 years now. Yes, Cindy, because we met in the spring of 2018, and so we were building memberships back then, and you started your Shattered Circle membership. And tell me, so 5 years later, tell me how many members you have in the Shattered Circle right now.

I am right around 1,200 members inside the Shattered Circle. I started with 54 and when 5 years ago. So yes, 5 years in August is my anniversary date for my membership. And 5 years ago when I got 54 members, you would have thought I'd lit the world on fire. I was so excited. So to have grown so much in 5 years to 1,200 members is just a blessing. It's just amazing to me.

And we've been friends for 5 years now. And so you've been around me and, you know, all I talk about is subscription boxes. And so you're not new to shipping and packaging and shipping and things like that because you were selling kits. When did you start selling kits? Were you selling those right away 5 years ago, or did that come later?

That definitely came later. No way. I barely knew what I was doing 5 years ago to start the membership. I mean, I just learned as I went. And my, my founding members, those first 54 people probably went through a lot with me because I was just— they were like my little guinea pigs, bless their hearts. I still have over 20 of those members still in my membership today. But as I keep watching you and a couple other people that we were all in our little group together who were putting together boxes and subscriptions. And I just thought it would be so interesting. And it was how I started shipping boxes was kind of born from people who were really interested in creating the art, but they were having a hard time finding all the pieces, like putting all the pieces together. Where do I get glass? Where do I get resin? How do I find this? Where do I find that? So the very first box I ever did was for my boot camp. So after my Shattered Circle business picked up, I created a course. It's a 4-week beginner's course, just teaching the basics of how to do your first art, how to do your first glass art piece. And I created it for people who just want to get their feet wet and see if they wanted to join a monthly membership. So with that 4-week course, I created a box. So we were only selling it to people who were joining that boot camp course and only as an option. So the very first time we did the boot camp course, we probably sold 75, and I thought that was Amazing. I cannot believe we sold 75 boxes. But over the course of time, I started adding boxes here and there for challenges. Like we would, we would launch our membership twice a year and pre-launch, we would always do like a little challenge and it would be like a 3, 4 day challenge where I would go live in a specific specific group, and I would teach them live, step by step, how to create a cute little art piece. And that's where we really started really putting boxes together, because last year at Christmas— it was actually October last year— we had 3,000 people in our Christmas Tree Challenge, and we could not make boxes fast enough. We literally made— and only because you made me— we literally made 800 kits. I think I had this discussion with you about making 500 kits, and then you sat me down and said, okay, Cindy, I remember last year when you only made 250 kits, and then people were upset sad because they couldn't get one. And so after having that talk with you, we upped it to 800 kits for last year's challenge, and we actually sold them all so fast, every one of them, that we created a secondary kit that was like a partial kit, uh, and we sold almost 500 more of those. So last year we sold like 1,300 kits. Guess. And it was very painful. It was very painful, and it was a hot mess because we didn't know what we were doing. And, um, yeah, it was just a hot mess.

So you have these workshops twice a year, and you started selling these supplemental kits to all your workshop participants. And each year this was growing. It was 250, it was 500, it was 800, it was 1,300. It just kept growing and growing. So now we're in 2023 and you're like, okay, I think it's time that I turn this into a subscription. Tell me your thought process behind selling the one-off kits and then deciding you needed to have a subscription.

Well, the kits are very popular, even though, you know, for a long time I just Avoided that, the thought. And we had a very small location as well. We had a very small studio location, and I just didn't feel like we could make it happen. And we were not on our game really when it came to putting the kits together and getting them out. But I, after doing that first big launch with the kits and that That first one was actually 2 years ago when we had— when we sold the 250 kits and I probably could have sold 1,000. I was just— it was just kept coming up in the back of my head that I really needed to do this. I really needed to do it. I really need to do it. And I just kept fighting it, fighting it, fighting it, fighting it. And I have so many people constantly asking me for kits. Can you do a kit for this? Will you do a kit for that? Will you do a kit for this? And I just couldn't make it make sense. But last year, after the Christmas Tree Challenge, and they sold so fast, and I probably could have sold even more if I'd have had them ready, but we kept running out of materials. We were running all over town, and I sat down after that, and I think you and I actually flew together and talked it out and talked about my process of how I was packing my kits. And you gave me a great process and it really has made a huge difference in our making sure our kits are accurate. And it just kind of grew from there. And it grew from people constantly saying, you know, a lot of my members are my age, I'm 60. A lot of members, or my members, are my age, or a lot of my followers are my age and maybe even older. And it's just hard sometimes to find all the pieces of something, you know, and they often want their piece to look just like mine. And so I decided after selling all those kits last October, I thought, I've got to do this. I didn't feel like I could do a monthly subscription box because I just didn't feel like I could handle it. I didn't feel like I had enough bandwidth for that. But I started toying with the idea of the quarterly and then making it like a seasonal box, and it kind of just grew from there. I think it started last October after selling all those kits and then sitting down with you when we are all together and the success that our friend Tamara has had and the success that you have and just the constant request from people on my page and people who follow me just made the decision easy. So it was super easy to make and it was— it worked. It worked well.

Yeah. So I want to, I want to talk about that. So now you decided, okay, I'm going to do a quarterly subscription because I do have this large membership and I am providing content for them every month. And that's a lot of work. And let's just be honest, you like to go to the beach a lot, so you don't want to be tied down every weekend to the studio. I already know. And so you have to put it into your life, right? Like you don't want to just grow out of control and then all the freedoms that you've gained by having your own business are taken away from you because exactly that's the true flex. You can have the freedom in our business and you've built an incredible business to have the freedom. But what I want you to understand, if you're listening to Cindy today, is that Cindy spent years building her audience. She spent years nurturing them through live trainings, free videos, free tutorials, paid membership. She had built an audience. And so now when she decided, okay, I'm going to do this quarterly subscription because it's going to fit with my life and it's going to fit with my bandwidth that I have left and I'm going to do it my way. Tell me, we just launched it back in June. Tell me when you decided to announce that you were going to do a subscription box.

I'm trying to think back. I think we really started hard and heavy probably after February in Dallas. Was it February we were all in Dallas? I think we talked it out, hashed it all out, and I really made the decision then and started trying to figure out the logistics of it. And once I started talking about it, probably in April and May, I started kind of talking about it on social. Media and, uh, just kind of putting feelers out to see what people were thinking and how they were feeling. I got such positive feedback, especially from my members. I literally thought of my members were gonna buy all my kits. I really thought they were. But once I started putting feelers out and talking about it, I knew it had to happen because I had so much positive feedback. From that.

So, and did you build a— did you start a waitlist when you started talking about it?

I did. We started a waitlist probably about 3 weeks before we launched, just to kind of get a feel around that.

So the timeline was about 90 to 60 days out, you started planting the seeds, announcing it, talking about it a little bit. Then, um, about 3 weeks out, you built the waitlist so that you would have a launch list to launch to. Yes. Then we're now in the launch. So now it's June, we're in the launch. I want you to talk to me a little bit about what were some of the things that were most successful during your launch that you did?

Well, I think the waitlist was very successful because we actually launched to our members first. We gave the people who are in my membership my monthly membership first dibs on these kits. So that was very helpful and I wanted them— I always want them to feel special because they are— always want them to get the best of me. So we launched to our membership first and gave them the first opportunity to have kits. And then I think secondary was the waitlist because after we gave our members like 48 hours to purchase a kit. And so at that point, we released it to the waitlist and we sold probably 50%, 50 to 65% within those two groups, within the membership and the waitlist. So the waitlist was very smart. And then I think at that point, I literally just followed your launch plan. You know, it was like I felt like I had a cheat sheet. And I literally followed your launch plan about posting behind the scenes, about going live, showing them the kit, showing them, talking to them about the benefit of the kit, why they would want the kit. And that was really the whole success behind it. Being consistent, posting, following that launch plan that you laid out, and that did it. And actually, we were open until midnight Friday, and at 9 PM we sold our last box. And I know you were there, and you know that I cried like a little baby.

I was there. I don't want to talk about that. I want to, I want to tell them what you did, but I want to talk a little bit about those marketing strategies that we just named off. So let's talk through Cindy's marketing strategies, because I think they're important, and we need to go into a launch with a strategy. And so for Cindy, she did a series of strategies. So she gave urgency to her members. Her members are her VIP people of her business and they are paying her monthly already. So why wouldn't she want to give them first dibs on access to these kits? So first she marketed to her membership, then she marketed to the waitlist. Now, did you have an early bird bonus, Cindy?

We did have an early bird bonus. And it wasn't really anything. It wasn't, you know, I usually spend a lot of time and effort and thought putting effort into that early bird bonus. But we ended up, we had two kind of, kind of two things, I guess, that we felt like were going to help people make that decision. We did have an early bird bonus, which was just really an additional little piece of, it was like a wood template. Of a sunflower because our, our box was a sunflower and pumpkin. And so we added in an early bird bonus of an ornament that was shaped like a sunflower that they could paint and add the glass to as they were painting their workpiece, their workshop piece. And additionally, we had a starter kit that we did charge a little extra for that included an entire set of tools that they need for future boxes. So these were reusable items, paintbrushes, palette knives, canvas risers, resin spreaders, that kind of stuff that they would be able to use for every box that they get in the future. And we marked it way, way down. So it was a no-brainer to add it to their list, and people really wanted that. People really, really, really wanted that additional starter pack.

So now you're selling even more things. Yeah, during this launch, right? Okay, so we've got the selling to our members, selling to our waitlist, early bird bonus, and there was something that you did, um, from the launch plan that you've seen me do and other people do through launches. And you did that on your last night and you did it throughout. But I think this is what sealed the deal for you on your last live. I popped into your last live and you were, you were putting your members' names on Post-it notes and putting them on the wall behind you. And it's something that I love to do because people love seeing their name. They want to see you write their name, put it on the wall. They want the recognition. And so you were down to your last what was it, like 10, 5 subscriptions at that point. And you were, you had been working so hard. You did the launch plan. And I want to be very, very clear. You did the work here. I didn't do the work for you. I just gave you the template on what you need to be doing. But there's a lot of work to be done for a launch. And you showed up and you worked the social media plan that we gave you. You worked the live schedule, you worked the email marketing, like you had everything in that launch plan locked and loaded going into your launch. And here you are doing the last live on the last day, exactly like the way I tell you to do it. And you're selling out on close cart night and you're putting these people's name on Post-it notes behind you. And that triggered more people to sign up because they wanted to see their name. And you got emotional that night. Yes. And I want you to tell Just tell everybody, first of all, before we tell this story, I need them to understand what happened. Can we go back just a little bit, Cindy? Because you and I were sitting there talking, and it was either, it was either January at the mastermind or it was February at our little girls' trip. But we were talking about how many subscriptions that you should start with. And do you remember that conversation? What were you planning on starting with?

$200,000.

$200,000. Yes. Tell me how that conversation— tell them how that conversation with me went.

Well, you pretty much just let me have it.

You, in a very loving, positive way.

In a very loving and positive way. Because I feel like sometimes I tend to undervalue and, you know, underestimate myself and my— the effect I have, I guess. And we talked and I told you 200 and you were like, oh, pshaw. You were— you said that.

What are you thinking? That's like telling me you're going to have 2.

So you actually are the one who encouraged me to do 500. And I'm going to be 100% honest. And tell you that from the moment I promised you that I would do 500 until the moment that that last box sold, I did not believe I could do it. I had stomachache, I had nerves, and I just 100% did not believe that I could sell that. Those 500 kits. And you made a believer out of me. And it— that is probably why I got emotional, because I think a lot of us have that imposter syndrome and, um, we forget, uh, why we're doing what we're doing and, um, the effect that we have on other people's lives as well. And So when we hit that 500 box sold, I literally had a little cry fest live on Facebook for everybody to see. And it was a happy cry. Yeah, I was just honored, I guess. I was just— I just felt honored that people trusted in me to give what I promised. And it was very touching. But yeah, I was going to do 200 and you told me in no uncertain terms that I was being ridiculous.

And you know me well enough. I'm not a gambler. I'm not going to tell you to do 500 if I don't think that's even possible. I'm not a gambler with anyone else's money or livelihood. And I know spending money on 300 extra product kits is a lot of money. And what happens if you don't sell them? But what I do know and what I've learned over the years is that our data and our history tells us a lot about our business. And I watched you every single time show up and sell these one-off kits and sell out so dang fast. And we're not talking 200 kits, we're talking hundreds, thousands of kits that you are selling. And I felt like you could do 500 in your sleep. Like, why were you even gonna play around with 200? You're just gonna make people mad if you show up with 200. And then take your toys and go home. And so for me, it was a no-brainer because I could see what you had been doing and I knew this was going to be successful for you. But for you, there was a lot of fear in that because this is the first time you were launching a subscription and that was different. You were asking people to make a commitment to you and you were afraid of that and you were afraid that they wouldn't commit to you. One-time box, sure, they'll buy that from me all day long, but I'm asking them to give me their credit card that I'm going to charge every quarter. Sarah, that's different. And that put a lot of fear in you that they wouldn't, and just like you just said, that they wouldn't trust me. And they trusted you. 500 people in 5 days trusted you and gave you their commitment for, for a subscription. And it became super emotional because you didn't think you had it in you. I knew you had it in you all along. Um, and I think sometimes we just need people in our lives that see the greatness in us because it's a hard to see it in ourselves sometimes, especially when we're doing something like this that feels really, really big and it feels really unfamiliar. And, and that's what was happening. And, and I'm— I was crying with you on that live. I was so proud of you.

It was your win too.

And I knew what you were up to. It was my win because your wins are my wins. And I— and we talked about this, like, what was the worst case scenario? I always work through the worst case scenario in my brain on things. Okay, what if Cindy shows up and only sells 300 kits? And you and I talked about this. What's the worst case scenario, Cindy? And you were like, well, I could take that glass and we could repackage it and we could use it for different kits. And I'm like, okay, then why aren't we going 500 if we know what the worst case scenario is and it's not a big deal, right?

Right.

Because, you know, you can sell hundreds of one kits. All we had to do was create a new project and sell a kit to go with it. That's a no brainer. If that's the worst case scenario, Why wouldn't you? And I think that was the conversation that you were like, okay, you're right. Why wouldn't I? Yeah, I can sell this glass. I sell glass all day, every day. I know how to sell glass, right? So why wouldn't I try this?

Right. And I think sometimes we just need that. We need somebody else outside of our own head because I think sometimes the person in our head is Negative Nelly and we need somebody outside of our own head to make it make sense.

It's the self-doubt.

Yes.

You were doubting your abilities to show up and sell them and you just needed someone to push you gently. And I didn't push you to go sell 1,000 kits. I just pushed you to go, like, you probably could have gotten close. I pushed you to do 500. It pushed you out of your comfort zone, but because it pushed you out of your comfort zone, you were so locked and loaded on that launch. Like you were doing all the things because you knew you had to, right? Like I have got to do this launch because It's got to go well. I got 500 kits I've got to sell. And here's the other thing that I really love that I want, I want you to talk about is you actually had all these kits pre-packed prior to your launch. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yes, 100%. They were all packed. The only thing we hadn't done is add our cute little label on it because of the starter packs. Some people would have those and some people wouldn't. So they were already packaged, they were already laid out beautifully in my studio and ready to ship. And we did that because, well, it just makes it easier, I think, once you sell. You know, the negative in me, or that unsure person in me, only wanted at first to like pack up a couple hundred kits, just like I only wanted to make a couple hundred kits. At first I was like, okay, we're only going to pack up 250. And then after we packed up 250, I was like, what, what am I doing? We're gonna sell these 250 and then we're gonna be like running around like crazy trying to get these other 250 packed. So I said, we are gonna pack all 500 and we are going to have positive attitude that we are going to sell all these kits. And so, and I think that's stemmed too from the Christmas tree challenge from last year in October when we did not— we still hadn't really had our process down, and it was a crazy few weeks of hurriedly trying to package things. We made mistakes, we made, uh, bad errors, we ship things to people who didn't. I mean, it was a train wreck. So we really wanted to make sure that we were doing right by our customers so that we took our time. We started packaging these way in advance, even before I started launching. We had these boxes packed and ready so that we could ensure that everybody got what was supposed to be in their kit and that it was packaged nicely. And it really panned out. It really made it easy to focus on the launch and focus on doing what I needed to do to sell the kits because the kits were already there. They're already packed and ready to go.

Yeah. And I loved when you were like, and we're, we're done with our launch and we're already packed, ready to go. I thought, she's genius. Like, and then you like Did you go to the beach that weekend or something? Like, I did go to the beach. We're already packed and ready. I was like, I'm so jealous of her right now. She's so smart. Why don't I think of these things? I just show up and sell it and then I worry about it later, right? So I want to talk a little bit about, before we get done with this episode, I want to talk about what 500 subscribers means for you and your business.

Oh my gosh, it, it means everything, you know? And it's not even just financially, because financially it is a nice bit of extra security because, again, I'm single. I am 60 years old. You know, I'm not 30. I don't have this whole years and years and years ahead of me to continue working. So financial security, I'm divorced. And financial security means everything to me. And it means a lot of that means financial security for me. Adding that extra bit of income 4 times a year just adds more financial security to me. And also, it's not even just the money. It is being able to help those people who don't have access access, or it's super hard for them to go out and find all these supplies. And to be able to accommodate those people so that they just have everything they need, all they have to do is open that box and get started. It meant everything. I just felt like that was a need that wasn't being met. And so it meant a lot to me to be able to do that.

Yeah, I think it's really important because it's, it's not just one side. It's not just the financial aspect of it. It's showing up and loving on your people. And you do a great job of that in your membership. And now you're able to serve them in a different way. And that's one of the benefits of this subscription is the convenience and the products that you're using and them being able to use exactly what you're using, which is a pain point for your members sometimes. And so for you to be able to show up and provide the supplies, the tools, the, the glass that you're using. I mean, some of the pieces of glass that you use are very unique and it is very hard to find stuff. And so being able to provide more value, but also not provide more value without charging your worth for it, you're making additional income off of that. You're not just working harder for no reason. You're working harder and you're generating more income. And I know one thing that we have talked about together is that you also— you're shipping glass regularly, you have it in your shop all the time. But this was also a way that you could provide steady employment and have— because when they're done with all the shipments for the day, now they can prepack the next quarterly box. They can start prepping boxes, prepping glass, prepping all the supplies for it. And it's for you to have a stable person or people in your studio working all the time and not just when you have orders or not just when you have a launch. Right?

Right. Exactly. So yeah, and I was able to employ my daughter, who is a hard worker. She's a hardworking little girl. She's not a little girl. She'll be 40 on Sunday. But she is a hard worker and she knows how I like things done. So that helps too. So I was able to bring her on and add her as an employee and, and keep every— everybody stays busy. And I like being able to do that as well.

So what advice, Cindy, would you give to someone listening right now? Maybe they have an audience that they've been serving in some capacity. Maybe they've been selling the one-off thing for a while and they're just not sure if they should turn it into a subscription. What advice would you give to them?

I would say do it. I mean, I think sometimes you have to step out on faith and listen to what your people are asking you for. That was super important for me, listening to what people are asking you for and taking that and running with it. Because I think people are going to tell you what they need. People are going to tell you what they want. And if you can meet those needs, it's always going to work out. And I think just taking that step of faith and believing in yourself, even though sometimes we struggle with that. And, you know, and if you have to start small, start small. You know, I started small. My first box I ever did, I mean, we were making them as we were selling them for the boot camp. And, you know, just just believe in yourself and listen to your people. Really listen to what they're asking you for.

Yeah. And now you don't have to play this guessing game with how many kits to make.

Yeah.

Because you know you got 500 subscribers, right? And when you want to increase that, you can turn around and launch and increase that. And then you know you're not throwing this dart at the dartboard like, how many should I sell this time? You know exactly how many subscribers you have, how much you want to grow, and then it becomes less stressful, less worry, and more just consistency and stability in your business.

Absolutely. And that is a great point too, because with the one-off boxes, it was always a guessing game. And so with this, I now know that I have to make 500 boxes, you know, and, and just like in anything, people are going to drop off and people are going to rejoin, and that's going to happen. That's just a natural process. But because we created the waitlist as well, we can utilize that waitlist as people drop off or cancel to add people back to meet that 500 from our waitlist. So the waitlist is super important.

It's no longer—

yeah.

And keep building that in between the part 2. Cindy, where— if they're interested in learning about glass resin, glass art, being a part of— being a member, or even getting your subscription box, where can they find you?

You can find me on Facebook. My page is Art Shattered, just like broken glass. Art Shattered on Facebook. And I'm also on Instagram. Not very good at Instagram. I'm a Facebook girl, but I'm also cindymanley_artshattered on Instagram. But for the most part, you're going to find me on Facebook. We do weekly lives on Wednesday, so if you want to pop in at 6 PM Central on a Wednesday and watch us make a fun art piece, we'd love for you to join us.

That's awesome. Yeah, I love watching Cindy create art on Wednesdays as well, so jump on. You might see me on there watching Cindy in the chat. So Cindy, thank you so much for sharing this amazing launch with all of us. We'll be back next week for another great episode.