158: It's NEVER Too Late to Start, from Retirement to Subscription Box Owner

No matter if you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, or beyond, it's never too late to start your subscription box business. This episode is going to inspire the heck out of you. My guest today started her business at 55 and launched her box at 60. Grab your earbuds and come join us. Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams. Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. I've got a great story for you today. I've got one of my students here that has just hit it fast and furious launching her box, having success, having a six-figure year last year. We're going to break it down, how it started, how it's going, and where we're going. I'm so excited to introduce you to Bev Schweigert today. She is the owner of Blessed Bee Boutique. She has a couple different subscription options for you. We're going to talk about how it started and where we're going with this. Bev, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about your business, like what you do, what products you sell, give them a little insight, and then we're going to dig into this.

Okay, sure. I am super excited to be here with you, Sarah. I really appreciate it. So Blessed Bee Boutique is a business I started 5 years ago. I started with Christian jewelry and things went really well during COVID because everybody was buying online. But then things slowed down and I was disappointed that I wasn't selling as much because I did really well. So I tried to figure out a way to bring new Christians into my business. And I started— I always journaled, so I decided to start sharing my journaling with people. And I started a Facebook group and I invited people to journal with me. And I started going live 5 days a week. Actually, I started 7 days a week and I had to cut that way back. But at 7 days a week, I would go live with a devotional. My Facebook group just kept growing and they wanted products. They wanted the journal I had. They wanted the different things I had. So I started introducing journaling supplies. Then everybody's like, why don't you turn this, your devotionals into a book? I'm thinking, oh, I could probably do that. So I made them into a journal. And I started adding— I didn't want just a plain old devotional. I wanted to add something special. So I have a creative twist to it. I love to draw. I love to do crafts. My devotionals all have not just a devotional, but they also have crafts, songs to listen to, different kinds of things, poetry, anything like that is creative. I offer along with my devotionals. So they're like just an extra day that won't be just a devotional. It might be a craft that goes along with the devotional.

Okay, so let me— I'm gonna break this down for our listeners. So you started in 2018 with selling Christian jewelry. Were you making this jewelry? Were you just buying and selling? Tell me about that.

Yeah, I was just reselling. Yeah, just totally.

And you were doing this to help pay for an upcoming missions trip, right, to Peru? That's where this kind of started. You're like, I gotta pay for this thing, I've gotta fund this thing, how can I do it? So I love that this is where it all started. And so Then COVID hits us like a wrecking ball, and you are selling a lot of jewelry online. And so you're like, okay, this could be an actual business. I've funded my trip. Now this could be an actual business. And you started to do— was it Bible journaling? Was it strictly devotionals? Like, how did the journaling come about?

Yeah, just trying to do— get— dig deeper into my Bible and trying to just spend time with God. And this is a way that I knew that I could do that. I didn't know what devotionals to pick, so I started picking a theme for the month.

Okay.

And then I would find verses that went along with that theme, and then I started sharing them with my group. So then I have a list of all the verses for the month, and I still do this today. I only go live twice a week though on, on the devotionals because it just got to be a little too much. But I still do the— I still do the journaling, but I just don't share it live that way anymore.

Okay. So this was really your first subscription, right? And so you called it Draw Near Daily and you had some that have the digital version and you have some that have the printed version. And meanwhile, you were writing these journals, right? So now you're writing these journals and you— what happens from there as you start creating these journals?

Uh, the first ones that I did a Vacation Bible School. And I was like, all these kids were going to Vacation Bible School last spring. And I thought it'd be fun to have an adult women's Vacation Bible School. So that's how the whole idea of the crafts and things like that came up. And I just started writing it and I used the 6 women of the Bible as the way I did it. So it was 6 weeks, each week was a different woman of the Bible. And then there were 6 days worth of devotionals. And I did crafts that went along with each woman. So it worked out really well and that went over fantastic. So not only did I give the devotional, but I gave all the supplies to make the crafts as well.

So it was like a ladies' vacation Bible school in a box, like you were creating this experience for them.

Yes. I didn't think about doing it as a subscription. I just wanted to offer it as a one-time experience. Yeah. And it went really well. It was— the people enjoyed it. They, I made my own Facebook group for it. So we would meet there each week and talk about what, which woman they were talking about, different things like that. And it went over really well.

So then your gears are turning. You're like, okay, this went really well. What can I do next?

So I did a few more. I decided to do a couple for fall, preparing yourself for Christmas. And then I did an advent one and I included the crafts and the fun stuff too in each one of them. And they all went really well. So then I started thinking, my Draw Near Daily, which is just 30 pages of downloads or printed material, I thought, I'm doing that as a subscription already. I wonder if I could turn this into an actual box and come up with a devotional. And I thought, first of all, I thought, I can't write that many to do it every month. I write them all myself. They're all written personally by me. And they're 6-week devotionals. So I thought, even if I do a 4-week that would really put a strain on me to get them all done in time. So I do 6-week devotional every other month.

Okay.

So they've got like a 2-week break in there to be able to wait till their next kit comes.

Okay.

And a friend of mine who's already in your group, Amy, with that, she's the one that told me that I needed to join your group.

So she's like, get in, launch your box, girl. Let's do this. Like, you can do this. So You join Launch Your Box.

Yes.

And you decide that you're gonna launch this subscription. It's called Creative Blessings Club and it is 6 weeks devotionals with all the supplies and you deliver it bimonthly basically. Okay. It's December of '23 and you're like, you know what? I'm gonna launch this thing. And, and here's the thing about this. You've been building this audience and I think that's what people miss when they start a business. This wasn't something you decided on December 1st and launched on December 26th. You, you've been building this audience through the different products that you've been selling. First, it was the Christian jewelry. That's your ideal customer still, even though they were buying jewelry. Then you started with the journaling and the devotionals, writing the journals yourself, creating the journals. So you're building this audience this whole time without really knowing that you were about to launch the subscription box. But It just came so naturally for you. It wasn't like you had this audience of Christian women and now you're going to go sell bow ties. And that's the thing that people really get tripped up with. If we're building an audience for something, how can we best serve that audience? What do they want from us? They want bow ties from us. They want more devotionals from us. They want more connection from us. They want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. And that's essentially what you did. You went from just selling jewelry There was a connection to God and there's a connection to the piece, but it's really that time you spent with them, the daily journaling, the daily devotional. You started to build this audience that was ready for more from you. You built your know and trust factor with them. They're waiting for you to come back. They're waiting for you to provide them with the journal that you're using. Like, they want to do that with you. And so naturally, the next step was I can create an experience for them every 6 weeks. And I love what you said about, I couldn't, I didn't have the capacity to do that every single week. And I love that because sometimes we feel like we need to do that. Like, I've got to do this, this is how it works, I've got to do— we have to understand our bandwidth and our limits of what we can do. So I love that you're sending it bimonthly, and I love that it's for a 6-week time period because it gives you a little bit of a break for that 2 weeks. It gives them a little bit of break in anticipation for the next one. It's not that it just keeps coming and coming. And if they get a little behind, they've got time to catch up.

That's exactly what I thought too. Yes. Yeah.

Because you need them to consume those journals because if those journals sit in that box and the next one shows up and they haven't even cracked open that one, like they're going to cancel. That's just the nature of our business. We need them to open their boxes every month. We need them to— for me, we need— I need them to wear the shirt. I need them to put the earrings on. I need them to use the bag. For you, you need them to open those journals. And so you decide, okay, it's December 23rd. I'm going to launch this thing. I've been in Launch Your Box. I'm going to launch this thing. I know what I need to do. Sarah's told me what I need to do. I'm going to launch this thing. And on December 26th, you decide, I'm going to launch the Creative Blessings Club. So tell me about that process because you weren't in Launch Your Box very long before you just come straight out of the gate with it. So Tell me about that feeling. You get into Launch Your Box, you start learning what you need to do to launch. Tell me your feelings at that point and really what steps you took to get you to the launch point.

I already knew a lot about business and how I already had emails going and all of that. I still watched and binge-watched everything, every video you did. And I watched them and I admit I did them on speed fast so that I could just get through them. And I sat and took notes for everything you did. The big thing I never did before was the waitlist.

Okay.

I really kept thinking, I don't think I need this. And I am so glad I did.

Okay.

Because I just didn't think I needed it. But I went ahead. I kept that promotion going. I kept talking about it in emails. I had the waitlist set up exactly the way that you told us to do. And when it was time to launch, I did the countdown. It's coming. It's coming because I launched the day after Christmas.

Yeah.

So who else is thinking about this the day after Christmas? And I went ahead and I sent it out and it was ready to go because I kept thinking about doing it the week before. I thought, no, I think that's too much planning. People are too busy thinking about what's to come. But the day after Christmas, they'll have time to relax. And they did. They did. So I sent it out to my waitlist people and the orders started coming in and they just kept coming in. And my— I closed the box we shipped on January 9th. Okay. So I only had it open for a short time.

Yeah.

And the orders just kept coming in and coming in.

How many subscribers did you get on your very first launch? 80.

I had 80 boxes.

80 subscribers. Like you got double what I got, Bev. Like I only launched with 44 subscribers. Like you got double what I had. And I'm so excited for you because One, you picked the most random day to launch. Like, it wasn't random to you. It was very calculated and strategic to you. But to launch on December 26th, that's kind of genius. And also to come into Launch Your Box as quickly as you did, get your stuff prepared. I love that you listened to me on speed mode. I talk a little bit slow sometimes, and I think sometimes that's beneficial to some people to process it. But sometimes you're just like, I need to hear what she's saying. I need to implement it. And that's what you did. You listened. And you implemented, you listened and you implemented, and you had been building this audience. So you didn't have to go through the audience building stage. You had been building this audience all along. And it was now just, oh, I have all the pieces. I have the website, I have the email CRM, I have the audience. There's really nothing holding me back than just putting this together and going for it. And I love that. That's what you did. So you launched December 26th. You got 80 subscribers. Now we talked about it being bimonthly. So at this point you've launched again. Well, you've opened your box again for the, the second box. And tell me how that went because you put the waitlist back on after you sold out and you started working on your January boxes and getting them shipped out. You said, I'm going to throw this waitlist back up. I'm going to collect all these people that want to get in so that when I have the March box, ready to sell, I have all these people collected in one place, right?

Yep. Okay.

So what, tell us what happened in March?

I launched in March and I actually started a Facebook ad too, which really helped a lot, brought people onto the waitlist. And then I launched the third week in February. Is that right? Second week in February, I launched again and ended up with 130.

OMG, I love this. 130 subscribers on our second box.

Yes.

Now I, I want to talk through this process a little bit for anybody listening that maybe has a bimonthly box. So talk to me about when you open it, because you can't just be open all the time because there's a gap in between there and we don't want them to pay and then have to wait too long. That's one of the things we talk about. So talk to me about your timelines of when you open it and when you ship. On the bimonthly schedule so someone listening can really understand that process for you.

So I keep it open until I sell out. Okay. I made sure I purchased enough supplies for 100 for my fir— or no, 75 for my first one. And then we scrounged to get 5 more to get those out too. And then we closed. And then I knew that I was going to launch 2 weeks before the date that they would be billed. The people returning. So that's what I did, is I launched 2 weeks before the date that they— the subscribers would be billed the second time. And that's when I started getting subscribers already. So when that first month came in February on the 26th, and my phone— boom! I had all of those 80 resubscribers come through. I was so ecstatic. I was just so excited. I was like, that's my biggest day ever.

Yeah, because you didn't have to show up and sell. You didn't have to show up and sell those 80 orders. It was like, oh, this is what happens. It just pops into my account. I don't have to do anything for it. And that's the greatest feeling as a product-based business owner, because without something that's recurring, like you literally have to get up and work every day. You got to get up and not that we don't get up and work every day the way it is, but we got to hustle. For that money every day. We got to hustle to pay the rent every day. We got to hustle to make payroll every day. And if we don't, we're going to fall short at the end of the month. And when we have something like a subscription box set up and those having that first recurring payment come in is, oh, this is happening. Oh, this is real. And I can only imagine your face when your phone is ding and you're like, Did I do this? Yes, I did this. And it makes you so proud and it makes you want to do more. So then on box number 2, you go get 50 more subscribers. Yeah, you go get 50 more subscribers. And we're getting ready to launch box number 3. And I know you have another goal in mind and to get another 45 subscribers with this box, which I have no doubt that you're going to do. But I want to know, and here's what people don't know because they can't see us right now. They can just hear our voices. But I read something on your information sheet that you sent to me and it just, it gave me chills, Bev. I'm going to read it to everybody listening, but it says, I just turned 61. I started this business 5 years ago. So it is never too late to get started. And I think it's so powerful and it's so powerful for anyone listening, no matter what age you are. Like, I didn't start my business till I was 35. I worked for people in my 20s and, and early 30s and it And I didn't even start my business till I was 35. But tell me what it's like sitting here at 61. You had a 6-figure year in business last year. You are growing this amazing, incredible subscription box that not only is just lighting up your audience, but I can tell that it lights you up doing it too. Tell me what life is like right now at 61 with this business.

It's good. I've worked. A lot. I did a lot of direct sales, MLM stuff in the past.

Okay.

But it was always like very part-time because I also worked full-time. And the whole time that my girls were growing up, I was able to stay home with them when they were little. Then once they started school, they had all the extra expenses. So I went to work and I worked for 15 years. And as soon as the last one was married, I was like, I'm done, hon. I'm done. And we were blessed. Believe me, I know we were blessed that we could live off of his income. And I quit my job not knowing what I was going to do, except that I wanted to go to Peru again. So I was like, okay, so I don't have the extra income. What am I going to do? So I decided to start thinking about having my own business and I just have not looked back. I've just continued to grow and grow. I add new products. I love to design new products. I have what I call Bible side notes, which I designed and I get printed through Post-it Note. Those are my top seller, and they're included in every box I do. I design them, the new ones, especially for the box. I design stickers, I design washi tape. So I do all of that work, all of the design work, all the fun work. And through the years, I've had to hire people to help me to continue to grow as I do. So I have— I started with virtual assistants. And built— let them help me with the email marketing. I have a Trello board that I keep track of everything that I want to do, and the VAs take it from there. And then I hired a full-time woman to come in and work for me, and she does anything I want. When she helps me prepare, I do all the design work and she helps prepare all the stuff for it. And I— we order everything in, it all comes in, she organizes it. And gets it ready and it just, it works fantastic. And then I hired one more woman who comes in 3 days a week just to do my shipping of all of my journaling supplies that come in because those orders are still coming in for all of my other products that I have. So the main thing that is I keep doing this for my husband is he also is 61 and he is set to retire next year and he can't— he can't wait. He's been in human services for 40 years and he's burnout. I shouldn't say that, but it's true. And he cannot wait to retire and he keeps calling me his retirement plan.

So I love that. I can see on your face, and that's something you guys don't get to see listening to this podcast, but I can see this is lighting you up. This is giving you purpose. This is giving you— when we think about retirement, we think about there's a couple different ways we can go. Like, I'm not a spring chicken, Bev. Like, it's knocking on my door. But do you sit around and read books and watch TV all day? Do you go travel the world? What do you do in your retirement? And I don't know what that looks like for me, but I know that just who I am, I've got to be doing something that fills me up. And I can tell that this is filling you up.

It's all—

it's giving you purpose. It's giving you drive. It's giving you motivation. It's also giving you a really nice little income in your retirement, right? Let's be honest there. That's why we have a business. Most of the time we don't do this just for fun. But it's allowing you— you just said going back to Peru is important to me and it's something that I wanted to do. And starting this business is allowing me to do that. And I'm sure it's allowing you a lot of other freedoms that you didn't quite expect as you continue to grow. And hey, it's the husband's retirement plan. He's ready. He's ready to hang up after 40 years of doing anything. I would be ready to hang up my hat too. I love this for you. Tell me a little bit about what are the next steps for you as you— we go into 2024 strong with our new subscription. What does this look like for you? What do you— what are your goals for this year?

I seriously would love to double what I did last year in sales. That is my goal, and I'm on track already.

Wow, are you serious? You're on track to double?

Yeah, because things are going really well. My January, February, and March were fantastic. April, I can't wait till the 26th when those boxes go through. Already, I'm a numbers person, so I know all my numbers very well. And I'm always figuring out if I have this much in sales a day for the next 30 days, this is what I'll have. And then I can add the subscription box on top of that. Yeah, to me that's so exciting. It's just, oh, amazing. But my plan is to— I've already got so many devotionals written, I can repeat those this year for the new people that I brought in, and I can resell those. And all I have to do is reprint them, which in fact, what one of the things we did recently is, because I was spending so much money getting my journals printed, I leased a commercial printer. And now I have a commercial printer here, and we have an electric binder, and we get those journals done like that.

So fast.

It's so fast. And it's working out so much better because I can always keep them always in stock. And we're trying to be better organized, lean, efficient, so that I can step back when I want to. I can take time off. And I actually, I'm heading to Pinners in Atlanta next week. So we're going to have a booth there and we're taking a whole bunch of our supplies. I've got a big sign for my Creative Blessings Club box, and I'm gonna give them a bonus if they sign up right then and there. They have to use my code and join, and we have little bags with stuff from the last two boxes in to give to them. So we're excited. But we— my husband and I love to travel, and that's the big thing that we definitely want to do. And I've taken some trips in the past year and been able to leave my business in their hands and it's worked out fantastic. And that's what I foresee in the future is that I can't imagine not working. I honestly can't. I had 6 months between the time I quit my job and I started a business and I was bored to death. I have all kinds of hobbies, but I just— I couldn't just not do something. I couldn't. Yeah, that's— I can't imagine me not working. I will always have my hand in this.

Yeah.

And, but I'm getting— it was hard for me to let go. It really was to give anybody control over any part of my business. But little by little, I knew that's what I had to do.

But that's the part of the freedoms that we gain. Like, we can't be in control of everything or we'll never have the time freedom. Like, you're building the financial freedom into your life to be able to go travel. But if we never get some help, if we never let go of all the processes, we won't be able to travel because we won't have the time freedom. And that's what you're building in. And I think that's what people don't understand is when we let go of control, we gain our freedom back. And it's so important at any age to really get those freedoms in our lives because it opens up so many doors for us. We actually get to live life. And I think that's the goal of most entrepreneurs. Like, we want to do something that we are passionate about. We want to have an income that pays us. We don't have to work another job, and we want to have financial freedom. We want to have time freedom. And that's what we're buying when we're buying— when we're paying our payroll. We're buying our freedom in a lot of different ways, and it's worth it. Every penny of it is worth it because you wouldn't want to do all of this and have the money that you're making if you couldn't enjoy it.

Exactly. Exactly.

Bev, what advice would you give to anyone out there? Maybe they're in their 40s, maybe they're in their 50s, maybe they're in their 60s or 70s. What advice would you give someone listening that says, man, I'm too old to start a business, my time is done? What would you say to them?

Absolutely not. It is not. It is never too late to start a business. I have friends in e-commerce that are my age, slightly younger, who are pushing, pushing, pushing ahead just like I am. And don't give up. That's the big thing. I pivoted big time from the jewelry to the journaling. And if it's not working out, when I saw the sales dropping, I pivoted and I was scared. There's no doubt about it. I kept thinking, do I really want to start something again? But I just went into it with the mindset of, I've got to do something to bring more Christians into the business. What can I do? And that was my, my best response. And boy, it was definitely the best idea I had had. And it worked out perfectly for me. But I just totally believe that you can't give up. And it doesn't matter how old you are. You can do it. You can do it.

Absolutely. I love that. And Bev, if they are looking for you, they want to be a part of your world, where can they find you?

Blessedbeboutique.com. I have a Facebook group if they're interested in joining that, they're welcome to do that. And it's called— wait, let me make sure I have it right here because I have different groups and I want to make sure. Blessed Intentions is my Facebook group for journaling. So if anybody's interested, just look for Blessed Intentions. And it's a simple faith Blessed Journaling, and you can join my Facebook group. We have almost 10,000 people in the group and they are very active. They share their devotional pages every day. I don't require them to use my products. I just want them to be in the word. That's it.

You're just serving them.

I'm just serving them. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. In the words of Bev, it's never too late. Let's get started and let's start building those freedoms that we want in our life. I'll be back with another great episode next week. Make sure you subscribe to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'd love for you to take a minute to rate and review it. Let me know which episode is your favorite so far. Don't forget to join me next week right here.