164: Baking Their Way to a Subscription Box Business

Last week I hosted our annual Subscription Box Week and it was so, so good. During the week I interviewed 4 business owners that all have some type of bakery box. The cool part is they all have different niches and different journeys. I can't wait for you to be inspired by these 4 ladies. Grab your AirPods and 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.

Hey everybody, if you're joining us, I have the best bakers on the planet joining me today. Sorry, I'm connecting in all the places. It's hard to do the tech when you're by yourself, but I— they have all started a subscription box in the baking niche. They are all very different. They all live in different parts of the country. and I can't wait to share them with you. So if you're joining me, let me know that you're here. I would love to say hi to some of you this morning, this afternoon. I don't know what day it is. We're in the middle of Subscription Box Week, ladies. I don't know what's going on most days. I'm just showing up and giving them all the good knowledge that they need to move forward with their subscription boxes. But let's just start out. I'm going to start out by introducing you to the ladies here. First, right next to me, I have Lauren. She is The Cheerful Baker, and when she starts to talk, you're going to know that she's The Cheerful Baker. I hinted last night, Lauren, in our Zoom session with all of our new members that I had one of you was on the Christmas Cookie Challenge on the Food Network, and this is who it was. It was Lauren from The Cheerful Baker. Next to Lauren, I have Jonica. From Jonica's Bakery. And let me tell you, you see those white boxes behind her? They are filled with goodness. So good. Next, down here at the bottom, I've got Jenny from Love Me Gluten Free, her subscription box.

Jenny, did it—

did we just launch like just a few months ago for the first time? Is that right?

April is my first box.

It exploded. We're going to talk about Jenny's journey. You're going to feel so inspired. And last but certainly not least, all the way from Iowa, we have Kimberly from the Frosted Cakery. Kimberly specializes her box with biscotti, and it is some of the best biscotti that I have ever tasted. So I can't wait to introduce you to all of these ladies. And Shannon says, I'm addicted to these shows. So if you're like me and you don't bake and you just watch people decorate cookies online, like you're in the right place because that's all I do. I don't bake the cookies, I just watch people make the cookies. So welcome everybody. Okay, we're gonna start. I can see the chat is already popping both on the public page. So we are streaming on YouTube and the How to Start a Subscription Box page. And then we are also over here streaming inside the group. We've got hundreds of people watching us in the group. We've got some people watching us on YouTube and the public page, but everyone is there and they're all ready to hear you talk. So I'm gonna quit talking. Lauren, let's start with you.

I don't have any trouble talking.

I know you don't. And I told them also that y'all were going to outtalk me today. Lauren is the biggest culprit to outtalk me. So just want to get her over with first. Lauren, talk to me about what you do and then what your subscription is all about.

So I am a cookie decorator. I've been a cookie decorator for about 9 years. And when I was fortunate enough to go on the Food Network, I decided that I wanted to do something to leverage that incredible opportunity. And that's where the subscription box came along because I didn't want to ship cookies all over the country. And so this is my subscription box right here, the Cheerful Box, and it's filled with cookie cutters and an online decorating class. So you can get the box, you can make the dough, use the cookie cutters, and then I teach you step by step how to decorate them. And then I have a community of everyone that's in the class that has the subscription box, and we all share ideas and collaborate, and it's fun.

Okay, so instead of decorating cookies for the entire world, you are teaching them how to decorate the cookies with your cookie cutter subscription, right?

That's right.

Yeah, I love it. Okay, we're going to talk about your journey in just a little bit. Hey, let me introduce Jonica from Jonica's Bakery. Jonica, tell us a little bit about what you do, where you're located, and what your subscription box is about.

Thank you.

So I'm in Guntersville, Alabama, and I have the Jonica's Bakery box, which is behind me. I own a full-service bakery, so we do everything from lunch. We do 4 cases of all kinds of goodies every day. And the only way for me to get that into the mouths of people around the country is to do a subscription box. It's something I always wanted to do. So I started that in 2021, and then I recently started coaching people who want to get those systems and processes down to open their own bakery.

Yeah. Okay.

Now Jenny, tell everybody where you're from and the scope of what you do in your subscription box.

Okay. I'm Jenny. I live in Denver, Colorado. And so I've actually been a blogger developing recipes, talking about new gluten-free products and all these kinds of things for about 10 years now. And I started Love Me Gluten Free as a way to curate all the products that I love as a gluten-free eater and to show people that you can love being gluten-free again. So I had it come from a community that I built. It's called Good Free Gluten Free. And then Love Me Gluten Free is this offshoot of a subscription box that, like you said, I started earlier this year and my first box was in April.

And now tell everybody what you put in your boxes. So I know I'm not quite the baker.

I bow to these women.

They're probably amazing. I just wrapped you into the gluten-free baker. Yes.

Yeah.

Because I do food.

I do a ton of food stuff.

But inside my box, I curate products from different brands that I love under a special theme each month. And then people open it up and there's 8 to 10 products in there that they can try and sample, usually full-size products. And they're all gluten-free and they're all tested and they're safe. And yeah, that's what I do.

Yeah. So your products are prepackaged that you put together for all the people that need gluten-free products and want to try new things, but they don't have to buy a whole thing if they don't like it.

Exactly.

So you get to sample all the things and give them something new to look forward to every single month.

Exactly. It's a curation. And so I have a lot of baked goods in there. I have bread, I have baking mixes, I have pasta. Everything that us gluten-free people miss is in there. And so I hope some of you ladies on this call also make some gluten-free goodies for me.

Yeah, I know that Jonica's dabbled in it a little bit, haven't you, Jonica?

I have, yes.

Yeah. Okay, Kimberly, talk to us. Tell everybody where you're from. I just told everybody you were from Iowa. Where you're from, what you do in your scope of the bakery, and and then tell them about your subscription box.

So my name is Kimberly. I am in central Iowa. I actually owned a custom cake and cupcake shop in North Carolina for about 7 years. I'm a military spouse. My husband retired in 2021, so when he did that, I closed my bakery and we moved back home. We're both from Iowa, and I honestly thought I was like, I'm gonna take a break, I'm burned out. But we built this beautiful home and this beautiful kitchen, and I was like, oh, I just need to bake again. So I started a home bakery and then wanted to expand because I had all these military friends all over the country and all my loyal customers in North Carolina who missed my, my baked goods so much. But I didn't want to like ship cupcakes because of the buttercream. I know Jonica's got a system, or she's over here, and she's got it all figured out. I'm just not that brave yet. So I wanted something that was a little bit easier to ship that I wouldn't have to worry about like things melting. And one of the items that I would have the bakery that would always sell out so quickly was biscotti, and it's something different and unique. So I thought it would be something fun and to try new flavors. So my subscription box has 3 flavors of biscotti, 3 new flavors every month, 18 pieces total. And then I also pair, uh, tea with each flavor, so it's a little something fun that they can enjoy with their biscotti. And I've been doing that for about a year and a half now, and I'm having so much fun. I never imagined I would make so many different flavors of biscotti, but it's been really fun.

Oh my gosh, this biscotti is so good. And you get— it's not little biscotti. It's like a full— do you grab one? You get so much biscotti in this box. Like, it is— they're crazy good. Heather said, "I just ate lunch and now I'm hungry again." So this is what we're doing over here. Okay, Lauren, let's start with your journey because you hinted. And tell everybody where you're from because I don't remember you mentioning that.

Versailles, Kentucky.

Right by Lexington.

Is that—

that's my fake Kentucky voice because one of my closest friends lives there, Tamara, which I interviewed yesterday. But okay, now you hinted that you started your subscription box to help monetize your appearance on the Food Network. So talk to me about how this all came about and what has happened since.

So I have a friend named Christy who did a subscription box and she had told me about it for a while. She was in your group. Probably a year before I started. And I remembered that she said that and she said, Lauren, I'm in this group. She was in your group at Launch Your Box. And so when the Christmas cookie challenge came about and I was thinking through all these scenarios, I remember that conversation that I had with her. So I invited her to lunch and we went down at lunch and I said, I'm thinking about doing a subscription box. And she's like, Lauren, that's a good idea. She's thinking way in the future. And so I'm a just jump all in Sarah. I'll figure it out along the way. I'm not afraid to try things and I thought, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I was really lucky because right as this was all going through my mind, I started getting your emails about how the group was opening up and I thought, listen, this is a sign from heaven. I'm going to do it. So I joined Launch Your Box. I read through this little training manual that she had given me, real short little thing. And then I launched and I told her 3 days later, I'm like, I'm launching my subscription box tomorrow. She's like, what? Lauren, it usually takes people 6 months to do this. And I'm like, listen, I'm just going to do it. I'm going to figure it out. And so that's what happened in the first month. I think I had 18 this number always changes, Sarah. So if someone's fact-checking me, I'm probably wrong, but probably around 18 people.

Okay.

And I was so thrilled and I made every mistake. I charged people wrong. I charged people more than once. My boxes were not very good. In fact, I think the first month I sent you a box to open and now I look back at that and I think, oh, you were So kind because it was not very pretty.

I do remember opening your box and during the box openings, I do remember that you're like, oh, the tissue paper.

Nothing coordinated. People, they were so kind and it took me a while. Now I'm really proud of what I'm sending people.

I'm really proud of what you're sending people too.

Thank you. But it took me a while to do that. But I found for me, if you just cut to the chase, This has been the biggest blessing of my life. And the thing I like to tell everybody is I had a goal in mind when I first started, and my goal was to sell. I knew how many boxes I needed to sell in order to pay for my son's college tuition. I have two children and one— and there was only one in college. The very first month, Sarah, that I reached my goal, I made almost the dollar amount that I paid to his university for him to go to college. It was— I don't believe in coincidences, and God, that was God's blessing on me. And so when you talk about how a subscription box can change your life, it gets me choked up. This has changed my life in more ways than I can ever even imagined. Financially, it's changed my life because we have a lot more money than we used to, and that enables our kids to go to college debt-free. Yes, it has given my children so much pride in me, and that's what gets to me really. They see me as a successful business owner and they know that they can do that themselves. My husband and I do this together now. So many different things just because your email came through about Launch Your Box. And it took me a little bit. I thought, do I really want to spend— it was $60 or something. I thought to me that was a lot of money because we didn't have a lot of extra money. But then I thought, okay, if I can sell 2 boxes, 3 boxes, I'll make that money back. And if I don't, at least I can say I did it.

You tried, right?

Yes. At least I can say I tried. Yes.

And now cookies make people happy.

They do.

So I feel like I'm spreading joy just like everybody else on here. When I send someone a box and they use my box to make cookies, to sell, to make extra money for their family, to make cookies, to teach other people to make cookies through cookie decorating classes, to do things with their children, to have an activity with their children. That brings me a lot of joy because I'm not just keeping that to myself. I'm spreading that to somebody else.

And you're also not slaving over all these cookies every day to make money, right? You found a way to take your specialty, make it profitable, and also make it a little easy on yourself to be profitable, right? Yes.

It's so funny, Sarah, because someone— I don't make very many cookies.

Anymore.

Now, occasionally I do because it's still fun. And someone contacted me today and wanted me to make 2 dozen cookies for them with the theme of Winnie the Pooh. And character cookies are so time-consuming. And I instantly thought, how many extra subscription boxes would I need to sell to not make those cookies? Yes, it's a lot easier to make this.

It's a lot easier to pack 5 more boxes than be up all night making Winnie the Pooh cookies.

Yes.

Yes. But since I started, I now have— not only do I have this box, but I have now a product of the month. I have a cookie cutter and stencil, just one product of the month, which was perfect because your podcast was just about that. And then I also have a digital subscription for those who print their own cookie cutters. So we've expanded and it's, it's fun.

I'm super proud of you. You are amazing. And I have your episode on the Christmas Cookie Challenge saved on my TV, and I'm going to watch it again this year because I know the outcome, but I'm still going to watch it again.

Thank you.

Okay, Jonica, talk to me about— I know Jonica because Jonica is a member of my mastermind, and I know Jonica's had multiple bakeries. So talk to me a little bit about your bakery journey and then how we landed here?

So I started out doing like most people do. I was a home baker. I made cakes and things for friends and family. I had somebody approach me to do a wedding cake, and I tend to just say, sure, I can do that. And then I go figure out how to do it. And that's what happened. So I found myself on the— in the wedding circuit, and I was doing them every Saturday. I was doing them from my home, and I was still in corporate America. I had a very good corporate America job. And one afternoon, while my sister, who was also in the wedding industry, was I was looking at a facility. There was a shopping center and there was a little place next to it. And I said, I'm going to put a bakery in there. And 3 weeks later, I was in there, was painting walls and doing that. And that was March. In May, I opened my first bakery. And what I did not anticipate is that it was going to just explode. And it was me. And then I brought one other person in part-time and I had Sean was 16 months old at at the time. There were some nights I didn't go home. I was doing so much custom and so much work that I just burned myself out. I didn't have the systems and processes. I didn't know what to do. So it was a failure of sorts because a year in, this lady came in with the dreams that everybody has. Oh, I want to open a bakery. Oh, I want to do this. And I just let her talk. I didn't tell her, no, you don't. I just let her talk and said, hey, guess what? I'll sell you mine. And 3 days later, I walked out of there with a check. And I was just happy as could be.

So I knew you were like, I'm so done. I'm so tired. I am so exhausted. I, please take my bakery out and you're gonna pay me for it. Oh, that's even better.

Please take it.

Right.

And I, I walked out of there with my toolkit that I'd had for 15 years. And about a year after that, as we all do, we say, okay, I could have done this different.

I could have done that.

And I opened in my hometown at the time, which was Pell City, Alabama. And I did better that time, but it still grew so rapidly that I couldn't sustain it. And so I went through some life changes, went through divorce, and just said, I cannot do this anymore. I can't keep up with all of these things and work 24/7. So when I closed that one, I actually sold part of that one too. When I walked away from it, I said, I won't do this again. There's better ways. Like Lauren's talking about, there's better ways to make money than to do that. And so I remarried, I moved to Guntersville years later, and there was nothing here. And for the first time in my life, I was not working. I did not have to work. And that was a big change for me because I'd worked since a teenager. In this town, all of a sudden, I couldn't find anything I needed to entertain people. I couldn't get— if I knew, if I couldn't get it, there was no way anybody here was getting anything. You had to drive 45 minutes one way or an hour and a half to Birmingham to get it. So I sat down and actually made a plan this time, right? Like you're supposed to do it. And I knew a lot about what not to do. I knew exactly what I did not want to do. And so I put those systems and processes in place that I didn't have to do everything. I started out still doing a lot and with the goal to grow and pull myself out of some of those things that I was doing. But when I opened, I was still about 60% custom work, and now I'm about 12% custom. And I'm really proud of that because our lunch business and my subscription box has given me that. Being able to say no to— yes, it's given me the privilege to say no to the things I don't want to do. Like Lauren's talking about, somebody's coming in and asking for those cookies. I don't do that kind of cookie anymore because it takes takes so much time to do it. And if you're only doing that, I can teach you how to make money doing it, but it's hard when you're just doing just those onesies-twosies of all that. If you can put it into a subscription box and really streamline it, the profit— it's just, it's a miracle for your business.

Yeah, because you're not making different things every time you turn around, you're making all the same things. So talk about what's in your subscription box.

So every month We put a variety of what's in our bakery— cookies, bars. Sometimes we do ship a cupcake kit. We don't ship the cupcake together. It has the cupcakes packaged separately, the icing. And then usually we put in either a jar of jams and jellies or some kind of bigger item to go with it. It has a giftable piece that comes in its own little box inside the box, and you just take that piece and gift it to somebody else. It's ready to go, a little card for you to sign. So it passes is Along the Kindness. But it's just a little taste of our bakery that you can gift, you can get for your family or for yourself. It, it's just like Jonica's Bakery wrapped up in one box.

Yeah, absolutely. It's delicious. Like, you're gonna gain some pounds. I'm just gonna say that's the only downfall of Jonica's Bakery box. No, it's really good. You get enough that you can share with someone. You and have a little bit. It doesn't feel like too much and there's a variety of things and it's really great. And now, so we're in bakery number 3. It's behind that wall that right behind you. And things are different this time around, right? Things are more streamlined. You talked about your lunch business. I know that's something you started and your subscription box business. Those revenue streams allowed you to cut out the custom stuff and anybody that makes custom stuff, when we start our business, we'll make anything for $5, right? We will make anything to pay the bills. We will— what I used to be, someone's personal Pinterest board. Like, you found it on Pinterest, I figured out how to make it. I didn't care if it took me 10 hours and you paid me $30, like, I made it for you. Because when we start our businesses, that's— we have to do what we have to do to make money. But as we start to streamline our businesses, and I started monogramming And I realized that sweatshirt that came in that cost me $8, and I put on the monogram machine and put a monogram and let the machine run for 20 minutes while I just programmed it and walked away and went and painted something— I made more profit on that sweatshirt than I did 4 hours painting this thing over here. And it was like, I'll do this all day long, what am I doing? And that was the change in my business, and I can see that is the change in your business too. I can make make 100 cookies in the same time that I can make one custom cake. Probably more, probably 300 cookies is probably what you can make if they're all the same. And it has to make sense to us. It has to make business sense to us. Because while we love being creative and we love trying new things and we love doing new things and techniques and making it special and unique, at the end of the day, we only have so many hours of the day. And to be profitable, we have to find something that's scalable.

Yes.

And I'm going to go, I'm going to go to Kimberly's story because that's exactly how Kimberly figured out her subscription box niche. Kimberly, talk to me about your baking journey.

So like I said, I had a bakery in North Carolina for 7 years. I mostly did cupcakes and cakes and I did like cookies and bars and biscotti. But I honestly, when I, we moved to Iowa, I wanted to continue to bake. Once we got moved into the house. But I wanted to be smarter about how hard I was working. I didn't want to bake my butt off like I was at the bakery because I, I was literally burnt out by the time we moved. And so I was actually in a different business group learning about scaling your business online when you were like a bonus training. And I was like, I don't want to do, I don't want to do a subscription box. I want to do something online. But I watched the training and I was like, It was like a light bulb came on and I was like, I can totally do this because this sounds fun because you laid it out there and you just broke it down in steps. And it was like, it's not as overwhelming when you explain how it can be done. So it really got me thinking about what I could do. And I knew I didn't want to ship like cupcakes because I live in Iowa and it's today it's 90 degrees. So half the year it's too hot to ship anything like that will melt. And didn't want to deal with all the extra stuff. So I was trying to think of what to do and I had an idea of doing like a sprinkle mix at first, but then I was thinking that is like super niche or niche, however you say that. And I just, then I didn't, I don't know, I was just like brainstorming and then I thought about the biscotti because it's something different and has a long shelf life and it's something that I could bake a few days ahead of time before I ship and not have to worry about it going bad or anything like that. And it just got me excited. And so I know that I had joined your group, I believe it was during Subscription Box Week, and I think it was in October. And I think I launched a holiday box in November and then launched my first subscription box in December just because that holiday box was like, hey, look what I'm going to start doing. And so that was exciting because I didn't do it in 3 days like Lauren.

No, but did you just hear what she said, y'all? She joined— this was October of '21.

I'm—

because that's the last time I taught Subscription Box Weekend in October. So October of '21, you joined Subscription Box Week. By November, you have put together a holiday box to test out your idea because that was something I taught in that week. And by December, you had launched your subscription.

Yep.

Girl, yes, yes please. See, that's what I'm talking about. We were talking a little bit about this last night with the new with our new members, but if you already have a business and you know what you want to do, you know how to— like, for them it was like, you know how to get product, you know how to make the product. If you already have the audience, launching is just that next right thing for you. It doesn't take long when you already have a lot of the pieces. If you're brand new to business and you're figuring all this out from, from scratch, give yourself 3 to 5 months. We can get there. We just have to build the audience. We have to figure out the logistics. But if you already have all of that in place, this is a no-brainer just to go.

I, I want to just interject something because I always forget to tell people when I say I launched in 3 days, I did have an audience. Yeah. And I was very fortunate because I had been decorating cookies for years and had been collecting emails. And then when I was on TV, of course that expanded. So that is a big key piece in the beginning if you're going to do it fast like me, to have an audience.

And I didn't mean that as a dig, Lauren. I think that's impressive.

I didn't take it as a dig, girl.

Like, I'm not as quick as Lauren, but I did this pretty fast. Yes, she did.

I know sometimes we get so many great ideas and we just want to jump off and do it. And I think it's Sarah, I think sometimes you reel everybody in and say, I'm not telling you not to do it, but here is some steps that you need to take if you want to do it right.

So you don't go and clean up a giant mess. Now it's going to be messy when we do it, no matter what. I just want you to, to have your pricing figured out so you don't have to take that back. I want to, I want you to have your product figure out so you don't have to revamp it on month 2, right? I just want you to have something settled in your brain. It doesn't mean we can't change and fix things as we go away, but there's some key components that I I really want you to understand before we lob it out there in the world.

Yeah.

Okay.

Ginny, talk to me about your journey. You said you were a food blogger for a lot of years. Did you have probably a lot of views on that blog? Do you have a big audience from food blogging?

Yeah.

I've been blogging about gluten-free living for 10 years. I have, last year I had 2.5 million visitors on my website. I've collected emails for 10 years. I have all the social media pieces in place. And there's a few things that kind of happened. First, Google has changed its algorithm and I've been watching my blog traffic go like this. Very— it's actually pretty steep. And a lot of bloggers, a lot of content creators, a lot of influencers who used to make really their whole living blogging and content creation, they're watching their income also go down.

And so You had monetized your blog, so you were making income based on views to your blog. So you're producing content, putting your content out there in the social media world, and every hit to your blog, you were— it was monetized for you because of ads and things like that, correct?

Correct. Yes.

I had—

I worked with a company called Mediavine. They do— they place ads on content creator websites, and then every time someone would scroll through an article, like if they're looking for a recipe for strawberry shortcake or they want to know what are good bread substitutes for gluten-free living, they would see those ads and I would make money. And it was actually a really nice income for a really long time. But then when Google kind of started to prioritize AI, things started to change. My traffic started to change, but I've been doing this for so long that I have this audience. And so I'm like, I want something new to do. And what kind of hit me was late last year, I was an affiliate. For a subscription box that made snacks, and they happen to have a gluten-free option. So it was mostly the snack box, and if you're gluten-free, you can check the gluten-free box and they'll only put gluten-free snacks in there. And the owner of the box contacted me and said, hey, would you be an affiliate for us? And she was going to give me like $20 for any lead that I sent her. And I said, send me your box, I'll check it out. And I checked out the box and it looked fine. It, it probably wouldn't have been like what I would have done, but I would I looked at her box, I thought it was okay. And so I said, I'll mention you in my newsletter. And I mentioned her in my newsletter and I think it was over 100 people converted from that one mention and went and subscribed to her 3-month subscription for her box. And I was really like excited for her. And then fast forward a month when everyone got that box, there was gluten in it. And you have to know, my community, we are people who are serious about being gluten-free. I have celiac. I work with people who have celiac, gluten intolerance. This is very serious business to us. And to get a box that's told everything in there is gluten-free and then to open it and find gluten, really bad. So anyway, all of them complained to her. I'm sure she had to give a ton of money back. And she contacted me again and said, could you please issue this apology to your community? And so I issued the apology. I said, I am like forgiving. I'm not going to let— I don't want to hurt your business. I issued an apology from her. So this is what she said. It won't happen again.

Blah, blah, blah.

Fast forward to the next month. You guys know what I'm about to say, right? There was gluten in it again. There was a cookie, one of the items. So the first one was a ramen noodle. The second was a cookie. And so I started getting all these emails from my community. They're like, we know you didn't mean to harm us, but maybe you shouldn't put your name behind this woman, all this I was like, okay, I'm not gonna— I definitely, I let my community know I no longer recommend this product. But I recognized that my community had a need. All of a sudden I was like, you saw this gap moment.

Yeah.

And then I started searching like how to start my own subscription box. And I found Sarah, I found your podcast. I started listening to your podcast and I was even, I'm gonna tell everyone in this community too. I was even like the same story. I forget who said it, but whatever, $60 or whatever it is. To join.

I was like, oh, I, I don't want to spend that.

And my husband looks at me, he's, you need a coach. This is like one of the most important business expenses you will have. Forget worrying about the box, let's get a coach, do this. He's so smart. And so he— I happily pay you every month to be a coach to me in a sense too. And yeah, I listen to your— I listen to all of your classes, I listen to all your podcasts. And in January, because That all happened October and November, and at the same time my blog was tanking. And so I was looking for my next way to serve my community. And as— I hate the word influencer, but as an influencer, companies contact me all the time. They want me to share their products with my community. They want me to mention their products. You saw what happened with the affiliate, with the other subscription box. And so I do put my name behind a lot of these companies, and what I was thinking is I don't know how effective that is if I tell you about a loaf of bread, but you're not actually trying it, or maybe you can't find it because gluten-free foods are hard to find and you don't want to have to go order it online and pay the shipping and all this stuff. What if not only do I talk about your products, but I also put them in a box and send them to my besties, all my gluten-free besties? And so it became like this really cool way to not only talk about the products but actually give you the products that I'm talking about every month. Yeah. And so that it really resonated with my community and here we are.

Okay. So you joined Launch Your Box. Do you remember when you joined?

I must have joined maybe February, March. So I had put the wheels in motion and then as I was listening to your podcast, I actually sent a few of your podcasts to my husband. I'm like, you gotta listen to this lady. You gotta join.

You gotta join. So you joined and 2 months later you launched your subscription box just right out of the gate.

Yeah. And like Lauren and Kimberly are saying, I had an audience. I had an audience. I knew they wanted this kind of thing because I saw what happened in October when I mentioned the other subscription box that really failed the gluten-free community. And I knew I could do it better. I was like, yeah, it took it. I started thinking in January, started putting the wheels was in motion. And then April 1st, my first box went out. And every box has a theme. And so my first box was called Love from Colorado because that's where I'm from. And like over 10 years, I've worked with all of the gluten-free brands here in Colorado. So I had my gluten-free bakery in there. I had a loaf of bread that was made by a Colorado company. Even you all probably know Justin's candy and peanut butter. They're from Colorado. I've met Justin before. Like it's I was able to put a lot of my friends from the industry in that first box, and it was really exciting.

So you launched on April 1st, and what happened during that launch?

Oh, I, I should have listened to you, Sarah, and your class on how to estimate how many boxes you would sell. But because I was curating inventory like 2, 3 months in advance, I had only ordered 125 of everything that I wanted in the box. No, also 125. I didn't Sarah gives you really good estimates of how many people are on your waitlist, how many people are on your email list, and how many boxes I should have made, which should have been more. But I put the 125 up for sale. They sold out in about 2 hours, and I started panicking. So then I contacted the brands really quick as my carts closed, and I'm like, can I get a few more? And can we do this? And some of the brands, they just don't have the inventory to even turn over. So I was able to 25 more. So put those up for sale. They sell really fast. So I started my launch with 150 boxes, but I really tried to expand just by like about 100 a month because—

I don't know about y'all, but I didn't grow by— sorry, it's increased 100 a month.

I think it could be a crazy— because even I think it could get crazy if I let because last— I just put my July box up a couple of weeks ago, and July just shipped out today, but I sold out, and it was an hour and 17 minutes.

And it's—

and then I get a lot of like me—

like, I need—

like, why can't I get a box? And, and I was like panicking again, like I didn't order enough stuff. But I also am in my basement, and that's all I can physically handle. So we are moving space starting July 1st, next week, and I will be able to do it more.

350 subscribers. Yeah, in our third month of launching our subscription.

Yeah, and we've just— I've tried to keep it loaded. I'm just— I'm at capacity in my basement.

You're only one person, bro. You gotta hire somebody. Yeah, there's questions over here in the group chat. One of them is, how much is your box, Jenny?

It's $54.99 plus flat rate shipping of $9.99.

Okay. And then Amy's saying, okay, I'm making a note to self, just listen to Sarah. Who agrees with that?

I have the t-shirt.

Yes.

So my mastermind made these t-shirts and they all showed up to one of my speaking events in this front row. And the t-shirt says, just do what Sarah says. And I was like, what is going on out there? So this is incredible. Now I saw some questions because a lot of you said, I already had an audience, I already had an audience. Now Jonica was building a brand new bakery and she had an audience bakery, but she really shipped to people outside of the bakery. I would love to go around and I would love for you guys to give one piece of advice for them. If you were to start over today, start from scratch today, how would you start building your audience? Lauren, can you go first? I would put—

I don't even know if the terminology is right, but put a self-liquidating offer out there.

Am I using the right terminology? You are.

Think of something that my audience would want, put it out there for free, for free, because they're going to trade their email to receive it.

Okay, so that's a lead magnet. Yeah, that's a lead magnet. Okay, so let me break down what you're talking about for all of our newbies out here. So Lauren would create a lead magnet. Now this is something that I did when I started Launch Your Box. I had no audience. The only audience I had was people buying monogram cute things. That was definitely not business owners over here wanting to start a subscription box. So when I started Launch Your Box, I had to start a social media page from scratch. I had to pick an new Facebook page and it, it was growing like I was sitting in the front yard watching grass grow. It was growing so slow. So I started with a lead magnet and I put together an ebook on how to start a subscription box. It was 14 pages and put that on social media, threw some ad money behind it so I could get in front of people. And the only people that were buying it were people interested in starting a subscription box. So Lauren's saying she would do that around cookie decorating. She would put put some kind of freebie together that maybe taught you 5 things you need to know about cookie decorating for if you want to get started. She would put that on her social media and run ads to it to gain people interested in what she does. So that's what Lauren would do. Jonica, what would you do?

If I had it to do over again, I would start— and I've done it with the bakery and the How to Start a Bakery— when I started with the bakery, stuff, it was completely organic. I was talking on the social media, I was putting food into people's mouths, I was doing all those things organically. And in 4 years I grew to 8,000. When I started the How to Start a Bakery stuff, I started completely by the book with Sarah. And so everything that you're getting from Launch Your Box, you can apply to every part of your business, not just your box. So I went in 4 months from 0 to 8,000 people. Because I put out the lead magnet that she's talking about. Instead of 4 years trying to do it organically, 4 months instead of 4 years. And I put out the lead magnet, I put out the SLO. If I could go back to any of my stuff and do it quicker, it would be ads. I would have started the ads even at a low budget and learned how to do that earlier.

Okay, Jenny, if you were to start from scratch today, what would you do?

From scratch would be 10 years ago, but I think that the most important audience you have is your newsletter audience. And if you can get people's emails, and you will own that contact. So I've been doing this for so long, again, I thought my Google traffic would always be great. And that went away. And then like, it used to be Pinterest traffic was great, that went away. And then social media Algorithms change. I've watched— used to get so much organic traffic on Facebook.

Now it's like zero.

And so really everything you can do through, like you said, lead magnets, giveaway ads, anything you can do to get people's emails and then nurture those emails. And so something I have been doing for years is every Friday I send a newsletter where I basically curate news from the gluten-free industry every single week. It's not a selling email. Although I'll mention, oh, my cart's open by the way. But I send that to my newsletter list for years and they're used to seeing my email on Friday. There are even people who email me and say, I didn't get your Friday email. Is everything okay? Check your spam folder. Unfortunately, you do have to deal with spam sometimes, but just nurturing, growing and nurturing that email list, everything you can do.

Yeah.

Awesome. Kimberly, if you were to start over today, what would you do to build build your audience.

I agree with all the ladies. I think your email list is so important. Um, I think to grow your— you have to grow it. What I do is I offer a free bag of biscotti every month in a giveaway. So I have that. I wish it would have started like a lot sooner. And then just being consistent with sending out emails to the people on your list, which I'll admit I'm not the best at, but I'm trying to do better.

Hey, we're all a work in progress, Kimberly. We are all a work in progress. So let me summarize this because virtually all of you said the same thing, and it's something that I'm very passionate about and I teach a lot about in Launch Your Box is email marketing. We know that over the last 5, 10 years, social media views on average less than 3% of your following actually sees your social media. I believe social media content is very important. It's very viable. Every time I post something, it sells out on my shop, so I know people are seeing it. But there's nothing like having a strong email list, and we should start that from day one. So some of the things that they're talking about that I teach you about in Launch Your Box are lead magnets, and that is giving away something free in exchange for someone's email address. And that could be a digital download, that could be free biscotti, that It could be all kinds of stuff. We can do a giveaway just like with the biscotti. I'm about to run a giveaway for my teacher subscription right now. I'm going to give away an ultimate teacher gift basket. We can run a giveaway. We can run page-like ads on social media. It's a really cheap and expensive way to gain followers, especially when you're starting out. When you have like your mom and your 3 best friends are the only people following you on social media, it's like, please let somebody else be here that I don't know. That's page-like ad. When we are talking about SLOs, that is a self-liquidating offer, and typically that is either a small-dollar digital product or that is a product offer. And the goal here is to put it out there, say for $10, like my ebook was $10, and the goal was to just sell that. And for every $10 that I made selling the ebook, I put that back into ad spend. So that could be a $10 offer offer, a $15 offer. What you guys don't know is Subscription Box Week is an SLO, so it is a low-dollar lead-in to my offer. If you haven't figured it out by now, that's the marketing play that I'm using here. So I'm giving you an SLO. So every $15 that all of you gave me went back into ad spend times 3. It went into ad spend over and over again. I didn't make any money on Subscription Box Week. This is my lead-in. I am going to give you so much information. I'm going to help you see if this is right for your business. And that's the lead-in to converting you to becoming a member of Launch Your Box. That's how many of these ladies found me. And had it not been for all the ads that I was running, so many of you had never even heard of me before. Besides having a top-rated podcast, being a bestselling author and just being someone that speaks in this space in the industry. I've been in Inc Magazine, I've been in Forbes, I've been featured in a lot of magazines, but I would guarantee 75% of you had never heard of me before. And that's the power of ads. But ads cost us money. And so when I can put $15 behind it, that's a self-liquidating offer. I'm liquidating the money you spent to come to Subscription Box Week and putting it right back into my ad spend so I don't have to come out of my pocket too much on that. So that's an SLO. We can do it with physical products. So sometimes if I have things left over from my subscription box, I'll put them in a little bundle and I'll run an ad because if they like the monogram bundle of products, they're probably going to like my subscription box. So I'll put it out in an ad and the goal is the profit that I make from that product just goes right back into my ad spend so I could reach more people and get in front of more audiences. And that's what we mean by a self-liquidating offer. So you can do that digitally with a PDF or download. You can do that with a physical product. Elva says the ads are why I'm here. I kept seeing it. Good, because I spent a lot of money for you to keep seeing me, and I'm glad you're here. And the goal is to really find your person. You weren't coming to Subscription Box Week just to hang out with me and have fun. That's not what this is about. If you were interested in Subscription Box Week, it's because you had an idea, you had a thought, you saw this and thought, this could be the answer to what I want to do next. And it was very targeted to my perfect person, just like their lead magnets are. Like, Lauren's not out there doing a lead magnet on how to decorate a cake. She's selling cookie cutters. She could do that, but that's not the person she's trying to to attract. And so that's what we have to remember when we are looking to build our audience. And building that email list is one of the most important things that you can do. And what every one of them said was, I wish I would have done it sooner. Because we don't think, I just got to build social media. No, we got to build social media and we got to build the email list. And they go hand in hand and we can do them together. And tonight, last night on the Zoom call with our new members, That was one of the things that they wanted to talk about tonight. So tonight on the Zoom call, we're talking about audience building and I'm going to give you 5 things you can do as a new business owner. Like if you're starting from scratch, I'm going to give you 5 things you can start with. And if you are an existing business owner like me or any of these ladies on the panel here, I'm going to tell you 5 things you need to continue doing or start doing if you're not. So whether you're brand new to business, you already have a business, we're talking about audience building because it's something that we need to do 365 days a year. And we can't just do it right before we launch. And we can't just do it like, if you're sitting here in the group thinking, oh, I'm going to start my subscription box in October, I'll start audience building in like August or September. No, we gotta start today. If you haven't already started and you're hanging out with me here in Subscription Box Week, like, we gotta go. Let's go. The more time we have audience build, the better our launches are going to be. The more time we have to build and find the right person, the better the conversions are to buying our subscription. So it's not something we need to continue to put on the back burner while we play with pretty graphics and make a box and do the Post-it note challenge 3 times and decide what we're going to put in the box. We need to start finding the person that's going to buy our subscription box. And if we start collecting the them now, 3 months from now, 4 months from now, 6 months from now, when we're ready to launch, we're going to launch that much better.

So, hey Sarah, I was just thinking the best thing about your membership honestly is hearing this information over and over because I've been doing this now 2 and a half years. I have a college degree. I was in business for years and sales and marketing and all that stuff, but it's easy to get kind of complacent when you're at home and you're doing it. And just the little nuggets that you hear in your training, you think, I need to start doing that. And so for me, that's worth the money each month, even though I feel like I could now do this on my own. I'm constantly getting little hits in the heads of, oh yeah, Lauren, you really should send a newsletter every Friday.

Yeah, Jenny, Jenny just reminded you of that, didn't she?

Yes, and I know that, but you get so busy in life, it's good to hear that from someone else.

Yeah, and I'm your perpetual accountability buddy, right? Yes, yes, absolutely. Jonica, what would you say is one of your favorite things about being in the community?

I love the community. I love the trainings are live, so you get pushed forward like this. This is this is not necessarily training, but you have things that you can watch live. Everything is there for you to go back and look at. So if I hear something the first time and I'm not ready for it yet, when I get to it, I've heard it, I've heard it a few times, and I know I can go back and find that. It's there, it's always there. I can't tell you how many things that we, as we go through business, go back and pick up to do again as we get to the next level. So I think my favorite part of that, aside community. Now I've met some of my best friends in Launch Your Box that are now lifelong friends. So I think I have two. I think I have that the material is always there and it's ongoing and you're consistently pushing us forward. And the fact that we have each other to do it with. Yeah.

Yeah. Jenny, what would you say is your favorite part about Launch Your Box?

I love the idea of just having a coach And if I have a question, I can put it in the Launch Your Box or Scale Your Box community. And Sarah, her team, or others in the community will answer that question. And I also love the camaraderie. So as soon as I joined Launch Your Box, there's another member here, Paula from Stay Gluten Free, and she has a gluten-free baking box. And she, she just like, Jenny, we need to talk. I need to tell you all this. And she was just was so sweet and kind and wanted to collaborate and help. And I think that's what's really neat about this community is that people are just so anxious to help. And even if they're like in the same space with you, or maybe a competitor—

she could have viewed you as competition, but she didn't. She said, there's somebody like me, let me tell her what I already know, and let's see if we can collaborate on some ideas.

Exactly, exactly.

Exactly. Like, I sent her a box, she shared it with her community, she sent me one of her boxes, I shared it with my community. So we are like— I just think that's just really a beautiful thing. And so I've only been in the community for a few months, so I hope I make some best friends, but there's some really neat things happening in the group that I find magical. And then I will tell you, after my second box and I shipped it off, and I was so excited to show the picture of me with all my boxes, the first place I wanted to share that news. Wasn't even with my gluten-free community. It was with this community. My first post was in the Launch Box community. Look what I did. Because I knew all of these people in this community were going to be like, great job. I like— they all felt that.

They knew inside and out. They knew exactly what that meant for you and they could really celebrate with you.

Exactly.

Yeah. Awesome. Kimberly, talk to me about what you— your favorite part about Launch boxes.

Um, I have to agree, like, the community is amazing. I know I've been reading the comments as you guys have been talking, and there's some people that are on the fence. I would say just jump in, and because you will not be disappointed. There is a huge community of people that are in the same position as you. There's people who are ahead of you, behind you, and everyone asks questions, and everyone comes together to answer questions. If you're afraid to ask questions, you can always search for them in the search bar, because I'm I'm almost positive the question may have been asked. So there's so much information in the group from all the months and months past. It's just endless resources no matter what stage you're in. And I think too, you know, a lot of us have an audience or we've been in business for several years, maybe before we even jumped in Launch Your Box. I know what I'm supposed to do. I know I'm supposed to be consistent on social media. I know I'm supposed to be sending the emails. But like when Sarah comes on Mondays and she's okay, here's what we gotta do this week. I'm like, oh yeah. So it's nice to have that online accountability partner just telling you, reminding you over and over again, even though those are the things you're supposed to be doing. It's so great to have a community that is always there to support you, always there to encourage you and push you and remind you of all the things that you need to be doing to grow your business. So I appreciate you, Sarah, and you've really built an amazing community. Community for all of us.

Thank you. And it's just nice to have people around you that are working on the same things, right? Like we're all generally working on this, including me. I got, I have my own subscription box business. We're all generally working on the same things. We're all at different stages. We've got lots of newbies, lots of very beginner stages. And then we've got lots of people that have hundreds or thousands of subscribers and everywhere in between. And so we're— there's always someone ahead of you and there's always someone behind you. And you're— the people behind you, you're showing up, giving them advice, and the people ahead of you, you're asking advice. And so there's always that level of community in there. And the cool thing about it, and this has prevented me from selling my business, is that I get to test everything before I teach it to you, right? So I'll test marketing strategies. I'll talk launch to you. We'll talk about what's going on in the box world and why shipping is a disaster right now, because I'm dealing with it all too. And that makes me a great coach because I'm in the thick of it with all of you. I don't pack the— physically pack the boxes anymore, but I'm dealing with every aspect of building a subscription box business and I'm able to teach it in real time. It's not stale. It's not something I used to do.

To do.

It's not something in the past. It's something that I wake up and do every single day. And I think that makes me really aware of what you guys need because I'm going through it too. So yes, and I get to test all the cookie boxes, Lane. I get to test all of them. I get to test the biscotti and Johnica's box. I haven't had the gluten-free box yet, but it's in my office and I'll be opening it tomorrow during box openings. But yeah, I get to be the tester of all the food boxes. More of you join so I have more things to test. This was amazing. I'm gonna give one last opportunity. Give your best advice for anyone that is new, I would— that's wanting to get started but they're hesitating. I can see over here in the group chat, I'm scared to launch, I'm so nervous, I don't know if I can do this. What piece of advice would you give to them? And then tell them where they can find you. Lauren, go first.

I think you always have think about what's the worst case scenario if you launch and it doesn't work? What are you out at the most? Maybe a couple hundred dollars. If it— just try it because it could be the greatest thing ever. And you can find me at www.cheerfulbaker.com.

Awesome. Thank you, Lauren. Jonica, your piece of advice for the newbies and where can they find you?

I would say jump in. Just do it. You can do it. There are enough people in this community that will help you do it every single step of the way. They'll pick you up when you fall and they'll cheer for you when you win. So just jump in. That would be my first piece of advice. My second would be, as you go through the trainings and do them, implement as you go, work with it. Don't just binge everything and then not implement it and then be sitting there on Monday morning going, oh yeah, I was supposed to do that. Actually implement it as you go and then soak up the next piece so you'll know what questions Questions to ask and what to do next for that. And you can find me at jonikasbakery.com and you can find me at howtostartabakerywithjonica.com. And I have a podcast with the second season about to come out.

Awesome. Jenny, piece of advice and where can they find you?

Yeah, I think we overthink everything in our lives and I was overthinking everything. I'm like, I don't have a box. I don't know how to do a website. You're going to learn. On all of these things. So just start doing it. Set some goals, start doing it. Say, I'm gonna work on the website this week, I'm working on my box this week, and start putting the pieces together because you got to start somewhere. So that's my biggest piece of advice, is just start somewhere. Start taking a bite out of it. You can find me at several places, but my website is lovemeglutenfree.com, and I do have a waitlist, which Sarah Williams will teach you how to start your own waitlist. And then I also blog at Good for good4youglutenfree.com. And you can find me also on— I'm pretty active on Instagram at good4youglutenfree.com, or not.com, good4youglutenfree is my handle on Instagram.

Okay, awesome. Kimberly, your piece of advice and where can they find you?

I would say join Launch Your Box and jump in. There is a tremendous library waiting for you to just jump in. It's broken down into categories so you don't— you can jump around if you want to. But what I found is that you can implement certain things to other parts of your business if that applies to you. So there's literally nothing to lose by joining because you're gonna find something that will either benefit your business or push you forward into where you want to go. So just do it. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Frosted Iowa. My website is frostediowa.com, and then you can You can find my subscription box on getbiscotti.com.

Okay, I love it. Thank you all so much for joining me. And Jenny, I might just have to talk to them about the waitlist tonight on our Zoom call. I'll give them a little insider information and get them going on building their waitlist. Thank you ladies so much for sharing all of your knowledge, and I'll be back tomorrow. I've got another interview tomorrow morning at 11 Central. And then inside Subscription Box Week, I will be doing the box opening. So I will be opening 10 boxes for the first time, giving live feedback, and Jenny's box is one of them. So I will see you all tomorrow. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for being here. Thanks, ladies. I'll see you soon.

Thanks.

Thank you.

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