From Setbacks to a Million-Dollar Subscription Box - Interview with Lexie Haubert

Hey everybody, we are back and I'm super excited because I have the Lexi. Like, if you know Lexi in our community, she is the Lexi with me today and you're going to find her story super duper inspiring. It's one of those— I don't know, it's like one of those stories that's on a movie that is like that. It's got the best ending and you watch it over and over and over again because her story is so good. Is that good? I know living it, it wasn't that good for Lexi, but she's got the best comeback story of anybody that I know. So we're gonna jump into that. I've got your comments pulled up over on my laptop again, so if you're watching, give me a little shout, let us know that you're here so I can make sure everything's working on our end. Hang on, that's the wrong live. I should see what I did yesterday, Lexi. I changed shirts. So that I would know which live was which. I didn't change shirts today, so it's just— it is what it is. Here it is. Okay, um, I can see Deborah's here, um, Alethea's here, Vicki's here, the team's here. Okay, everyone's here. They're getting— they're jumping on. Uh, again, let me know in the chat that you're here. Lexi, let's just start with you. Why don't you do a little introduction of who you are and what your business is, and let's talk about what your subscription box is. Which one did you— let's start with the first one. Okay.

Okay. So my name is Lexi. I am a mom from Ohio. I have 3 boys and life is crazy. Um, but I started a business back in 2018 on Etsy, and we became top 1% in the world, in the entire world, for our bridesmaid proposal boxes. Um, so that was really good.

Say that again because you said it really, really fast and if people don't know, they're like, what? She said bridesmaid proposal boxes. Remember on Sunday when I told you to niche down? Like, Lexi is niched. She was top 1% Etsy seller for bridesmaid proposal boxes in the entire world. In the entire world.

Yes, the whole wedding industry on Etsy. Yes. So that was wonderful while it lasted, all the way up till COVID. Uh, COVID shut my whole business down. Um, weddings stopped overnight. You were not allowed to get married for like 2 years. It was awful. Um, and then it never came back. It really just— it just— that was the end of my Etsy life.

So COVID just completely destroyed the wedding industry, um, and which in turn really destroyed your Etsy status, right? Your income was coming down. Talk to me about what else was really happening on that side.

So luckily my husband had a good job because I didn't make any money for like 3, 4 years while I was trying to rebuild my business. It was awful. So yeah, I had thought about doing a subscription box for a long time before I met Sarah, but I had no clue how to start a website. I had no clue how to code anything. I didn't even know you didn't have to code. I thought you had to know how to do all that, so I just never did it.

So I really— you came into my world.

Yeah, box week.

You were a subscription box person too. Okay, so you came into subscription box week and you're like, okay, I'm gonna start a bridal box. That's what you were— you're like, okay, wedding industry is coming back, I need to come back in a different way, I'm gonna start a bridal box. Is that what you were thinking? Yes. Okay, so tell me what happened.

So I took Sarah's classes, I did the whole, um, 6 for $60 and the whole workshop. I got into Launch Your Box and I was like, all right, I'm gonna do this. I already think I'm gonna be able to sell 50 boxes, no problem, right? And my first launch, I was only able to sell one box, so it brought me back down to reality a little bit. Okay, but I didn't stop. That's the key.

Okay, so let me tell— let me do a little storytelling because you're not very good at talking about yourself, so I'm going to talk about yourself for, for a minute. Hang on, I'm making it, y'all. I'm making it. Lexi comes into my world. She comes from Subscription Box Week, so she's gone through the Post-it Note Challenge like all of you did the other night. She digs in. She's starting to do the work. She's working on it. She's launching her subscription box. She gets 1 subscriber. Now, there are probably once a week inside Launch Your Box, I'll have somebody say, I'm doing all the things and nothing's working, Sarah. And I'll be like, okay. And I'll click on their name and I'll find their Facebook page. And I look and they haven't posted in 3 days. They hadn't posted previously in 4 days. Not talking about their subscription box. I really have no idea what they're selling. And I'll come back and I'll say, hey, I took a look at your social media pages and it doesn't look like you're being consistent with social media. I don't actually know what you're selling. I went to your website and I don't know what's in your box. And I'll give them some feedback, right? So here comes Lexi. I launched, I did all the things, I got one subscriber. And so I'm like, Let me go click on Lexi. Let me give her some feedback. Let me help her. And I'm like, huh, she is doing all the things. These are great graphics. She's posting every day. Her website looks great. Like, what? I don't know what she's doing wrong because she is doing all the things that I had taught her to do. And I don't know, do you remember this?

I remember it like it happened yesterday because I still go on there every time I'm doing my ads and I'm like, well, I'm doing what Sarah told me to do. Yeah.

So then what, after that conversation, I came back to the group and I said, Lexi, you are doing everything right. You are posting consistently. Your website looks good. I know who you, who you're for. I know what you sell. Your messaging is on point. Just keep going. Right? You remember that? Yes. So what happened?

It took me like 19 months to get my first 100 subscribers. Honestly, it wasn't easy. And I lost my shop during that process too because I just didn't have any income coming in. I was making just enough money to pay the bills, not to pay myself or anything else. And honestly, I couldn't afford the rent, and the rent was only $600. That sounds terrible, but it's true. So I brought everything back home, I started over, and then I could really focus on— now I have no staff, I have no shop. I think the only money that I'm making, I'm putting directly back into my business to grow it. Um, so that was where I really started over, and then I just— the numbers just kept coming and coming and coming, literally. Finally, now that I'm able to put my 100% into it, it just kept going, and I just kept reinvesting, reinvesting.

And Lexi had to reset. She was doing everything right and something just wasn't working. And so when she reset— and I remember being on a Zoom call with you, tears were flowing and you had to give up your warehouse and you didn't, you didn't have any choice. Um, and so it was like, okay, come back home, let's reset. She started to reset her marketing, right? She started to reset social. And what I saw from Lexi was she started to get really social on social. She started to dig into the trends, she started to have more fun with it and just kind of let all the pressure of everything go because she didn't have the warehouse to pay for anymore. She didn't have the staff she had to pay for anymore. So all those pressures that were building up on her, she let go and she just started to be her and she started to show up in a fun way, in a relaxed way. And what happened was almost instantly, right? Like almost instantly, Lexi is getting attraction, she's getting attention, people are buying. Talk to me about what happened in that moment.

Um, I just think it wasn't quite so stressful and people knew me because I wasn't going live enough, I think.

Yeah.

And once people get to know you, it's like the whole world just changes. Like, literally people think I'm famous. It's kind of funny to me.

Okay, so let's talk about that because I know there's people— and if you're watching right now and you're like, I don't want to go live, tell me that in the chat because this was Lexi, right? I kept saying you need to go live You need to go live. You need to go live. This is how you build a know, like, and trust factor.

It really is.

And I'm a prime example for all of you. If you would not be on video with me, if you would not be able to answer questions for me, if you did not get to know me in the capacity like I'm having a conversation with you right now, you probably wouldn't join Launch Your Box because you don't know me. You don't know anything about me. But you can see that I'm a genuine person. You can see how much knowledge I have. You can see that I'm transparent about anything that I know I'm going to teach you. And so because of that, I've built a know, like, and trust factor with you. And now you're willing to buy from me because you know, like, and trust me. That's what was missing in Lexi's business. And I kept telling her to go live. She did everything else, but I kept telling her, let's go live. And so she finally started to do this. Surrender is huge. Surrender is huge. And let's— Lexi, tell me why you didn't want to go live, because I think so many of us feel that same way.

Well, because I felt like my house wasn't aesthetic enough. This is like the only cute cozy corner in my house. Okay, just let me tell you that. Okay. Because I put this cute little thingy up here with some rocks on it and a cute little clock. That's the only corner I have in my whole house. The whole place destroyed. But yeah, so you just gotta find a cute cozy corner. Um, my shop is loud. My shop has people working everywhere, so I can never go live there. So it's just kind of hard sometimes. And my kids, you know, they're always in sports and stuff like that. So you just gotta go live when you can. Like right now, I can't go live every Tuesday at 7 PM because I don't know, every Tuesday is going to be different for me, right? So I just go live when I can. I'm just like, hey guys, I'm live.

And a lot of us We don't like to go live because we're self-conscious, right? Like, we might not feel like we, you know, we have low self-esteem. I battled with that probably my whole life. I always felt like I was too old, too overweight, nobody was going to show up and listen to me. And so I kept putting it off because I didn't even like looking at myself on the camera, right? Why would somebody else want to look at myself?

And I hate hearing myself talk too. Like, when I listen to them, I'm like, I can't believe I sound like that.

When you talk about your house is a mess, and I remember one time I needed to go live. I was launching the coaching group. The only place that was clean in my house was my laundry room. I remember that. I sat in the laundry room and I went live, and it was like, sometimes that's what we have to do. And just know that if you feel that way, you're not alone. Because even I struggled with that for a lot of years, and I still struggle with it sometimes. I'm, I'm pretty much over it now, but it took years and years of me showing up over and over and over again before I'm like, I don't care what you think of me, I'm me, and if you like me, come follow me. If you don't like me, scroll on, right? And that's how we have to look at it. But that's how we get in our heads, um, and so we think that our life is not worthy enough to be on camera. And that's absolutely not true. And when you look at statistically, when you're looking at ads in your feed, those over-polished ads with perfect graphics and perfect images, they don't perform as well as someone with a real body wearing the shirt, doing the thing right, because that's what we want to see. We want to be able to relate. So women can relate to Lexi. Women can relate to me because I'm a normal person. I'm not, I'm not some Instagram model trying to tell you to buy my shirt, right? Because I'm a size extra small. So that's the reality, right?

Yeah. All these other boutique owners and, you know, they're all cute and they got their hair all done and their makeup's all perfect and they got like the perfect shadowing. And I'm like, I don't even know how to do all that.

Okay. Don't either. Okay. So you started going live and then what started to happen?

So I feel like I really— once I busted through that 100 barrier, I really just took it, started skyrocketing. Last year was huge for me. I think I got up to about 500 subscribers last year. And this year— am I allowed to tell them where I'm at now?

You could totally tell them. Let's celebrate with you.

1,200 subscribers.

I didn't even know you were at 1,200. Oh my goodness. From one subscriber, not giving up.

I'm gonna start crying.

As you should, because you should be really, really proud of what you built. I watched you show up over and over again with very little results, and I kept cheering you on, and I kept telling you to go in because I knew at some point it was going to click for you. You were doing all the right things.

My box is so good.

Your box is so good. I get to open it on Thursday. Lexi went from one subscriber to over 1,200 subscribers because she got consistent. She started showing up. She didn't give up when things got hard, and she just leaned into the marketing. And I think that's probably your biggest asset is you started to lean into the marketing. And I say it over and over again, as a small business owner, we are the, the market. We have to be a marketer. We have to be a marketer. We have to show up on social. We have to be social. There is no other generation that is able to market on social media. When I started my business, we didn't really have social media marketing. We had— I, I took out a billboard. I used to do TV commercials. We have the ability to just flip a switch and turn on the marketing. And Lexi leaned into the marketing and she just kept doing it and doing it and doing it.

Now, we really don't have that many followers on, on Instagram. I only have 8,400 followers.

I love it.

It's not like, you know, it's crazy how many— and honestly, once I started to learn how to do Facebook ads and stuff like that, that's when it really took off.

That's exactly what Rebecca said yesterday. Once she leaned into doing ads and learning ads, her business really started to take off. But what I was telling them yesterday is we have to lay that foundation. We can't just start ads from nothing. We have to lay that foundation organically to build the business before we turn on that ad switch.

Yeah.

Okay, so we started with— tell them, tell them about your box. Like, what is the box? What's in it? Let's talk about it for a minute.

So my box is very much like Sarah's. Mine is called the Monogrammed Bride Box. It is personalized box for brides. Um, inside it will have your future last name, "Hello future Mrs." and your last name on the inside. And every month this font changes, and every month the color changes to match the theme of the box.

Okay, love that.

Yeah, super fun. And we personalize every single one every single month, and it takes a long time. And people are like, why is your box so expensive? Because it's a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of work. Yeah, you know, can you show us what's in that box this month? So this box is empty.

Okay, it's a faux box. Okay. Here's the trick. I'm gonna open one of Lexi's boxes on Thursday during box openings. But how long did you do the Monogram Bride before you introduced the second subscription box?

Um, I believe it was 19 months when I got my first 100 subscribers. So then I started to do an, um, Item of the Month Club because that's all I could do by myself.

Okay.

Um, and that was okay, but I think they just wanted another box. So guess what I gave them last— it was in June this— just this year, because I finally got a new shop. We forgot to tell them that.

Yeah, I got a new shop.

I have 8 staff members now.

New employees, new shop, doing all the things now. And we started a new subscription box because here's the challenge with Lexi's business: it's a bridal box. Well, you're not engaged forever, right? So it's not something that has a lot of longevity. So what happens when you're engaged and you're getting the subscription box and then you get married? Now you created what?

Now I need some wifey.

She has the wifey box.

Yeah, the monogrammed wife box. So we have the monogrammed bride, we have the monogrammed wife. Do you want me to go grab that box so they can see?

Yeah, go grab it and I'll tell them all about it. So now she has this fluid funnel of they come in as brides So now they're excited about their new last name and their new monogram and their new initials, right? So they're coming in and getting things that have their new last name on them, and then they graduate into the Bridal Box, which is a lot of the similar things that were in the Monogram Bride Box, but she's named it Wifey. So now it's like, I'm already a wife now, and so now I get all the monogram things as a wife. And if you are a new bride, you might really love your last name on things or your new initials, or you need things with your initials. On them, right?

Name, you gotta have new stuff.

That's right, right?

And we make it so fun. So like, this is stuff that these girls would probably buy anyways over on Amazon or stuff like that. But of course I make— I do design a lot of my own stuff, um, and have it manufactured overseas, um, which is really cool. Once you get enough subscribers, you can do that.

Look, I want you to address a comment I see. You can't see it because it's over inside the group, but this is from Jen. She says, I'm 11 months in and I have 3 subscribers. Hang on, it's, it's fading fast here. I have 3 subscribers. They have stuck with me for 11 months, um, and they love it, and I can't wait for more subscribers. You give me hope. What would you say to Jen right now?

I would tell her that she needs to talk about her box every single day, every single chance you get. Go to my Instagram and take a look and see how many times I talk about my box. I literally talk about it 24/7.

What's your Instagram so everybody can go check you out? What's your Instagram?

Crafty Lady Boutique, just like it's spelled on the screen here.

Crafty Lady Boutique. Okay.

Yep. So yeah, I talk about my box all the time, constantly, every single day, 3 times a day.

This is part of our marketing. We think everyone's sick of hearing about our box. We think we've talked about our box enough. We think we've sent the email, we've done a post, we've maybe done a live box unboxing. Unboxing. People know I have a box. If they would want it, they would go ahead and get it. But we have to talk about our box every single day until you're sick of talking about your box.

I'll never get sick of talking about it.

I never get sick of talking about my box either. And so I think that's a great tip. Jen says, got it, and I will. Thank you. But I think that that's, that's part of the thing is like we can't over-talk about our box. We can't over-market our box enough. Talk to me about some of the challenges. We talked about the low subscribers. Let's talk about challenges as you've been scaling. Let's talk about that a little bit. What have you come across that's been challenging for you?

Money.

Cash flow?

Yes. So I've not taken out any loans. I've not taken out any, anything. This is all just me reinvesting my money, own money that I make back into it. That's why I didn't take a paycheck for 3 years.

Yeah.

So every single dollar that I made, I put right back into the business. You don't have to do that, but that's how I grew so quickly. Quickly.

Yeah, so, um, when you scale fast, cash flow is going to be a crunch for you because here's what happens. Here's the, here's the law of scaling. Um, today I have 500 subscribers, I open my box and I get 300 more. Okay, so I've got the profit from the 500, but now I need to invest, I need to buy 800 more. So now that takes down my cash flow. And then, oh, I'm gonna scale again, I've got 800 subscribers, now I'm at 1,200, I need 400 more of everything. And so I love to scale small. I'm more of a steady eddy kind of, let me scale 100, let me scale 100, let me scale 100, let me scale 100 from month to month versus let me go all in and scale all the things. It's a kind of a balance that you have to play with yourself. We love growing and we want to take it when we can get it right. But sometimes there's a balance with it. And so when you scale fast like Lexi has, you're going to run into a little bit of cash flow. But there's so many resources for that. But that's why we like planned growth. And here's the thing about a subscription box, you can plan your growth. If I know I only have 500 boxes, I'm going to sell 500 boxes, and next month I might sell 550, and next month I might sell 600, and next month I might sell 650. That's how I grew my subscription box. Me too. It was really steady and I was able to control the fluctuation of cash. And so that's how Um, I grew my business. Now let's talk about, um, how growing this subscription box has changed your life.

Well, my husband's income is cut in half right now because he's working on buying his own business, and I am finally— all those years that he took care of me, I'm paying him back now, and I'm the breadwinner. I'm the one that pays all the bills. He really just makes enough money for us to go to the grocery store and put gas in our cars right now.

Um, how does that make you feel?

It makes me feel really good. And he doesn't have any problem with it either because he's, he's, you know, he's a manly man, so he likes to be the breadwinner and stuff like that.

He wants to be—

but I thought he was gonna have a problem with it, but he's like, you know, because he already knows he's gonna be making more money than me after this anyway, so Talk to me about what the freedoms that you've gained. Oh, that's so good. I was able to buy my dream car that I've wanted for my whole life. Um, I pay for all— my kids are in all kinds of different sports, so I'm like, there's no question. Oh, you want to go get a new pair of cleats? Let's go to the store and grab them. Like, you know, no problem. It's so weird, I'm telling you, after all this time of being so penny-pincher and broke.

Yeah. I mean, there's a time, like, even in my life, I've been to the grocery store and I had to put things back at checkout. Right. There's times in life that we may not have enough money for the rent in your apartment, or I'm not sure how I'm going to pay my car payment next month. All of us have been there at some point. I used to have to take a calculator to the grocery store when I was buying my food because I only had so much money. And that's just the reality of so many people. And What I love about this business is that it started for like a side hustle for me. It started as like, I just want to make some extra money so that things aren't so tight in our checkbook, right? Like we can, we can go out of town, we can actually have a vacation, not just have the time off, but we can't afford to go anywhere, right? Or we can buy the extra things. Like you, my daughter was playing competitive soccer and the dues were like $900 to $1,000 every season. That wasn't something extra that I had in my life. And so For me, it was a way for us to have additional income, and then slowly my business replaced my job income and it became my full-time job. And now that has replaced— I could be working 5 jobs to make what I'm making now, right? And so that's what I want you to think about. Even when you're feeling like you're living paycheck to paycheck, this is a way for you to get out of that rat race of money and the rat race of time. Like, you're working and you don't have any time. You can go to every sporting event that they have, every band performance, every sporting event, everything, because you can work your business around your life. And that's a freedom that we can never have working for someone else. So let's wrap it up with this, Lexi, because I've got several hundred people watching us right now. Um, for anybody that might be on the fence about starting their subscription box or about joining Launch Your Box or continuing down this road, what would you, what would you say to them?

I would say to follow your dream. And 4 years ago I was in your seat right now. 4 years ago exactly. And if I wouldn't have did it, I wouldn't be where I am today. And in 4 years from now, you could be where I'm sitting.

100%.

It's absolutely possible. And you know what? It's not easy. It's hard. It's very hard. And you got to put a lot of work into it. But once you get there, it's like— I don't know, it's— you can't even describe the feeling of how good it feels.

What would you say your favorite part about Launch Your Box is?

So I love the community for sure. I love Sarah, of course. And honestly, oh my gosh, let me just tell you, I didn't know anything. Anything. You guys do not even know what you don't know. That's what Sarah told me. And that's exactly what Rebecca said yesterday. Yes, you don't know what you don't know, and I'm telling you, she knows it. So I would have never been able to set up a website. I would have never been able to set up emails. I would have never been able to set up anything. It is so 100% worth it.

Okay, so, um, why don't you just come over and join Lexi and I over inside Launch Your Box? And Rebecca, you heard from Rebecca yesterday. Um, we're doing a special bonus tonight. You get after hours with Sarah tonight on a Zoom call. So if you've joined Launch Your Box from Subscription Box Week, you get to join the Zoom call. And I can't wait because I just added, I added some more names as we were, as I was getting ready to go. I gotta put some more names on the wall. So this is our member wall and it's growing rapidly and we would love for you all to join Lexi and I inside Launch Your Box There's no better time to start than now. Keep putting it off. What if in 6 months from now you had started your subscription box and started earning extra money? What if a year from now I was interviewing you on this, on Subscription Box Week? What if 4 years from now you bought your dream car and you were able to pay for everything in your life that you wanted that you've not been able to do? What if I want you to think about what if we forgot to tell them I'm doing a million dollars this year. We totally forgot to tell them that. How did we forget that? Also, I don't know, drum roll, this is Lexi's very first million dollar revenue year. And, um, don't cry on me.

I'm gonna cry. I'm at $655,000 right now.

You're gonna hit it by the end of the year.

$655,000.

Yep, yes you are. And would you have ever thought?

Never in a million years, girl.

Never in a million years, a million dollars. I'm so very proud of you.

Did you know only like 1% of the women in the entire world ever hit a million dollars in sales?

It's actually less than 1%, Lexi, 0.7%. Of women in the world ever make $1 million in revenue ever in one year. And you got two of us sitting right here. And she did it when she had to give everything up in her life. She almost— it almost broke her. She had to give up her warehouse. She had to give up her boys. She had to kind of save face and come back and just kind of reset. But she didn't give up. And that's the beautiful thing about Lexie's story. When things got hard for her, she dug her feet in and she went to work. And I was right there supporting her through the tears, through the, through the achievements, through everything. And if she wouldn't have had Launch Your Box, where do you think you'd be?

I would be back as a nurse working thirds, missing all my kids' games, making no money.

100%, missing everything in life that's important to her. And so please help me congratulate her on hitting her— we're going to celebrate later when she actually gets it, but she's going to get there.

I got a big fourth quarter planned and we're going to hit that goal.

We're going to hit it. We're going to celebrate over inside Launch Tomorrow.

If I come in at like 9999, I'm going to be so mad.

Holler at me. I'll go buy something. I got you. All right. Thank you so much, Lexi. I'll be back for after hours tonight. So that's at 7:30 on Zoom. Remember, if you've joined Launch Your Box from Subscription Box Week, you'll get an invitation and email to come join me tonight. Come join Lexi and I over in Launch Your Box. There's Rebecca, there's Lexi, there's thousands of amazing people just like these women over in Subscription Box Week. And I can't wait for you to meet all of them. I will also be back inside Subscription Box Week tomorrow. I'm going to show you how to fast-track your audience tomorrow. It's a brand new lesson I have never taught in Subscription Box Week, and you guys get it tomorrow. I believe that's at 1:00. Team, tell me if that's right. I think it's up. I'm going to— I'm just going to say it wrong. I know. Let me hold, please. Let me verify that I just didn't lie to you because, you know, I've been known to do that before. Bonus training, 1:00 Central. I had it right. I'll be back inside Subscription Box Week tomorrow. Lexi. Congratulations and thank you so much for sharing your story. I know you just inspired the heck out of people watching. So, all right, we'll see you on the wall.

All right, bye guys.

Bye.