How a Simple T-Shirt Idea Turned Into $20k a Month

Good morning, good morning. Happy Monday. Super excited to be here with you guys today. We're going to talk about one thing, and that is the one thing of the month. And it's the simplest subscription model that you can have. It's the simplest subscription model that you can start. It is also one of the most profitable. And if you felt overwhelmed with building a subscription box, this might be the answer for you. So tell me in the comments, have you thought about doing a one thing of the month? Are you stuck somewhere along the way trying to build a box with multiple items? Let me know where you're at with that. Do you have a one thing of the month subscription? Let me know in the chat today. I'm going to come over and say hi to everyone that's joining us right now. I am live on Facebook on the How to Start a Subscription Box page. I am also live on my YouTube channel, Sarah Williams Subscription Box Coach. So you'll find me there. Also, I want to give you a little reminder. If you want to get a text from me on Monday mornings before I go live, all you have to do is text the word Monday to my phone number, 940-204-0023. That's going to put you on the list to get my Monday morning text. If you're not on that list, I'm not going to bug you in the morning because it is early on the West Coast right now. It is 9 a.m. here, Central, 10 a.m. Eastern, but it's what, 7 a.m. in California right now. So anyway, let me know if you want me to text you. I will not text you if you don't want me to. All right. Got it. I've got it. Okay. Good morning, Lexi. Good to see you. Good morning, Rebecca. Lexi, I hope your vacation was wonderful. I've been following along. Good morning, Rebecca. Good morning, Jen. Jen, I'm about to give you a shout out. Good morning, Sue. I saw you were shopping early, Sue. Good morning. Hey, Carolyn. Also, good morning, Simone. Good to see you. Hey, Antoinette. Good morning. Oh, Lyman. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Carrie. Good morning, Tanya. Hey, Mary. Good morning, Jocelyn. Good morning. Good morning. Hey, Meredith. Good morning. Oh, I'm so glad y'all are here this morning. It just makes my Monday so much better. Good morning, Lori. Hey, Amanda. It's Kim. Thank you. When you have your business names on there, I don't know who to say hi to, so thank you. Good morning, Myra. Good to see you. Uh, Lori says good morning, grab some sales this morning. If you don't know, just a little shameless plug real quick. Um, we are liquidating my warehouse, and yesterday I spent hours marking things to 75% and 90% off in my shop. Um, and this is so good for subscription box owners because a lot of it's under my cost right now, and I have like hundreds of stuff, um, like SKUs. I marked a whole bunch of things down that I had like 50 and more of, um, so you can grab some stuff for your subscription box. You can go into Launch Your Box. I made a post last night, um, about it. So they're flying. Like, I don't know if you can see my warehouse, but they are pulling— hold on— they're pulling orders right now. They got a whole bunch of stuff getting ready to ship out. And Jolie would die if she knew that she was on my live right now, so nobody tell her. Nobody tell her. She's the one that does not want to be on camera. Okay, good morning everybody. Oh my gosh, I'm just gonna quickly say good morning, good morning. Um, so you guys, you guys can shop, uh, at my retail shop, is framedbysarah.com, when we get done with this live. Um, but I'll be marking some more stuff down in the next few days. I have to be out of this warehouse in 2 and a half weeks by the end of this month. So it's been a lot, it's been a lot, but I appreciate y'all. I appreciate y'all for shopping. Grab some of my really great product because it's really great product. And it's like almost painful. Like, I had like, I had to like, let it go, Sarah. You cannot take it with you. This cannot go to your house when you're— when your warehouse shuts down. Just let it go. It needs to go. It's going to go to a good home. Like, do you ever have those feelings of like, like you bought— like, these are your— like, these are your prized possessions. Like, and I know it's like, it's one of those things we have to get over as entrepreneurs, especially in the product space. We pay so much money, um, for these things and we put them in my subscription boxes. And so I never want to like devalue that for my subscribers, but it's one of those things like I have to get it out of here, I have to get it gone so that I can move out of this warehouse and into my fulfillment center. And it's just been a little bit painful for me. It's been one of those things that Like, I have to keep reminding myself, what is the end goal? What is the goal here? I got to let it go because I got to get out. Like, this stuff can't go to my house. Like, what am I going to do with it if I don't sell it? It is like it's an attachment issue, Lexi. It surely is. And it's like, I know I need to get this stuff gone so that I can grow and scale. And I have to keep reminding myself as I was marking stuff down 90% off yesterday, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to throw up. This is part of the goal. You have to get ready to go to the fulfillment center and you cannot drag all this stuff with you. And so anyway, just if you have inventory that you've been hanging on to for whatever amount of time, some of this stuff has been years sitting in here and it's ridiculous. And I know better. I know better. But also, let me just tell you, I got a $36,000 bill for some product that I'm having manufactured. And normally I'd be like, oh, but I'm like, I got it because I'm selling all this stuff. All this stuff that I've been hanging on to is putting tens and $20,000 in my bank account almost daily. And so I No, we're not dragging it to a storage unit, Jocelyn. We're not dragging it with us. We're not taking it with us. We're letting it go. I'm getting the cash back and I'm actually so far ahead in manufacturing for the year because I have the cash flow to do that now. So my just advice for you, my tip from you, from one product entrepreneur hoarder to the next, it's time to let it go. If that means less than you bought it for, let it go. It's not doing you any good sitting on your shelves, okay? And I've been told that, you know, I've been told that over and over and over again, and I hear it, but I'm actually being forced, being forced to let it go. Kim, I have a ton of teacher stuff. Go grab some stuff I've got if you want some good prices. So it's a journey, it's a process. I'm letting it go because the bigger goal and what I have to keep reminding myself is this move is going to allow me to grow and scale differently than I have before. And it's kind of the next level of my journey and I'm ready for the next level. And I should have done this a long time ago because some of the stuff has been sitting here for 3 and 4 years. But it's forcing me to make really tough decisions on things. And, and I'm here for it. We're letting it go. We're moving on. We have to grow and scale. Right? Right. That's what we're in business for. Not to hang on to stuff that I put in a subscription box 3 years ago. Right? Like, that's not what we're doing here. Okay, so back to the— back to focus. Back to focus. My site for my liquidation sale is framedbysarah.com. But stay here. Let's talk about stuff and then you can go shop. There's plenty. Trust me, there's plenty. So, okay. So what I wanted to talk today about was really focusing in on one thing of the month. I've been watching inside our community. We have just a great community of subscription box owners, a lot of them getting started, and I'm seeing kind of this hangup with pricing, with sourcing, with curation. And I, I wanted to just dial it back for a minute because most people think they need to have a full box, 5 to 7 items in it. They, they think they need all this inventory. Again, attachment issues, hoarding issues, um, the vendors, packaging, all the things like— and it starts to become overwhelming. Um, and so, and this is where people get stuck and they stop. And that's what keeps people from ever launching the thing. The overwhelm is what keeps people from launching the thing. So instead of 5 items, what if you sold 1? That's what I want to talk about today. Instead of constant decision making, what if you create a simple, repeatable experience with one product, one theme delivered monthly. Okay, so think about, think about it like this: candle of the month, sticker of the month, snack of the month, t-shirt of the month, right? It's not about giving less value, but it's about giving a focused singular value. And when this this model works, it's way easier for you as the business owner. You also don't have a million things you're trying to get rid of in your warehouse, you know, 9 years later. But it's easier to launch because— let me, let me break it down for you. And you think, well, does somebody want just one thing? Yes, somebody wants just one thing. We feel like we have to overdeliver and we have to stuff it full of things and that shows value. That's not value. You're creating all this stuff that then people have to deal with. If you send me a box with 10 things and I really subscribed for maybe 1 or 2 of the things, now you put a burden on me to have to deal with 8 other things that I may or may not want. Okay, here's a, here's an example. You guys know that I'm a book lover, right? I read psychological thrillers. I love books. I read 2 or 3 every week. Okay, so when I look at— I was, I was at a book fair, it was an adult book fair, it's pretty cool by the way. And I was, I was really intrigued by this Blind Date of the Month. Okay, it's a book that, not Blind Date of the Month, it was a Blind Date with a Book, that's what it was called. And it was wrapped, so you didn't know, and it was, it was categorized, and there was a little synopsis about what it was. I was trying to figure out if I had read it before, I don't know. It's the surprise element. Moment, right? Like, that's what I'm like. I want to be surprised, but I just wanted the thing. Instead, all folded into it was pins and bookmarks and, and facial scrubs and all this kind of stuff. And so get home and I'm so excited because I want to unwrap this book and see what I got, and now I have all this stuff to deal with. I put the pins in my pin holder, I'll use the bookmark, but now I've got like earrings and face, face masks and all kinds. I don't know what to do with it. And so I don't, I don't want it. I just wanted the book. Do you see what I'm saying? We think now I have the burden of dealing with this extra stuff. I don't want to throw it away. I just paid for it, right? So then I have this. Am I getting my value if I'm not using it? So we put a burden on people by giving them so much stuff that they won't use. If it was literally the book, a pen, and a bookmark, I would have been happy, so happy. I wouldn't have had the burden of all this extra little stuff that I didn't really want. I really just wanted the book, but I'll use a pen and I'll use a bookmark. I didn't want all the extra stuff. And so I want you to think about that. When we put so much stuff in a box, it's almost like a burden for that customer to have to figure out what to do with it. So when you think about a one thing, I really just wanted the book. I bought it for the book. I didn't want all the extra stuff as it was a burden to me to have to figure out what to do with it. But when we launch as a one thing of the month, fewer suppliers, I don't need to find a bookmark supplier and a pen supplier and a, and a self-care supplier and all the earring supplier, all the things that were attached to that book, right? I don't, I need a book supplier. Lower startup cost. I don't have to buy all the extras. I just need to buy the one thing, right? And it's faster to validate your idea. It is easier to sell because it has the clear offer. There's no confusion. It's a quick buying decision. I'm buying it for the book. The other stuff is cute and fun, but now I have the burden of doing something with it. It's also easier to scale because I only need the one item for that subscription, and I can streamline operations. I have predictable inventory, and I just rinse and repeat it every single month. The simpler your offer is, the faster you can grow it. I want to tell you about when I started my one thing of the month. I had my box, I had the monogram box, it was going well. I had probably, I don't know, 300 or 400 subscribers at the time. And I sent out a survey to my subscribers. I was getting ready to plan out the whole next 6 months. And it was a quick survey. It was like 6 questions because I didn't want it to be long and overwhelming where they wouldn't fill it out. And one of the questions that I asked in that survey was, what do you want to see more of? And 80% of the surveys that I got back said t-shirts. We want more t-shirts. And I thought, okay, cool, but if I put a t-shirt in every box or more boxes— I was putting a t-shirt in about once a quarter— it's going to limit the other things that I can offer. So now it's going to become a lot of like t-shirts. What if I did a t-shirt subscription separately? What if I just created that one thing of the month? I made the design and the color palette coordinate with my box. But what if I just did a t-shirt club of the month? Would they buy that? Would they buy it extra on their box? What would that do? I was nervous that it was going to cannibalize my box because this was not a cheap box. Here I was coming out with a $20 a month subscription and it's called my t-shirt club. And I launched that and, um, I got over 350 subscribers on my very first launch week. It was 5 days, I got 350 subscribers. People told me they wanted it and I just gave it to them. Not a bunch of extra things, not a bunch of things like— it was their t-shirt. I didn't burden them with a bunch of things that they needed to figure out what to do with. And so It was the t-shirt of the month and a sticker that matched the design in a poly mailer. It was the simplest thing that I could have done, and it was the most profitable because I had 70% margin on that t-shirt because I was designing it myself, I was printing it locally, I was sourcing directly from the manufacturer for my t-shirts. So all this other stuff that I'm spinning my wheels curating and talking to vendors and, and planning and making sure it matches and making sure I have enough was happening. And here slides in this t-shirt of the month club, easier, more profitable. It was easier to package. We didn't have to fold boxes. We slid it into a poly mailer. So that was so easy. It was easy to fulfill because we just, we shipped by size. We did all the smalls first and we did all the mediums first. I didn't have to go down row by row and add the next thing and double-check and make sure it was all there. It was easier because I made one design, one color shirt, one, one color ink. And that's how the t-shirt club began. And it was so easy. And I wished I would have started with that because I spun my wheels for so long getting the box started because there was so many moving parts to that. And the t-shirt club outperformed the box very quickly, um, and it generates $20,000 a month right now by itself. We can pack all the shirts in a half day. We ship all of them out. It's, it's one design once a month. So when you look at a scope of things, if I'm planning out the year, I plan 12 designs, I pick 12 colors of tees and I send them to my printer and we're done. And when I think about that subscription model versus this crazy box that I came up with, it's fun, it's interesting, it gives me a lot to talk about. But when you're overwhelmed, I want you to go simple. I was trying to solve the problem that people wanted more t-shirts without putting every one of them in my box. And it was so simple. I sat down and I designed 3 t-shirts, the first 3 that would go in those boxes. And I'm like, well, these are cute. And then I— as my boxes were being themed, I thought, let me make these match my box because then they'll want both. I was creating this FOMO. Well, I had all the things that match the shirt, why wouldn't I want the shirt? And I launched with 350 subscribers. You know, when I launched my box, I only had 44 subscribers. It was the easiest thing I'd ever done. And what made it stick was that— here's the, here's the key— I kept the same themes. So my themes are inspirational and seasonal, period. I'm not all over the place. Now, I did go a little fun and snarky once, and it backfired on me, and I will never do that again. But I'm inspirational and seasonal, and so people know what to expect. Expect with my one thing of the month. I'm not changing it every month. It's different every month, but it's still in that same theme— inspirational and seasonal. Okay, and then what else— what made it stick was that I use the same type of shirt. So I typically use a Bella+Canvas shirt, um, and it fits the same. So I'm not jumping from— and there's a couple other brands I use, but I've tried and tested them. They fit the same. So I'm not jumping from brand to brand to brand to brand, and then it fits wonky, and then I'm like, I think I needed a bigger size than this. And then it causes feedback, it causes friction, it causes people to cancel. So the best thing that you can do when you start a one thing of the month is make it consistent. Consistent sizing, consistent brand, consistent themes. Okay. I subscribe to a book of the month, right? I'm subscribing to thrillers because that's what I read. You throw a romance in there and I'm like, I don't know that I like that. I don't know if I want this. You throw in, you know, some nonfiction. I'm like, yeah, this isn't what I want. Keep it simple. Keep the theme. Okay. Now, you don't have to start with a complicated box. I'm just going to help you give yourself permission. Start with one product. If you could build $20,000 a month in revenue from one product, would you do it? Because it's easy, it's clear. Clarity creates sales, confusion creates issues. You don't need a huge product lineup. To get started. If you've been overwhelmed, if you've been feeling like I've got— there's too much to make this box happen because I've got to talk to all these vendors, I want to go simple. I want to do a one thing of the month, $20 plus shipping. Yes, $20 plus shipping. That's what I charge, and I have a 70% margin. If you're watching this and you're thinking, well, I don't do t-shirts, Sarah, that's okay. This model works for many niches— handmade products, boutique items, seasonal items, consumable, food. What's one product you could offer monthly? I want you to drop it in the chat. Drop it in the chat. One product. And here's the thing, t-shirts are my best-selling item. Why didn't I think of that? T-shirts are my best-selling item. If you love this idea and you're thinking, okay, but how do I figure this out? If you love the t-shirt idea and you're like, okay, what t-shirt should I use because there's a million on the market? How would I actually do designs if I'm not if I'm not creative? How would I price it? How would I launch it? I have a t-shirt course, and it's separate from Launch Your Box, but I designed it specifically for the person that wanted to start a t-shirt subscription. Because here's the thing, I'm not a gatekeeper. There are billions of us, and a lot of us wear t-shirts on the regular. And so if you want to know how to start a t-shirt subscription, I put my 13 years of knowledge into one little course, and I'll walk you through how to create designs, how to set up your subscription, and how to actually get it selling. You can jump in and grab my t-shirt course right now if you want to. I think we have the link here. We grab the link for that. It's a small course. Once you purchase it, you have it forever. But it's taking all my knowledge about building a t-shirt subscription and putting it here for you to follow the map. Because with the map is there and you don't have to overthink everything. All you have to do is implement. That's the fastest way to get to where you want to go. If you're listening today and you've been overwhelmed by starting with all the things, I want you to pull back and sit with this today, and I want you to think, how easy could it be for me to get started if I did a one thing of the month? Does it feel simpler? Than what you've been working on? Could you build your business with one product and not all the things? You don't need anything complicated to get started. You need one product. And if you started, you could do that. Here's that link for you, Letty. It's in the chat here. If you're on YouTube, Carrie put it over in the YouTube description as well. You'll find it in the comments. I'll put it in the description on Facebook when I get done with this live. But I want you to think about this today. I just want you to reframe. If you've been stuck, let's move forward because you can do this. Subscriptions are booming. I I'm excited about it, and, um, and I can't wait for you to jump in. Now, I had— I was, I was looking Monday, I always do some wins in the community, and my amazing community director Allison pulled me some wins to talk about today. And the very first win I want to share is from Jen, and Jen's here in the chat. Jen launched her t-shirt subscription this last week and I'm so excited for her because she has amazing products and designs and she's gonna do so well. Shawnee, let's celebrate Shawnee. She identified her box niche, that is so, so important. Kelly signed a lease on an office space for her box this week. Chris went live for the first time on social media. Trini has almost doubled her subscribers in one month's time. Time. I just want to celebrate because I want to show you that all these women are on different paths. They're in different stages of building their businesses, and all these wins matter. All these next steps matter. And so I want you to be inspired by them. I want you to take the next step. I want you to keep leaning in, and I want you to make, make sure that you're giving priority to this. It's not going to happen if you keep putting it on the back burner. It's time for us to create a priority with the business we want to build. So I'm going to give you permission to make it a priority this week. Go grab the t-shirt course if you want to start a t-shirt club. I've got all the things in there. And then LauncherBox members, I'll see you tomorrow. We have, I think, a live Q&A with me tomorrow. So I'll see you inside the group. All right. Y'all have a great day. I'll see you soon.