It's Me Against Me in My Subscription Box Business

Good morning. Happy Monday. It's time for this week's edition of Monday Momentum. And today we're going to talk about struggling. We're going to talk about, are you feeling like you're on the struggle bus right now? Do you feel like you're doing everything that you can and you're just not getting the results that you're hoping for? Do you feel like you're just working, working, working maybe harder than you ever have before but you don't feel like you're making any traction in your business. If that's you, I want you to let me know in the chat. I want you to say, that's me. And if we were going to talk about the struggle bus, because we all get on and off this bus periodically throughout our role as an entrepreneur, um, if we were going to rate this struggle bus, like, I want to just take your temperature on this. Right now. But if we were going to rate this from 1 to 10, 1, 0, I'm not struggling, Sarah, I am good, to 10, I am struggling so much right now that I want to give up. I want you to tell me from 1 to 10 or 0 to 10. 0, I am not struggling. I feel locked and loaded and I feel on fire. Maybe for the first time in a long time, or 10, I feel like I'm struggling so much right now, I want to give up, or anywhere in between. So if you could tell me in the chat where you're at on the struggle bus, I think it's important to take our temperature on how we're feeling about our business periodically. And I've been feeling the struggle myself over the last several months. I would say I'm like a 4 or 5. There's nothing in me on the give up stage. I don't give up. That's just my tenacity. But what I'm seeing in our community, what I'm seeing in just the economics of our world right now is that a lot of people are struggling. And I want to talk about it a little bit with you today. I was on social media this morning and I noticed that my, um, social media manager posted this quote. And this is something that I say a lot. She posted this quote today on my social media accounts, and it's me against me. And I want to talk about that today. I thought it was just very— it hit me this morning. It hit me because I see some of you struggling And I want to help you. Like, that's what I'm here to do, to help you. And I want you to understand that it's only you against you. And so whatever you're feeling right now, like, I can see in the chat some of you, like, the struggle is intense. Like, you're on the breaking point of making or breaking this for yourself or for your business. And I want you to understand that I see you and I hear you with that. And there's people that are 8s Lori Lynn says, I'm losing focus, and that happens when we get in that fight or flight mode with our business. That happens. 7, 9, 8, struggling but not giving up. We're here, and there's a lot of us that feel this way. 10, struggling to make this decision to even start. 8 or 9, but I'm not giving up. I want you to see how many people are feeling the same way that you are. And you're going to feel this way in your business throughout different periods of time. You're going to go through these seasons with your business where you're going to feel like, I'm on fire. And then you're going to feel like, I can't do anything right. And then you're going to feel like, why am I even bothering doing this? If you have ever felt like you woke up one morning and you're like, why am I working so hard for this? Raise your little hand emoji in the chat. Just give me the hand emoji. I felt like that. Do you know that I felt like that? I have felt like, why am I even working so hard? Like, I had this really big epiphany. I think it was like the second year of my subscription box. I was doing all my numbers. My sales were there. I was making money. But there was nothing in the bank. And I thought, I am killing myself. I am literally killing myself to make no money. And that was a big turning point for me in my business. And I had to make the shift of, was this a hobby or was this a business? Because the way I was treating it was a hobby. And so I was getting hobby results. And if you're sitting right now and you're on 7 or higher, I want you to ask yourself if you're treating your business like a hobby right now, but you want it to be a full-time business. And I had a huge realization and I had to cut the amount of money I was spending on things. I had to cut the budget on the box. I had to make my business profitable. And I wasn't so concerned about that in the beginning because, you know, I had a job and I was making a little bit of money and I was growing this thing and it was fun for me, but at the end of the day, I was working so hard to not have any money left in my bank account at the end of the month. And money was coming in, but it was going right back out as fast as it was coming in. And I was treating my business like a hobby. I wasn't treating it like a legit business. And I want you to ask yourself that. It's not about comparing yourself to somebody else. It's not about comparing yourself to the next business or someone you see having success in our membership or me. It's not about comparing yourself to me. It's about comparing yourself to you. It's you against you. Are you treating your business like a hobby right now? And if you've never sat and thought about that, I want you to think about that because the first thing that you need to do if you're treating your business like a hobby business is to make sure that you are profitable. So I need you to dig into your numbers. I need you to dig into your costs. Every single thing you put in that box, how much does it cost? How much did it cost to ship to you? How much is your packaging? How much is your labor to pack that box? How much is the shipping? What is the drop dead end of day profit that you're gaining from that box? If you don't know that number, this is a hobby business to you. If you don't know your profit dollar on your box every single month that goes out that door, you're treating your business like a hobby. You don't have your eye on the profit. And it's not all about profits to me, and you know that. But if you are struggling right now, and when the struggle is real and you don't have money in your bank account, the struggle feels compounded. So you have to know your profit. You have to build this business to be profitable, and you can be profitable in that very first month. Cynthia says, ouch. I needed to hear this. It's not to put anybody on blast because that's not what I'm here to do. It's to help you move the needle to where you want to be, where you're currently struggling, where you're currently feeling the pain points of running your own business. And how to get you to where you're not a 9, you're not a 10, you're a 6, you're a 5, you're a 4. We got to pull that number back. I don't want you to be a 10 on the struggle bus. We're going to struggle in a lot of different areas— financially, logistically, social media. Like, we're going to, we're going to struggle. In a lot of areas over the course of our business, and it's natural. But I don't want you to live there. It's a season that we go through and we have to push through it. So right now, if you don't know your profit dollar from the box that is going out the door this month, you're treating your business like a hobby. If you don't have an advertising budget, and you're not effectively advertising your business every month, you're treating your business like a hobby. Set a goal. It's you against you. It's not you against me. It's not Christina against Cynthia. It's not Mary against Sherry. It's you against you. Where are you at right now today? Do you know your sales goals for October? Have you set a goal for October yet? It's like the 9th. If we haven't set a sales goal, we're treating our business like a hobby. Like, I'm going to go make some product today. I'm going to sell some product today. I'm going to ship out a few cute things today. That's a hobby business. If you don't have a goal to sell this month, If you don't have a goal to gain subscribers this month, if you don't have a goal to increase and build your list, you're just walking through day to day as a hobby. But you have this struggle and this pain point that why isn't this a real business? Why isn't my business a legit business that I can make a full-time income off of? Because you're treating it like a hobby. So here's what I want you to do. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to make 3 goals for this month, okay? I want you to make a sales goal. Sales goal is number 1, and it's not a sales goal with anybody else. This is against you. You against you. What did you do last month? What are you up against from last year? I want you to look at both of those numbers. What did I do in September? What did I do in October of 2022? And I want you to set a sales goal for this month. And I want to— I want you to break it down to a weekly goal and a daily goal. What do I need to sell today so that at the end of the month I make my goal? We need to have a sales goal and we need to translate that into a daily goal. Okay. I want you to set an October sales goal. I want you to set an October subscriber goal. Where are you at with your subscribers? I'm down. I got spots. I got product coming out of my ears. If I don't sell some more boxes this month, I'm going to be sitting on a lot of subscriptions. I got to get on it. I got to make a subscriber goal. I need to gain 50 more subscribers this month. I need to have a goal. And how am I going to get there? I can't just say I want 50 subscribers this month. You know what I did yesterday? Turned on a new ad. I got to get an ad running. I don't have any Monogram Box ads running right now. Why don't I? I have spots to fill. Why is my mind not thought that was the first solution? That's an easy solution. Turn on an ad. Let's get in front of people. Let's talk about our box every day. I've got to fill 50 spots this month or I'm going to be sitting on 50 extra boxes again this month. Okay, so I've got a sales goal, breaking it down daily. I got a subscriber goal for the month, and I need actionable steps to get me there. I can't just say I need 50 subscribers and hope I reach that by the end of the month. How am I going to get there? Okay, and I need a list building goal. How am I going to continue to attract new people, especially, especially if I'm struggling to get new subscribers? If I'm struggling to get new subscribers, it's because I need to get in front of a new audience. My current audience is fatigued by my offer. I need to get new audience. I need to get in front of that. How can I do that? What do I have going on? What do I have in my business that I can pull out and get in front of people? I have an opt-in running right now that is killing it, and I didn't realize that until I started digging into my numbers yesterday. I had 400 opt-ins from the time I looked at it Friday midday to Sunday morning. I had 400 opt-ins in about 36 hours. I need to push that. That's working. When something's working in your business, Put more gas on that fire, put more fuel on that fire. I already got the fire built. I need to throw some more gasoline on that. That's my wallpaper opt-in. It's a freebie opt-in. I have 400 opt-ins in 36 hours. And I dug into those numbers a little bit more. I thought, how many of those people are actually new to me? Or they're just my existing list. They just want my my wallpaper. 72% of the people that have opted into this wallpaper are brand new to my email list. 72%. That's 1,200 people that are brand new to my email list that I can now market to. Okay. So I want you to have a sales goal. Look at September, look at October 2022, and make a realistic goal. Then break it down by week and by month— I mean by day, by week and by day. Number 1, sales goal. Number 2, subscriber goal. All right, what do I want to end the month with? Subscribers. I need to increase 50 subscribers this month. How am I going to do that? I need to make an actionable plan to do that. What does that look like for me? I need to do a box opening and I need to probably run an ad to that box opening. I'm running an ad to a monogram box ad right now. That's— it was a post that Amber did earlier this week and I saw it was getting a ton of engagement and I'm like, that's it. That's the ad I need to run. And I'm— it's got a lot of great comments on it from my subscribers. I need to get some traction. I need to get in front of people. I need to talk about my subscription box every day on social media. I need to tease it. I need to create the FOMO. I need to create excitement around this next box. Okay, build that excitement back up. And then number 3, I need to have a list building goal. How am I going to build my list this month? How am I going to get new people on my email list? And how am I going to get new followers on my social media account so they can see what I'm doing? All right, and if you're not selling, you're not selling right now, focus on the list building goal. All right. We've got this. It's me against me, not anybody else. But if you're struggling like so many of you are in the chat today, all you need is some structure and some goals. Because when you start to achieve the little— like, let's just talk about our sales goal. When you get a monthly sales goal and you break it into a week and you break it into a day and you achieve that for the day, The big goal doesn't feel that hard anymore. It's going to motivate you. It's going to drive you to take more action to get to that goal. Okay. We just have to break it down, but right now it feels so heavy because you only see the big thing, or maybe you're not even seeing the big thing because you haven't looked at it because you're so overwhelmed. How many subscribers can I get this month? Can I get 10? Make that your goal. And then what are you doing every day to get 10 new subscribers this month? Give yourself some action. Just sitting there struggling and not knowing what to do is defeating. We have to take action. I don't want you to struggle. I've struggled a lot this year. I have struggled a lot this year, and you get to a point where you struggle so much, you get so burned out. I've been feeling the burnout this year. It's been hard. A lot of things have been hard. I feel like this year I'm working 4 times harder for less results than, say, the last few years. And that kind of feels defeating sometimes. But I'm not giving up because I've built this business and I know it's good and I know I can be successful. I just have to try new things. I have to set some goals. I have to keep my eye on the numbers. I've got to treat this like a legit business. And not a hobby business. And I want it and I'm hungry for it. And if you have that drive, if you have that hunger, then you can do this. We're going to get out of the struggle stage. We're going to get out of it. We might be back in it at some point. I'm going to guarantee that. I've been in business for 10 years. You're gonna go— you're gonna be back in the struggle stage at some point, but it's how we handle it, it's how we deal with it, it's how we process it and how we move forward from it. All right, so let's make some goals and let's take some action and let's get some relief from the struggle this week. I know you can do this. I'm rooting for you. All right, let me know what you're working on this week. Let me know what your goals are, um, so the community, the community can cheer you on. All right, I'll see you guys later. Have a great rest of your Monday. Know your numbers. I'll see you soon.