Make Your Subscription Box More Than Just a Box

Hello everybody, welcome back. If you've been joining me this week, we've been talking about all the amazing people. Let me take my Post-it note off my book here. All the amazing people, um, that I was able to feature in my brand new book called One Box at a Time. And today we're looking at Chapter 5 because I have featured Katie Enney in Chapter 5. And if you follow Katie, if you subscribe to her subscription box, you know instantly what I'm talking about when I'm talking about create an experience. So Chapter 5 is all about creating an experience. And here's, here's the big idea around Chapter 5, and then we're going to dig into Katie's story. But it's not about the stuff. Listen, it's not about the stuff that you put in the box. Yes, It is about the stuff, but at the end of the day, it's not about the stuff when it actually comes to the box opening. And I underlined this section on page 74, and I want to read it to you really quickly. But it says, remember, remember, your subscribers come because they want what's inside your box. They stay because of the way your box makes them feel and the experience. That you provide. So they initially come because they want the product in your box, but they stay because of the way you make them feel. So we're gonna talk about it with Katie today. She has an incredible subscription box journey. I know one that you're gonna feel inspired by. Katie, why don't you introduce yourself, tell them about your subscription box, and then we're gonna talk a little bit about your journey.

Okay, great.

Hi everyone.

It's Katie with Literary Book Club. Um, my box is a quarterly luxury subscription box. It features uncollectible editions of classic books and, um, like wrapped page number gifts to open as you read. So it's a book box, but it's kind of a niche one where it focuses on classic books especially. And then we kind of put our own little spin on everything, as you'll kind of see as we talk about it.

So yes, so let me tell you about the first time that I saw 80s box. So gosh, it's been a while ago now, but it was one of your first box.

That Little Women box. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Okay. That's so incredible because, um, so every other month or so I do what's called box openings inside our membership called Launch Your Box. So our members can submit, they can request to have me open a box. And so I open it live and I give real-time feedback. I never open these beforehand. It's always my initial reaction that you get from me when I'm live. And so Katie's box was part of our box openings, um, the Literary Book Club box. And I opened this box and I was just immediately transformed into this entire experience that Katie had put together. Um, and basically she's taking this classic book, it's in a beautifully bound edition, so it's really special. It has some kind of special cover or artwork, or it's just a really beautiful book. But it's not just about the book. It's about what you experience when you're reading it. And so inside the box, there were all these little packaged gifts. And I was like, well, this is interesting. And every one of them had these little stickers on it that said page 132, page 85, page 247, page whatever. And so it was like a whole experience. Like, I couldn't wait to, like, take that book and start reading it because when I got to page 87, I now was going to open this little gift that went along with page 87. And that is how Katie created her subscription box. And that surprises me that it was your very first box, Katie, because it was so beautifully done. And I have watched you over the last few years just really evolve your experience, really create the most beautiful experience that you can. So let's go back. Let's go back to that first box. And I wanna talk a little bit about your journey to becoming a subscription box owner. So tell me how the idea came about to start the subscription box.

Do you want to go back to the start of the book club or all the way back to the start of my previous— which, how far back do you want me to go? Okay.

So let's start with it because you had another subscription first and I unboxed that one too. So let's give them a little brief. Like you had a subscription box because you had a stationery company and then how that evolved into this, because I think that's an important step because there's somebody watching right now that maybe is doing something that's not just quite clicking the way they want it to click and maybe they're not quite as passionate about it or can't figure out how to scale it. And that's when you made the shift. So I think this is important. Let's go back to Wildflower.

Yeah, it is. I'll try and shorten it. Concise. But so I have a small business called Wildflower Paper Company. I still have that. It's— I do art and stationery and stickers. And during the pandemic, when everything was shut down, I started doing some mystery boxes just to make some money. And as I did those, they were really popular. And then I started getting Sarah's ads to me, probably because I was looking for like boxes and stuff. And so then I joined Launch Your Box. I didn't even— I must have been in 2020. It's been years. Um, and so I started a subscription box for that business, an offshoot of that called Wildflower Club. And it was a very general kind of like a lifestyle box, had a little like nature theme, but mostly just general, and really had a lot of fun learning that. I mean, I hired my first VA, I went through all the Launch Your Box training years ago and did everything step by step, built the subscription, and I ended up at about 100 subscribers after about a year of doing it, which was really great. But what I have found was that I had lost a little bit of my passion for it, and I was not feeling the connection with my ideal customers that I wanted. You know, it was kind of just like this general box. There was no special connection or niche item in there, and I just kind of wanted more. And so then I ended up having this— I'm a huge book nerd in my regular life, and I was like, why don't I do something that I'm really personally passionate about, just as like a little passion project for fun? Because I already know everything to do because I just did it for Wildflower Club for a year. And so it was you can easily rinse and repeat it.

We've, we've talked about this with all three of my guests this week. We talked about it with Nicole, how she built the GPig Box and she just rinsed and repeated it with the Bunny Box. We talked with Stacy yesterday, how she built her printable club. All she had to do was rinse and repeat it with the Pillow Cover Club. So once you figure out the steps to creating the subscription, you can really just rinse and repeat that with anything that you want to.

Yeah, I mean, I just did all the same steps again, and I started a social media from scratch, which was scary but really fun. That's grown. I think my Instagram's grown to like 8,000 followers now, which I can hardly believe. Um, but yeah, so that's how the Literary Book Club was born, is I just, I wanted to read more classic books, and I wanted to have this community of people, but I wanted to make it special. Um, I'm an Enneagram 1, so everything has to be perfect. Like, everything, the details have to be there. It all has to come together. Or just it's not going to happen. And so I started putting together in my head like all these beautiful details and what if you did this and what if we had this and we have a wax seal. And I started, I did my first box, the Little Women one, as a preorder thinking I'll do 50 and who, you know, if they don't sell, it's not that big of a deal. And they all sold out and I had to make some more. Yes, that's the first one.

This is the box that I unboxed and I wanted to grab a picture to show you because I don't think you can even understand the magnitude of this experience that she's creating with this type of box. It's not just about the book. So I wanted them to see it, Katie.

Yes, yes. And so that was really fun. And then quickly— so I was doing it bimonthly at the time— quickly by October I had gotten up to like 150 subscribers by my second box. So in 3 months about. And I was just like, oh my goodness, like this is so much growing a lot faster than I expected. And at the time I was still doing boxes. Um, so that's kind of when I made that decision I just talked about to discontinue Waffle Art Club. I still do my other business because that's just part of who I am, but for the box part, this one I really wanted to focus on. This one I felt more passionate about. It's the kind— you know, I love your can of biscuits, and now it's in your book. I laughed so hard because it is like, once you get that idea and it comes out of your brain, you can't put them back in the can. Like, it's out in the can.

Like, they're just out there and you got to do something with them, right?

Yeah. I mean, that was kind of how I felt with this book, was like, I lived it, I breathed it, I dreamt about it. I drove my husband crazy talking about it. Like, I'd be like, I just thought of a name for the book box. He's like, what? What are you doing? So it started to grow and we started to scale. At this point, I was still doing everything myself. And then I joined Scale Your Box back when that came out. I'm losing track of all the dates now because it's been so long since I've been doing it here.

Because I want them to understand kind of the time frame and what was happening with, um, with your business. Because you had the, the Wildflower— what was it called? Box? What was the Wildflower Club? Okay, that you spent a long time getting that to 100 subscribers, right? Then you get this new idea and you're like, I'm gonna try this, I already know how to do it, I'm gonna launch the thing. You launch the thing, within 3 months now you have over 150 subscribers, which is more than you ever got with the first box. And you were like, Okay, this is really a thing. I really love doing this. I'm really passionate about this and my audience wants more. So I'm going to let go of this thing that is not serving me anymore. It served you at a point in time. I don't love it. It's kind of getting hard and clunky to do. I really love this. I'm really excited about this. I really want to lean into this because I think I've got something here that could be bigger. Than the first business that I had, the first box that I had. And so go ahead, go ahead, Katie.

A lot of that was the feedback, was the instant, like, community that started to build. Like, I love this box, I love this book, I love these gifts. And like, as opposed to having kind of a cold audience for a really general box, having that niche experience was kind of like, whoa, maybe I should keep going with this because this is already growing so much faster and becoming so much more of an experience than the other one. So it's kind of like the good is the enemy of the best, you know? Like, it was a great box and I love doing it, but this was really the best option for me.

And I've seen this before with our members. Um, Julie Harkin comes to mind, um, right away when she had her tea towel subscription and then just flipped to this Pilot Wives Club, and it grew so rapidly and so quickly because she niched down. She was passionate about it. She could speak about it, and it just grew like crazy. So now you're in Scale Your Box, you're growing, you're focused on the literary book club box. We're having some challenges. I mean, let's be honest, we had some challenges. Um, I remember talking to you at some point, and, um, and you were like, I can't hire anybody. There's just— I can't hire anybody. Like, it's just really hard to hire people. Like, there's— like, I don't— I just can't do it, and I can't grow, and I gotta shut it down because I can't do all this by myself anymore. And there was there was this tension, there was this push and pull. Like, I know I have the people that want more boxes. I can't figure out how to get people hired, or I can't find the right person. And I just— I'm getting burnt out and I can't do all of this myself. And I remember that call that we had, and I said, keep trying, keep trying, um, look for these type of people, keep trying. And literally overnight, you'd hired 2 or 3 people. Like, I don't— like, I feel like we got off the phone and the next day you had hired 3 people or something. I don't even remember what happened.

I agonized over it. Well, yeah, there was kind of two big moments. One, the first moment was when I realized that I had outgrown my house and I could not pack in my basement anymore. And that was a really scary moment because I had to sign, I had to look for a commercial space. I had to take on a huge amount of extra expense by doing that. And that was a moment where you kind of decide, are you going to quit or are you going to grow there? And then two, the second part was once I had the commercial space, I was still doing everything myself. And I'm like, here I have this commercial building, I gotta have some employees or I can— or I'm just gonna quit again. Like, I can't, you know, I think I said I'm either gonna scale or I'm gonna quit. Like, I can't continue to just do this on my own because I wanted to get bigger to make it worth my while. You know, you can do it as a side hustle and stay small in your house, that's fine too, but this was going to be my main, you know, focus. And so I really wanted to grow. I wanted to grow to make it worth my while and to make it kind of like something that could pay all the fixed expenses and get a little stability. You know, the last 3 years have been insane. None of it's been easy. And so having even just a little bit of stability from that recurring revenue is so helpful. Um, so I really wanted to grow. I wanted to be where I could, you know, and the more you buy, the more you can save and then have a better profit margin. It just— everything gets easier as you get bigger. And so I ended up, yes, hiring 2 people, and then that kind of was the game changer because once I had the commercial space, and then I had 2 employees who were just part-time, um, everything started to come together, and I was able to step back and focus on more growing the subscription instead of just literally hand-packing everything myself. And the funny thing is, when you start to hire people, you think, well, I'm not gonna have anything to do. And oh my gosh, that is not true, because you will have so much to do because it's everything you've been neglecting, because you've been packing boxes and shipping orders and printing out labels and things that really anyone can do that part. It's not hard to pack and order for shipping or print a label or whatever. And so I was surprised that then I started really diving into more social media promotion, trying to grow the business, working with influencers and advertising. It's just like more and more. And it hasn't been easy. Like, it hasn't been easy to get to the number we're at right now. And we're— even this year has had its own special challenges. And, you know, cancellations are up and everyone's on a budget and it's just everything's hard. But that's just small business owner life. It is. I'm not sure it's ever going to be just easy.

So when we left off at the beginning of our story, you were in 3 months in, you had 150 subscribers. Where are we at today?

I just checked because we're still, we're open right now. And so I just looked this morning and we're up to 1,280 as of this morning.

1,280 monthly subscribers, Katie.

Oh, quarterly.

You were afraid to hire someone. You were going— I just wrote this down as you were talking. So if you have your book, just flip to page 75 because it's the end of the chapter. Write down Katie's quote right here because it's a good one. We're going to keep it in here. Are you going to quit or are you going to grow? Okay, and I put Katie. Are you going to quit? Are you going to grow? You have to make a decision when you get to a level where you can't handle your business anymore, you have to make a decision. Are you going to quit? Are you going to give up what you started? Are you going to do the things that you need to do to scale it so that you can pay for that building, you can pay for employees, you can pay for advertising? You built a solid business. You have over 1,200 subscribers. I want you to tell me how that's changed your business and your life.

Well, it's made a lot of things possible that haven't been possible before. Actually, one thing that— so in wanting to grow to around this size, I had two. One, just to grow, to grow, but also I really want to put out like a custom edition of a classic book that we self-publish ourselves. So classics are in the public domain, and if we could make our own like unique edition for our box that you couldn't get anywhere else, that would be really helpful for subscribers, right? And so, but you have to be at a certain level to self-publish a book. Like, you can't, or it's just not going to be profitable. And so the minimum I needed to get to was around 2,000 books. And so because we're at this level for 2024, we are in the process of designing our own custom edition of a classic book for our box. So, oh my gosh, when I have more, but it's gonna be— it's— I think it's gonna help us grow to have a book that no one else will have. And it's just, it's something really special that I've always wanted to do. So So that's been kind of a big goal of mine in the back of my head, and we're still working to get yet to that. But over the next couple boxes, that's what we're trying to get to. So it's been—

and that's, that's going to be a game changer for your subscription box because it's that exclusivity factor that we talk about a lot, a lot. Like that exclusivity— that's your custom book, no one else is going to be selling that. The scarcity, the fact that there's only X number available and it is in this subscription box And that also creates the urgency to get signed up to get that. You're also going to be creating a lot of retention for your existing subscribers because they're not going to want to leave. If you're giving custom book covers with your books every single month, they're going to know that the only way they can get that is to be in there, and they're not going to want to be quitting on that. You're going to have your, your retention is just going to keep getting higher and higher, and your return is going to be reduced as you're going through that. I also think it's going to be a great selling point when you're acquiring new customers, when you're going through the acquisition phase of— you should be promoting like exclusive cover, limited edition cover only for the Literary Book Club box. There's so much marketing potential. My brain's on fire thinking about it. I think it's going to help you push past that 2,000 subscriber mark.

Yeah, it's been— oh, it's a process and it's going to be— it's probably going to be 6 months start to finish to actually get the books. And so it is something that we can really market as like, this is a run of books that when they're gone, they're gone. And it's really exciting. It's something I've always wanted to do. And so, and same thing where now, because we have this many subscribers, we can also work with manufacturers to custom make items just for our box because you can do that when you can order 1,000 or more. You know, 1,000 is kind of that benchmark that allows you to start doing custom things without breaking the bank. And so that has been really helpful. To start there. Um, it gets a little scary when I start thinking about ordering like 2,000 books at a time and the dollar signs that involves. You just have to get used to like this.

Yeah, how far in advance you have to like put that money down. Okay, we're working on 2020, you know, fall of 2024 right now. I'm not going to see that money for a while. So I'm at a place in the business where, um, maybe it was 3 months out in the beginning. Like, I was buying stuff 3 months out and I could pay for things 3 months out. And then as we grew and as I got more subscribers, that turned into 4 and 5 and 6 months out. And now we're at a year out. Like, we're, we're taking care of that because we built that cash flow into the business over time. It wasn't like I just went and decided I'm going to buy a year's worth of product today. I couldn't afford that. And so it's a process that you build. You build up your cash flow, you reinvest that cash flow, and you get further out in your business and allows things to be here a lot sooner than you need them. It allows you to feel less stressed about what stuff when is arriving and what you've got to ship out. And it does— it gives you that buying power. We talk about that in chapter 8 or 9 in the book too, about how the buying power really helps your business. So Katie, let's talk a little bit about the experience. Um, so let me pull this beautiful picture back up. Walk me through the experience that you're creating with each one of your boxes?

Yeah, so I actually— I grabbed a December box that we're talking right now so I could kind of show you guys like what we do. So we start with, of course, the book, which is like super pretty and very collectible. And then when they open it— I took the shred out because I was like, it's gonna make a mess. Um, so what we do is when they open it, they have like this really pretty wax seal that they open that tells them about the book and kind of tells them how to do this, like open as you read, the list of items is at the bottom so that you don't spoil it for yourself, that kind of thing. And then everything in there basically is packaged like with detail. And this is like a lot of work. This is why we're quarterly. Like, I don't recommend necessarily this to everyone. If you can make it easier on yourself, do. But this is how we started, and so this is what we do. So this is like their little, you know, everything's in a little bag. Everything is very special. It's like getting a Christmas gift. And so then you have like the page-numbered gifts that they open as they read the book. The other part of this is not just that it's all really fun, but it also helps you finish the book. You know, classics can sometimes be hard to finish. So this gets you through the book because you then— you don't always want to have a book on your shelf that you haven't read. So this helps you finish the book. And so it's kind of got like a dual purpose.

Yeah, you're helping them consume the product. And we know that that's really important for subscription boxes. And if I know my first gift to open is on page 19, I just saw you show that one. I'm like, okay, I can read 19 pages tonight. I'm going to get to the first gift. And then I saw the next one was at page 45. And so, okay, tomorrow I'm going to read from 19 to 45. And so it gives you a little bit of accountability and motivation to keep taking the next step. And keep working through the book. Because if I'm Katie's subscriber and I just let this book sit on my shelf and I don't open any of the gifts because I haven't read it yet, and then the next one comes and the next one comes and the next one comes and I'm like, I'm wasting my money because I'm not even reading any of these books, that causes people to cancel. So you're helping them consume the content of that box in a timely manner so they're ready for that next box. To come.

We also have a gift that says open when the last page has been read, and this came directly from Sarah's training about consuming the box contents, is that we want them to finish it so the box is done and all their gifts are open and then they're ready. It's not piling up. So we added this open when the last page has been read gift, so they have to get to the end of the book to open it, which is very motivating because you're not going to leave that book half read if you have a gift sitting there. So it's been a really fun experience to do it this way, and I've had a lot of people say I never would have read that classic, and now it's one of my favorite books. Or when I get this box in the mail, I want to cry because it's like somebody got me this amazing gift, you know? And like, that's a really special place to be. And so I have been loving putting it together for people, and we have this good community of people too. So yeah, it's fun. We try and create this really cool experience and make it really, you know, we call ourselves a luxury box because we're more expensive. It's $75 plus shipping every quarter. And so, but we do that by— we source quality gifts. We work with small shops like artisan businesses and women-owned to make really nice gifts. It's not your typical book box stuff that you get. So yeah, it's fun.

So is our next goal, Katie, to get to 2,000 subscribers? Is that the next goal?

That is my goal. So the goal for December was to get to— actually to get to 1,400. So we still have about 130 spots left to sell. Um, but I think that'll be fine because in December we'll start sending boxes to our influencers, and once it starts kind of hitting social media where people are opening it, that tends to give us like a little boost, which is fun. And then we're gonna grow a couple hundred more for the March box, and then that— when that custom book— we're kind of planning it for our June box. It's— the goal is to be 1,800 to 1,900. I gotta allow for some damaged books, like, you know, just in case. But so yeah, that's my goal, is to get really close to that 2,000 number this year. And once I get there, I'm going to stop and think, do I want to stay here? Do I want to get bigger? I don't know yet.

Just don't quit. Just don't quit and you'll be great. But yeah, you have to stop and reassess it because what gets us to at one point won't get us to the next point. So what do we have to do differently to get us to the next point? And so it's really good. I would love for you, just because we have a few minutes, if you could touch on your influencer campaigns for a little bit because I know that you do such a good job with that and I'd love for you to share that with our audience.

Yeah, it's always like a work in progress. I feel like every quarter I change it. But so what we started doing was we started with this like really great program where we gave like this high commission and we gave everyone a box and that worked out really good for some of our influencers. They were super consistent. They used their codes. Other people would get boxes and they would pile them. They wouldn't even show them on Instagram. So I had to get a little strict and be like, okay, if you're not going to do what we ask of you, then we cannot continue to like. So now we have tiers and we have like a top tier, and that's mostly for like our YouTube people because YouTube people are the best for my business. They open it online, they do a review on YouTube, and that they seem to get the most conversions to their code. So they're at the top tier. Then we have another tier that we just call seasonal ambassadors because we're quarterly, and what we do is we just pick a new round every season of influencers on Instagram. You don't have to be like, you don't have to have 10,000 followers. We just ask that you have like at least 1,000. We try and pick people whose aesthetic matches what our ideal customer would like. And we just send them one box and we say, hey, we send you one box, you do some posts and reels and that's it. It's a very simple and short transaction, but it allows us to touch more people. You know, if I only have 5 top tier ambassadors, they're always hitting the same audience. But if you kind of get seasonal ones that you would just rotate out every season, it's not a lot of commitment for either one of you, but then you can kind of touch different audiences too. So that's been something fun that we started doing this year. And of course we do some paid YouTube advertising with some unboxer people. I don't know what the official title is for people that unbox boxes on YouTube, but it's a thing. So we have some pretty nice—

my curiosity is, are these influencers in the book space or are they in the subscription box space, or are they in completely different spaces?

Almost all of our Instagram ones are in the book space. Specifically. It literally has the name Bookstagram. Um, but for the YouTube people, typically they're more like, we're unboxing subscription boxes and everybody just watches because everyone loves to watch an unboxing. And so yeah, there's kind of different ones. But yet for Instagram, we try and focus on that Bookstagram community because that's really what we're trying to target. But then for YouTube, it's more of like they just open subscription boxes for the most part.

Okay, so, um, Kayla says, are— for the seasonal ones, are you looking for them or are they reaching out to you first?

Yeah, well, so we have a spot on our website where anyone can go and apply to be an ambassador, but also seasonally I'll post, okay, we're looking for winter reps, you'll get this Mansfield Park Jane Austen box as your box, go to the link on our website and apply. So it's kind of both. Some people will just go and apply, but typically I'll put out a post that says, hey, we're ready to start looking for winter reps.

Um, and are they getting paid a commission or are they just getting a free box?

Yeah, the seasonals just get the free box. The top tier of the YouTube people, they get 15% commission on every, every charge, I guess.

Yeah, okay.

And then money.

Yeah, I'm sure, especially if they're doing it regularly. Um, so here's the big challenge. She took my book, sent it to a friend, Katie style, with open on page whatever. I'm dying to know what you put as the gifts. For this. Katie, what would you put as your page gifts in One Box at a Time? Like a calculator, Post-it notes. Like, what would we be putting in here?

I would put in like open when you're feeling overwhelmed gifts. Like open this when you're feeling stuck. Open this when you need to hire someone to do your tech. Yes.

And then give them a pep talk of why you should hire someone to do your tech instead of spending so many hours trying to figure it out yourself. Or like me, Tuesday was the book launch and it was a great day. It was a great day. But, you know, Sarah is an introvert and I extroverted a lot on Tuesday and I was literally laying in my bed at 5:00 just eating chocolate. That's all I was doing. So I would put— eat some chocolate about half, maybe the logistics chapter. You would want to just eat chocolate on that one. But yes, I would love— that would be hilarious to put together a box like this. And the last one, a bottle of champagne. But you have to scream when you open it, um, like I did, because I've never opened a bottle of champagne before. That was a lot of fun. Katie, you're such an inspiration. I've watched you go from 100 subscribers— I didn't even know you were at 1,200 subscribers now. I have watched you soar. I have watched you step into the CEO role of your business. I have watched you go through challenge after challenge after challenge and you just tackle them. And I think it's that, it's that quote you gave us. Do I want to quit today or do I want to grow today? Like, what am I doing here? What, what's the answer today? And at every turn you say, I want to grow. And I think that's what makes you different and that's what makes your business continue to thrive is because you keep checking your pulse. Do I want to quit today? Do I want to grow today? And if we can just remind ourselves that we've got to keep moving forward to get where we want to be, so we don't quit— because there are a lot of hard days, right, Katie? There are a lot of hard days. There are days that I wake up and I say, I don't even want to go to work today. There are days that I say, why am I doing all this work? There are days that I say, this is too hard, I don't want to do this anymore. There are all those days. And when you ask yourself, do I want to quit or do I want to grow? You know the answer. And so now the next question is, what do I need to do to grow? And you figured it out step by step, one thing at a time. You started with hiring, then you worked on social media, then you worked on ads, then you like— you just— the influencer campaign, it's an evolving thing. You're figuring it out as you go. And I'm just so dang proud of you. I'm so excited that you're featured in my new book. If you haven't gotten a book, go get one. Check out Katie's story in chapter 4, 5. What chapter are we in? Which one, Katie?

5.

Chapter 5. Okay, I've read, I've read too many things today. Chapter 5. Um, Katie, what advice would you give for anyone that maybe is at that stage where they're like, Do I want to quit or do I want to grow? What advice would you give them?

You know, I feel like sometimes people jump around in the group a lot and it's like, well, what about this? What about this? I just think you need to get into the training and just get into that. The group is really awesome when you have gotten through the training. It can be a little overwhelming when you're like all the things all the time because that's what I think. And if you're feeling overwhelmed, like look at your— make sure that you are doing what you're passionate about and that you don't need to pivot to something more niche because the more niche, the better. We're, we're not FabFitFun. We can't please everyone and have all the things and all the customers. We need to niche down into what we're most passionate about and find our ideal customer who is almost like a reflection of yourself, someone you can help, you know, like the pilots' wives or the female dentist. And everyone's got this niche because we see ourselves reflected in that. And so I think that's really important is take a good hard look at your ideal customer and make sure that's who you want to be serving because it is, you're serving them constantly. And you're selling to them. And so it's really a relationship, um, and it's always hard. I just signed a lease on a new warehouse and I was like, wait, do I want to do this for 5 more years?

Do I want to quit? Do I want to grow? You're asking yourself that question again.

Yeah, I did. I had a little meltdown where I was like, I don't know if I can do this for 5 more years. It's a lot of work, but it's really rewarding and it's fun. And you guys will get there, but definitely like go to those libraries and just go through the trainings before you get too crazy into the Facebook group, because it's really fun in there, but it can be overwhelming.

You need to get the basics down first and then, then get some implementation done and then come ask the questions as you're learning and implementing. Don't just come in there and be like, I don't know what to do. Go to the training, get started, and then as you progress through the training and through implementing, you're going to have those questions, and that's where the community comes in and is really, really important on your journey.

Exactly. Awesome.

All right, Katie, so great to have you here. I'm excited. Next stop, 1800. I'm going to be watching. You keep us updated. And I'm really excited for you. And I cannot wait to see your first custom-made cover for your book.

I can't wait. As soon as I have some pictures. So awesome. Thank you.

And I'll be back tomorrow with one more interview. We're going to hear from Brittany Brown tomorrow with the Brain Betty Box. You're going to hear how quickly she grew her audience, um, before she ever even had a product. All right, so we'll be back tomorrow. Thanks, Katie. You guys have a great day.

Bye, you guys.