Meet the LYB Team

Hey everybody, I have a special treat for you, and they are like itching right now because they are definitely behind the scenes people. I'm the one that goes live. They don't typically have to do that. But today I wanted to give you a little insight on who helps run Launch Your Box, who you might have been talking to in the Community already. But I wanted to introduce you to most of my team. We're missing One, she has not shown her face here and we're going to get our— you know, I told them whoever doesn't show up has to go live on their own inside the group and introduce themselves. So you might get another video from Lauren later unless she pops in live with us today. But this is part of our team. We do have some other team members that are not here, but I want to introduce you to them because it takes a village around here. It takes a village. There are thousands of you, if you haven't noticed, and one of me. But I am fortunate because I have this giant team behind me. Lauren's here. She's like, she heard that if she doesn't show up, she has to go live all by herself in the group. And she quickly added us. So Lauren's here. But here's what we're going to do. If you'll just say hi in the chat, we would love to say hi to you. Good morning, everybody. I can see Leslie's here. Leslie says, hello team. Sabrina's here. Hey, Caroline. Tapitha's here. Venetia's here. Good morning, everybody. All right. So we're going to start. Lauren, you might need to mute yourself. Yeah, sorry. Okay. We're going to start. I'm going to start with Keri on this one. I want you to introduce yourself. I want you to tell them where you live, because the cool thing about this is that everybody except Lauren is remote. Loren works with me here at the warehouse in Texas. Everyone's remote. Tell them where you live, how long you work for me, and what is your role on the Launch Your Box team. Keri, will you start us off?

I will. Welcome everyone. I am Keri. I live outside of Atlanta, outside the perimeter for the Atlanta folks. I have been with Sarah— I was thinking of that today— 2 years but 3 launches.

Yes. Yeah. Because, you know, I like to throw people in the deep end as soon as they come on the team and just like, hey, if you can get through a launch with me, you'll make it.

Yes.

And it was awesome. And they always are awesome. So I am one of your community managers. So when you see Sarah's team and us typing feverishly, answering all your questions, that's what I do.

So when you see a response from Carrie inside the community, inside Launch Your Box, or maybe even you've seen that in Subscription Box Week, You now can put a face to that name. But that's Carrie here. Let's just, let's talk through the community people first. So let's go Jen and then we'll go Alison.

Okay.

Yes.

Hi guys.

So I am Jen. Like Sarah said, I live in central Illinois, so I'm halfway between like Chicago and St. Louis. And I had to look back, but it's going to be a year the first week of August that I've been with Sarah's team. And yeah, I'm the third community manager here, so getting to answer all your questions and direct you to resources.

Jen, tell them a little bit more about being a community manager. For like, for you and Carrie, you guys have shifts that you check on the community. Tell me a little bit about your, your guys's role inside the community.

Yeah, so we have different times a day that we're in there engaging with you all, and so we are in there pointing you towards all the resources that we have, um, answering any questions. We're an extension of Sarah and what she teaches. So we're also watching all of the trainings just like you all are to stay on top of all that's coming and all that's going on and, um, yeah, monitor and help make connections within the group.

Yeah, awesome. Okay, let's go over to Allison. Now I have two Allisons on the team. Allison A is our community director. Allison, why don't you introduce yourself?

Hey guys. So as Sarah said, my name is Alison and I am your Community Director inside of Launch Your Box and all the things with Launch Your Box. I actually live in Nairobi, Kenya, but I am in North Texas right now. So that's why I've been able to be present as much as possible. And I have been with Sarah for just over 3 years now.

Now what you're gonna learn when she goes back to Nairobi in another week or so, Alison is our silent, like, overnight. Um, she's like perfect for everyone that lives overseas because she's working the opposite schedule that the rest of us are working. Um, so a lot of times she'll be in the group overnight answering questions late at night, early in the morning, and then Carrie and Jen are jumping in in daylight time hours with us. So you'll, you'll ask a question in the evening and you'll have an answer before you wake up in the morning because Allison will be in there checking all of your questions and making sure, um, that you guys are taken care of. Okay, let's go to, um, our other community style member, and that would be Lauren. Lauren, why don't you introduce yourself?

Hi guys, uh, I'm Lauren. Like Sarah said, I am here in Wichita Falls. Um, I take care of all of the, um, customer service emails for LauncherBox. I also do it for Fraind, so I'm dealing with all of you with billing questions, where to find things in the library. I'm not a whole lot of help on the trainings. I kidded somebody the other day that I know just enough to be dangerous, but I can kind of steer you in the right direction or lead you to where you need to be. So, but any billing questions, they come from me.

So That's me. One thing about Lauren is you have to understand that I have two businesses that have a lot of recurring customers. So she's dealing with 5,000 recurring payments every single month and handling questions. And also on the frame side of business, it's like, oh, can I change my shirt size? Can I change my monogram? Can I change my blah blah blah? And so she's handling all of that as well as handling all of our launcher box emails as well. So that's Lauren. Just know she doesn't get back with you right away. She's swimming through the inbox and she will get to you as soon as she can.

So today I am swimming.

So swimming.

Okay. So be patient with me today.

Give her a little bit of grace as she swims through the inbox. It was pretty hot and heavy yesterday and it is today as well as it's the last day of our launch here for Launch Your Box. So, all right, let's go to Meralie. Meralie, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell them what you do, where you live, how long you've worked for me.

Happy to do so. Hi, everybody. I'm Meralie. I am in North Carolina, just outside of Charlotte, and I am in charge of all the words, all the words. So I'm a copywriter. I'm Sarah's copywriter. So I write all the blogs, the 900 emails that you've gotten over the past month or so.

I wrote all of those.

Pretty much anything that has to do with generating words, they're mine.

Yeah. So Mary Lee, let me, let me just tell you a little bit more. They don't ever like— they're not very good at talking about themselves and they get— they give me a hard time because they say I'm not good at talking about myself very much. But Mary Lee writes all the blogs. She writes all the podcast show notes. She writes all the website copy that's on our website. She does some social media copy. She does all of our emails. And you guys know you've gotten 600 emails in the last days. Um, she also— she was the writer for my book, so she put all my words onto every one of these pages before they went to our editor. And so she doesn't say very much, but she knows all the words. And when we struggle to say things, we're like, Marilee, give us some words! We don't know what we're supposed to say here. We need the words. So she's pretty incredible. She's been a part of my team for a while, and I'm so blessed to have her. So That's Marilee. Allison down at the bottom, the other Allison, number one Allison, stateside Allison. We describe her in a lot of different ways, is probably my longest employee on this call right now, or my longest team member, I should say, on my call, on this call right now. Allison, why don't you introduce yourself?

Hi everybody.

I'm Allison. I'm from Spokane, Washington. That's the eastern side. Um, I have worked with Sarah for about 5 years now, so it has been a really long time. I started on Framed and then we moved over to Launch Your Box, and I work on both sides of the team, um, behind the scenes on the website and getting all of that content Marilee writes out to you, putting on the website, in the emails, and all that kind of stuff.

We, we don't really know what her job title is because she just does a little bit of everything, and we've— she's had, she's had various various job titles through, um, the last 5 years, but she was the first virtual assistant that I ever hired in my business. And I don't know if this is right, Allison, but I think I hired you for like 5 hours a week or something. I could barely could pay for you, and it was to start my Pinterest page. Like, I wanted to be on Pinterest for my retail business, and I hired Allison to do this because I didn't know, I didn't have time, I just wanted to do that. And we started there, and we started writing a blog for my retail business, and that's really how Allison and I started, and then it just grew. She grew with me. She learned all the platforms, and really she's kind of the marketing tech side of the business. She makes all of our beautiful graphics. Her and the other Allison make all of our graphics for our business and keep us in brand, um, style and everything that we do. She makes everything function on the back end, so she's setting up sales funnels, she's setting up email campaigns, she's setting up everything that everybody else does. She makes it work. On the back end of the website. And so she does a lot on the back end, and she likes to stay on the back end. And she tried to give me an excuse about why her computer wasn't working and she couldn't be here today, but she's here. Um, so I appreciate her very, very much. And then last but certainly not least, Natalie, why don't you introduce yourself for me?

Um, I am Natalie. I am from Portland, Oregon, and I am Sarah's Director of Operations. So all of my work is behind the scenes. I am behind the scenes. You will not see any of my work public-facing, um, rightly so if you know my personality. And I have been with Sarah for just over a year. I started last April.

Yeah, tell, tell them a little bit about what you do for me. Yes.

So I, um, basically am project manager, note-taker. I mean, as you are very well aware, Sarah is very creative and so is everyone on this team. So trying to capture all of that creative essence and put it into notes and a plan and project and timeline is basically my main responsibility.

She's basically herding cats every day in our world. We are just, we're just like verbally vomiting all the things that we need to do, want to do, need to do, and somebody needs to do it. And Natalie goes and organizes that for us. She makes sure everybody has what they need to do their job, and she keeps us on task, she keeps us on timeline. She's managing the projects, but she's also managing the team. And so she has a big workload for herself every single day. But Director of Operations, she's handling all the operations, and she's currently handling my Launch Your Box, which is a really big job. So, um, we're gonna— I'm gonna work her out of that role real quick. Um, but she— it's like managing cats. Like, we are, we are a creative bunch. We have a lot of ideas. We have a lot of things we want to do for Launch Your Box all the time. And she kind of gives us a reality check. She's like, listen, we only have 5 days until this needs to be done, and you all have a workload that's more than your daylight hours, so we cannot fit this in the next 5 days. And we're like, oh yeah, you're right, you're right. Okay, let's plan this out a little bit further get organized and make it happen. So that's Natalie's role. There's a couple of people that are not on here that I wanted to give a shout out. My ads strategist and ads manager Amber, she works, she's brand new to the team. We threw, like many of them, just threw them in in the middle of a launch. So we just threw Amber in in the middle of this launch to run ads for us. And so all of, a lot of you are here in subscription box week because of the ads that Amber threw in front of you. Also, there is one one dude on the team, so I gotta give a shout out to Matt. Matt's in Kansas City, and he is kind of the web developer. So things that are above Allison's scope of technical abilities, we go to Matt for, and he has worked for me for quite a long time. And so we do have— we have some powerhouse women on this, on this panel right here. They are behind the scenes supporting me, but they're also behind the scenes supporting all of you. And so I just want you to know that there's this group of people behind you. So let me pull up my questions. I gave— I had to submit questions to them because they weren't going to come live unless they knew what I was going to throw at them. Like, I'm really good on the fly. You could enter me, interview me, and ask me any questions. They're like, no, we're not showing up until you know— until we know what you're talking about. So here's my second round of questions for everybody. We'll just start back with Keri. Keri, what do you enjoy most about working on Launch Your Box?

What I enjoy most is seeing the energy that everybody in Launch Your Box brings, whether you are a brand new person or a seasoned person. And so it's watching that light bulb moment. And just when things click and you get excited and it's the wins and it's the little win, it's the big win because you know what, it's all a win regardless of the size.

It's a win.

So it's, it's watching that and watching something just click and everybody gets excited. It's, yeah.

Okay.

Awesome. Jen, what do you enjoy most about working on Launch Your Box?

So I really love that we get to help nurture an idea and kind of watch it come to fruition and that it's an idea that could change a subscription Launch Your Box owners' lives, but also like lives that people are getting, who are getting the boxes. And so I really love that. I love watching the process and what they can do with them.

Okay. Marilee, tell me what you love about working on Launch Your Box and all the words. All the words.

So many things. I love looking at all of your ideas in your subscription boxes. Sarah teases me and calls me a stalker because I end up following a bunch of you on social social media.

He does.

If you're doing some mom thing, if it's something about flowers or— I'm following you almost immediately. Um, but my favorite thing is watching members learn how to believe in themselves. Um, you know, so many of you come in and you're not sure, you know, you feel like, I'm not sure if I can do this or not, and kind of watching you along that progression to where you kind of start to own your idea and own the possibility of it. And then, like Carrie said, watching those wins along the way. So wildly rewarding in a lot of ways.

Yeah, and she does stalk you, by the way, and she'll send me screenshots of what y'all are doing. So if I don't see y'all, Mary Lee's keeping y'all accountable. She's like, look what so-and-so's doing. And so she keeps an eye on y'all too. So, uh, Lauren, talk to me about what you like most about working on Lunch or Vox.

Um, I kind of silently stalk the Facebook page like Mary Lee. Um, I love to watch the community that has grown. Um, Sarah's done a really great job of giving, um, her members the opportunity to help the other members, um, where she's not the only, um, voice that they hear. Um, and I really enjoy watching some of her, um, seasoned members really step up and take that role. Um, especially during Subscription Box Week, it was really cool to see so many of the LauncherBox members going in and answering questions, um, partially because they're in it day to day, um, and Sarah— as much as Sarah is, it's just very different when it's your— when you're doing it, you may have different ideas or different methods than what we're doing. And so I like to watch kind of what's going on, um, with the community and how they all help each other.

Okay. Awesome. Allison? Yep, you.

Me?

This Allison? Yep.

Um, I'm just gonna echo what everybody else said. I absolutely love, like, the community we've created and the community all of you have created with working with each other to make all that progress and stuff. Like Carrie was saying, it's the little wins and the big wins. And everybody's doing it together and cheering each other on, and I absolutely love that. Um, I also want to toss in there that I love seeing Sarah's growth at the same time. When we started working together and everything, it was kind of like, hey, I have an idea, I want to start teaching people how to do what I did, and we built Launch Your Box. And so I just love seeing everybody's progress. I just I think it's so awesome.

Yes, yes. Natalie, what do you love about keeping our— your cats herded for the day?

Well, I had a very cat-herded answer, but I've changed it. Um, and I think what I love the most with working with Sarah and this creative team is just Sarah is so focused, and the whole team, on serving her members. And so just the endless amount she and everyone is able to give and create is— it's not my brain. I am not a creative person. I cannot come up with content like that. So it's incredible to watch these women just create content and constantly learn and implement and provide for everyone. And that is so cool to me.

Awesome. Thank you, Natalie. Alison, talk to, talk to me about what you enjoy most about working on Launch Your Box.

I know this is going to surprise all of you, but obviously my favorite part is the community. That's your community director. That's what I thrive on. But I specifically love getting to really connect with members. Like, I think back to Sub Summit, which was just a few weeks ago, but it seems like a lifetime ago. And I think about all of the people that I got to connect with in person. And I have those relationships with people. Like, I saw Alison is here in the chat. The other Allison, the Launch Your Box member Allison, is here in the chat. And we spent so much time getting to know each other. And I saw that Monica, she hadn't joined. She was in Subscription Box Week, hadn't joined Launch Your Box, came up and we started talking, and now she's our new Launch Your Box member. And I've just loved getting to actually connect and make these relationships. And I think going off of what Carrie and Allison said about the wins, I love watching people go from idea all the way to a successful launch. Like I mean, we all loved Rebecca McCready's story this week and Lexi's, and I love getting to watch the progress and celebrate them. I'm the one that also manages Sarah's social media, and so I'm constantly in there like Merrily looking for wins. And so I'm like your biggest cheerleader. It's my favorite part, and I love getting to do that.

Yeah, I think that my favorite part— I have 3 favorite parts.

Okay.

What my number 1 favorite part is that I get to work with all of you. There was a time when I did all of this myself. I started Launch Your Box myself with Allison's help that she put a page up for me. I started this thing by myself. I was the community manager myself. I was the content creator myself. And I think what makes this really great for me is that I get this incredible team of people that I get to work with every day and we get to figure things out together. And when I have a crazy idea, they never make me feel crazy for it. Their, their response every time is, okay, let's figure out how to make that happen. And then that's the kind of team, that's the kind of support that I feel with these women. So that's my first, that's my number one. Obviously, it echoes everyone here, but the community, is, is number 2 for me, like being able to be a part of this community. And I learned so much from all of you as well as, you know, you guys learning from me. But being a part of this community and being able to facilitate a community that is safe for people to share, that is kind, that is not competitive, that is really a safe place for you to learn and grow your business is something that I have dreamt about for a long time. And to be able to see it now where it is and where it started. That's like everything to me. And I just want to continue doing my best to provide that for you. And I think the third thing for me is something that we haven't really talked about yet, but the resources, y'all, I am— that's my favorite thing. The thing that I've learned over the last several years being a coach, I just thought I could like give you some words of wisdom and then y'all would just take that and run with it. And I realized, and we talked a little bit about that this morning on Monday Momentum. But I realized that you need more than that. You need the start plan, you need the game plan, you need the blueprint, you need— you just need me to tell you what to do sometimes. And a lot of times, once you figure— get your footsteps in, your first steps in, you can figure out what you want to do from there. But sometimes you just need a plan to execute. And I'm so proud of the resources that we've been building inside Launch Your Box. And every month we keep building more resources and more resources. And so we're continually constantly adding to this membership. It's not like what, what you see is what you get for the next year. You're going to keep getting more and more and more. And we go back and we rerecord old lessons and give you more value and more worksheets and more swipe files and more resources every single time that we update the information inside Launch Your Box. And I'm so proud of that. I'm so proud that you can literally just come in and get started because you know exactly what you need to do. And so those— that's what I'm most proud of with working on Launch Your Box. Now, I'm not going to keep them too long, but I know Serena says, does this program cover marketing the box? Girl, if you haven't met me, marketing is my jam. That's what I love to do. I am like marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing. Launch Your Box is so full of marketing. You're going to, you're going to have resources on how to market your box to people. So yes, absolutely. But let's talk about Is anybody— and just raise your hands, guys. I don't have to go around to everybody, but who wants to share a piece of advice for people sitting out here? We've had— y'all, we've had hundreds and hundreds of people join us in Launch Your Box, and I'm so excited about all the energy coming into Launch Your Box. But there are still people sitting there wondering if they can do this, sitting there wondering if this is the right fit for them. Anybody have some advice on what you would tell them. Mary Lee, I'm gonna go with you. You always have the best words.

I have 3 pieces of advice, okay? 3 thoughts. First, just don't be afraid to take a chance on yourself. This kind of goes back to what I was saying about watching you learn how to believe in yourselves. I have a birthday coming up at the end this week, and I'm just gonna go ahead and give things away right now. I took a chance on myself when I was 50, and I decided to leave the classroom and start a business doing what I always wanted to do, which was just write the words all day long. And that's scary when you're 50, because you feel like I shouldn't be trying something new, starting something new now, but you can and you should. I also would want to say, if you want your life to look different, you need to do something about that. You need to take action to make that happen. I could have just gone back. This was after the pandemic. I could have just gone back to the classroom, which was someplace I realized I didn't want to be anymore. And just been a stressed out teacher who wasn't giving my best to my students or my family. And instead I decided to take that action and turn my life in a different direction. I was super happy I did that. All of you, you just need to take that action. And then the third thing is community makes a huge difference. And when you're trying to do this, you know, when you're starting a subscription box, you're on your own, you're probably at your own house working odd hours. Maybe nobody really understands what you're talking about or how you think this could work. Having a community of people to support you, cheer you on, gently or not so gently kick you in the butt when you need it, makes an enormous difference.

I'm—

I work from home from North Carolina. You heard I'm the only one in this group from North Carolina. Allison and I are on the horn with each other all day long. She's in Washington, I'm in North Carolina. In the morning, I'm talking to other Allison because she's in Kenya and I'm the only one who's awake when she's heading for bed. But it helps to have people to bounce ideas off of and problem solve and cheer you on and cheer you up. Those are my 3.

Carrie, you want to share? What advice would you give for someone that's just unsure if they should join Launch Your Box?

I think one of mine would be, what is holding you back? What is it? Is it one day, like, or is it your day one? What are you going to pick? It is— it can be unnerving. It can be scary. Like Marilee said, we are small business owners. But you have this community. You also have this plan. You have Sarah's plan that she does. I mean, this isn't a, oh, I'm a coach, here pay the fee and I'll just give it to you. She's living it. She's doing it. Like, so I know this is where I'm like, okay, it's been a good week, it's been a long week or something, and it's like, oh, we're all, we're all emotionally exhausted.

We're all one. Thing away from a teary-eyed conversation because we're so tired.

But it's also, what's your time worth? Yes, there's a membership fee, but are you going to sit and Google? Are you going to look it all up?

Are you going to spend all your time?

I guess that's my— is it your one day or your day one? And then my other little tidbit is, I'm usually the one chirping on lives like, Sarah, it's a business expense, it's a deductible. I'm the one that's usually that of, oh, just keep that receipt for your taxes.

So remember that Launch Your Box is a business expense, so you can write it off on your taxes. And every business owner needs write-offs, so it's a great thing for you to write off on your taxes. I love this comment in the group from Barbara. She says, I've been a member for only a week and all the information I've been exposed to is amazing. Do yourself a huge favor and do it. Thank you, Barbara.

I'm—

welcome to Launch Your Box. I'm excited to get in there. Now there's a couple things, a couple housekeeping things I need to talk about. Number one, I'm giving the team off. I just told them before this call, but I'm gonna give them a 4-day weekend this weekend. Everybody can celebrate. Yay! Um, they've been working their tails off. Um, not only did I have Sub Summit, uh, the week before Subscription Box Week where we were working tirelessly to get all of our content, and people were there morning, noon, and night working with me on that, then we went straight into Subscription Box Week and y'all know how crazy it's been in there. So everyone's been working so hard. So I am going to give them Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. That is to everyone that has joined Launch Your Box. They're going to take a few days off. I need y'all to be cool. I need y'all to soak up some information, watch some videos, use the search function inside the group. Don't send Lauren 27 emails over the weekend because she's not going to see them till Monday and then she's really going to be swimming hard on Monday. Okay. So So I need to give them a few days off. I am also going to take a few days off. I'm going to take the weekend for myself as well. So that's what's happening. I'm just prepping you. I'm going to go into Launch Your Box and tell them too. But number 2, we close Launch Your Box tonight. And this was a decision that I made a couple of months ago. We've had the membership open since 2021. As times were changing and people got busier and I just wanted things to be more accessible. It also is hard to continue to sell all the time. And so what I wanted to do is I really want to focus on Subscription Box Week. I wanted to get through my launch and I wanted to shut it down so that I could really focus on serving all of our members instead of selling all the time. And it's a fine line. And you're going to find that as you're launching your subscription box, there's a time where we just want to serve and curate and make the things and create that experience, and there's a time we need to sell. And I'm shifting that starting tomorrow morning. So I want you to get in tonight. We're going to close the doors for the first time since 2021 tonight at midnight. Um, we are also increasing the price of Launch Your Box. So once you get in today, this will be your price. You will not be affected by the price increase. And then I'm going to focus my efforts starts on just serving and getting everybody going because we have some real progress that we need to make. And everybody's journey is going to be a different journey. Some of you are going to start really, really fast, hot and heavy and get going. Some of you are going to be a little bit slower, more like Rebecca, who had to process things and work through things. And it depends on your life too. You might have kids at home. You might be caring for elderly parents. You might be working a full-time job. We all have a different amount of time that we can dedicate to this. And my goal is just to meet you where you're at and help you take that next step, whatever that step is for you. And so we are going to get closed up tomorrow morning or tonight at midnight and, and keep going because I want you to make progress. I want you to get to the end of 2024 and look back and know that this was the best decision you could have made for yourself in this moment. And so this is my invitation This is my invitation for you to come join us right now in this moment. Say yes to you. Say yes to your growth. Say yes to doing something outside of your comfort zone and come join all these amazing people that said yes already. So, all right. That's all I got for you. The team, thank you team. I know this was uncomfortable. Appreciate you. I won't make you do it again for another year. Um, but they are your support system inside Launch Your Box. I'll be back tonight. I got one more live left in me. It probably includes drinking a glass of wine, maybe celebrating on a, on a job well done, maybe even already in my pajamas at that time. I haven't decided yet, but I'll do one more live with you. I'm going to give you some insights to my launch because not only am I launching to all of you but you're all business owners. So I'm going to pull back the curtain on my launch a little bit tonight. I'm going to give you some insider information and that will be inside Subscription Box Week and, and you'll get to come hang out with me tonight and we'll talk a little about, a little bit about it. We're going to celebrate and we're going to close up Launch Your Box in the right way. All right. So I'll see you guys tonight. Grown-up sleepover, Sabrina says. Yes, grab your PJs, grab your favorite beverage, whether that's hot tea or a glass of wine, it doesn't matter. And let's celebrate what we worked on this week and what's to come. All right, I'll see you guys later. Bye, guys.