Predictable Profits and Getting Back to the Basics!

Good morning, happy Monday. It's good to see all of you here this morning. Hang on just a second, make sure my microphone is working. Hang on, I didn't check these things before. I just got started. I just got started. Let me check my switch, all the technical things. Today we're going to talk about, uh, something I was doing last night. So last night I was invited to be on the membership summit that Stu McLaren was hosting. It was a wonderful summit. It was like 3 hours long. And I think I watched 2.5 hours of it before it was time for bath time and bedtime last night. But I watched it and I was listening and I had so many takeaways last night that I wanted to share those with you today. Whether you have a membership, whether you have a subscription, like you just need to apply things. Like it doesn't matter that, you know, Stu is talking about a membership. We can apply those to subscriptions. And he has this new book out and y'all, I love this book. I've been reading it. It's so easy to read. So his book comes out tomorrow. I got one of the first copies because, you know, me and Stu, we go way back. But he gave me a copy when I was with him last week and I've been binge reading it. But I wanted to share a couple of the takeaways with you because again, like I said, it doesn't matter what we're, what we're building, whether that, you know, I, I can apply these to so many of the things that I do. I think about my subscription box, right? I have a physical product membership basically is what that is. I apply it to Launch Your Box, which is my coaching membership. I can apply this to the dry— the blow dry bar where I'm building a service-based membership of blowouts. And so there's so many things that we can apply this to. And I want to just share some of my takeaways with you and encourage you to go grab Stu's book off of Amazon today because you're going to find lots of takeaways. Now, I'm going to take you back to when I had launched my subscription box, I want to say that I had about 300, 350 subscribers. And at that time there was not people in our space that were teaching about subscription boxes. Like I didn't have a subscription box coach. I didn't have someone that I could learn from. I'm like figuring this thing out on my own all the time. And so when I came across Stu, And he's talking about recurring revenue, he's talking about memberships. I'm like, I have recurring revenue, I have basically a membership, it's just the form in the form of, um, products. And so I took his course, this was back in 2018. I thought, I just need to figure out what it is that I don't know because I'm growing. I had hit a plateau, but I just, I don't know what I don't know. And so that's how I came into Stu's world and he was solely teaching memberships. And I sat there and I went through the course and I applied everything that he was teaching to my physical subscription. And a lot of that is in his book. And so I wanted to share a couple of things that helped me when I was kind of building out my subscription box and some things that I think will help you with, with what you're— whatever stage you're at, because this book is great for all stages. You can see how many things I have earmarked because it's great for every stage. If you're a beginner, perfect. If you're somewhere you've launched, maybe you have 100 subscribers, perfect. If you're somewhere like me where I'm making 7 figures a year with my subscription box, perfect. I already got some takeaways for myself that I just need to apply because at the end of the day, it's all about going back to the basics. I get so tired of digital marketing making you jump through hoops or making you think that you have to jump through hoops all the time. And honestly, if you just focus on the core things that starts your business and grows your business, it always comes back to those core things. And sometimes we grow, we try different things, we experiment, and we should. But at the end of the day, if you just go back to those core things, that's what you need to take the next step. Okay. So we're going to dig into it. Make sure you have a notebook handy because I'm going to give you some nuggets today. Okay. Let me come over to the chat and say hi to everybody this morning. Good morning, Lexi. Good to see you. Good morning, Jonica. Hey, Rebecca. Good morning, Shawna. I loved opening your, your bag. It was the first one that opened on Friday and it was so great. I loved opening that. Good morning, Andrea. Good morning, Jenna. Hey, Christy. I hope you're feeling better. I've been thinking about you. I'm excited to share them with you, Rebecca. Good morning, Shereen. Good morning. Yes, I was just— I was just in Cape Coral last week. I almost didn't get home. There was a little, little plane crash happening the night before I was supposed to fly out. So it was a, it was a challenging day at the airport on Thursday after Wednesday night's plane crash. I'm just going to say that I'm home and I'm very, very grateful. Good morning, Doris. What's this snow you speak of? It's going to be 85 here today. I don't know what snow is. Good morning, Vontina. Hey, Mayra. Good morning, Sierra. Good morning, Tabitha. Good morning, Sherry. Hey, I'm glad you made it this morning, Amy. Good morning, everybody. Okay, okay, okay. Let's get into this. Now, this is Chapter 3. This is Stu's new book. If you missed it, it comes out tomorrow. I got an advance copy. You got to know people. 6 reasons someone joins a membership. 6 reasons. Okay. I want you to think of your subscription box as a membership. It is a product-based membership. Okay. Number 1, they need it. The most common reason that people join memberships is that they have a need for it. What in your subscription box do they need? I want you to think about it. Number 2 is mastery. They're learning something. They're trying to master a skill. How many of you have a subscription box that would include mastery? You're teaching them something. You're trying to provide skill. There's so many creative, artistic— I opened one on Friday, the cookie decorating. That is a mastery membership in the form of a product-based business. You see what's happening here? Everything can fit in one of these categories. Do you have a need? Do you have mastery? Do you have community? Are you a subscription box based on community, like-minded people? Okay, so this could be maybe a business box. This could be a box for work-at-home moms. This could be— that's a community. All right. Number 4, entertainment. Is what you're delivering pure entertainment? Is number 5 a want? I feel like mine's very much a want. I feel like mine is a cross between a 5 and a 6. So number 5 is want and number 6 is convenience. We want to feel good when we walk out the door with what we put on. But it's also very convenient that I'm going to curate that look for you and deliver it in a monthly subscription box. Okay. So when you think about your own subscription, there's 6 reasons why somebody joins it. They need it. Okay. That could be when we think about memberships. I need my StreamYard yearly membership here. I need that to be able to stream, right? When we think about mastery, do you have a subscription box where you're teaching someone how to master a skill? A lot of these are our artist boxes. Is it a community? Is it entertainment? Is it purely a want? Or is it convenience? Or is it a combination of any of those? Tell me in the chat what your subscription box is in those 6, those 6 reasons why someone would subscribe. Tell me in the chat if it's a combination or if it's just one of those things. Okay, now the other thing that's really important in this book is there's a lot of messaging going on. Okay, there's a lot of learning how to speak to your person, and I think that that's probably the biggest thing that I learned when I, when I was stepping into Stu's world with my subscription box was he really dialed in with who your ideal customer is. And I mentioned this Friday inside Launch Your Box when we were doing box openings, but that was one thing that when I met Rachel Hollis last week and she's speaking and she's talking about all the things, she's talking about her ideal customer as she, like it was her best friend. Like, yeah, she wants this. Yeah, she wants a monogrammed item. She wants something she can wear. She wants something that makes her feel good. She didn't say my customer. Customer. She didn't say my IC. She didn't say, you know, my, you know, my avatar. She said she, like it was her best friend. And I think she was so close to her ideal customer that it felt like a friend to her. And I need us to be that close to the person that we're serving. So when Rachel's talking, she's just like, Yeah, she wants motivation. She wants inspiration. She wants to feel like she's on the right track and that no matter what mistakes she makes, that, you know, she's in the right space, she's, she's in the right company, that she can overcome that. She kept calling her she. And it was so powerful to me to listen to her speak because it was all day long when she would reference her community, she called them she. And that's what I want you guys to think about. When I think about my ideal customer, she wants convenience, right? She wants me to pick out something that matches so she doesn't have to. She wants something that she might not buy herself when she goes to the store, but something that she's gonna use. She wants something functional. I want you to start talking about your ideal customer in that way. What does she want? Because a lot of you here have a she. right? A lot of you are providing subscription boxes for a she. What does she want? Tell me in the chat. What does she want? What does he want? What does your ideal customer want? But I want you to talk about them as if they're their best friend. What does she want? Okay, now this, this was an interesting little eye-opener that when I was reading the book this weekend, that it kind of hit me. So I, I want you to write this down. It's a different way to look at this, okay? It's on page 34. It's, it's part 2, Attract Your People, when you get this book. Um, but it says audience building mainly consists of 2 things: your email list and your social media platforms. They work together like this. The main goal of growing your audience on social platforms is to direct people to your email list. You own your email list. It's your business asset. I never thought of social media like this, so it had me— I starred this. I underlined, you know, I love books that, that I can treat like workbooks. But if you think about your social media as just the top of the funnel to get someone on the list, doesn't that make things easier to think about? Doesn't that make your content easier to plan? When you think about social is a way for me to attract people to get on my email list, doesn't that make it more simple? It's also a way for us to get sales, but I know I have a better chance of getting sales through an email than I do a post. Am I right? So what if you looked at your social media as a way to build your email list? What if that was its main purpose? And you, it makes you think about social media differently because we don't own the platforms, right? We saw TikTok get taken down, it was right back up overnight, but we don't own that. And so he talks in this book about one of his friends that got their account hacked and never got it back. But what if you thought about your email, your audience building in two ways, social media and your email list, and you used one to build the other? Would that change what you do on social media? It would for me. It makes me more intentional about what I'm putting on social media. And the why behind it. Why am I posting that? Why am I giving that information? Why am I serving in that way? What else can I do to serve and then get them on my email list? I think it's something for us to think about. Okay, let's cruise right along. I got some more little dog tag ears in my book here. So then I tagged it because Sarah Williams is in Chapter 17 and you can go check out my full case study on his website. Okay, and then let's see this one. This one I wrote down last night too because he says it all the time and I know that because I'm around him all the time. Sometimes when he says it, it's in the right place where you need to hear it. Okay, people aren't buying the stuff. They aren't buying the stuff. And you say, well, Sarah, how is that true? Because we sell stuff. Yes, we do sell stuff. But what are they buying? Right? What are they really buying? They're buying the experience of receiving the box. They're buying the feeling that that box gives them. I want you to think about that when you start to use your marketing. So he was talking about, it was in a session where he had like 3 or 4 panelists on it, and, um, and they were talking about how we over We overexplain or we were just promoting the stuff. You get this, you get this, you get this, you get this. And that's what we sell, right? Like, you get a sweatshirt, you get a tumbler, you get stickers, you get whatever, right? That would be my box, right? But what if it was you got confidence? You got to walk in your closet and never wonder what you were going to wear again. You got style. You got upcoming trends without having to figure it out. What if that's what I was selling instead of the sweatshirt? And that's what I want you to think about. People might like the stuff, and that might be what stops their scroll, but they're staying because of the way it makes them feel. What is the outcome of them receiving your box? I want you to write that down. What is the outcome of your subscriber receiving your box? It's not about they just got more stuff for their closet, because that could also be a hindrance for me too. Like, people don't need more stuff, right? It's about the experience. It's about the feeling that we're creating. So when you're talking about your subscription box, it's okay to list the things because people want to know what they're buying, but we need to understand that they're buying more than the stuff. We're, we're giving them an outcome and we need to understand what that outcome is for our own subscription box so that it applies to our messaging. Okay, that was on page 152. It's in chapter 25 called Crafting an Offer They Can't Refuse. Do you see how Do you see how there's a lot of things that he applies to membership and teaching? Because that's really what he does. But we just have to think about it in our own capacity with subscription boxes. Jenna says, how do we communicate that? So if I'm communicating a feeling, it could be like me wearing the t-shirt for February. I'm going to do a style guide today. And I could talk about, you get your new t-shirt and you don't know what to wear with it? Let me help you. Put this on for comfort and casual. Like I'm teaching you how to feel good in what I'm selling you, right? So that's what I'm communicating to you. Also on my sales page, it doesn't say buy the monogram box. It says never wonder what to wear again. I'm instantly pulling you in with a feeling instead of, oh, check out this cute stuff, right? So how can we communicate the feeling more? If you have an art box, right? This could be— anyone can do this. You don't— you don't have to be able to draw a stick figure to do this. I'm giving you confidence to do this. I'm going to show you step by step how to do this. Didn't think you were ever an artist? 30 days with me and you'll be an artist by the end of the month. That's what we have to give them. Pet subscription. Wonder what to do with your dog all day? Here's toys, here's treats. Let me provide that for you. And I think that if we can communicate the benefits outside of the stuff, that's going to help us not only sell our subscriptions but retain our subscribers. Okay. All right. Cruising right along in Stu's book, Predictable Profits. We're in 28. These were takeaways that I got from the summit last night and also through reading his book. I'm just— I want you to apply things. Sometimes we think things have to be so literal, like you have to be talking exactly to me about subscription boxes. I'm just going to translate it for you. Okay. I want you to apply it. Sales Page Fundamentals. I love this chapter because he outlines exactly what you need on your sales page. And this could be for anything. It could be for the service that I provide at the salon, the blowout membership. This could be my subscription box, the sales page. This could be Launcher Box coaching membership. Okay, this could be for anything. But he's outlining what needs to be on that sales page for you. He says there's 7 critical questions that you need to ask yourself. Okay. What are you offering? You need to clearly state your offer. Confusion. I answered a, I answered a question over in Susan Bradley's group today. She's like, I'm not selling my stuff. You know, she had a box. It was a one-time box for Valentine's Day. She had a picture of it. She said they're just not selling. And you could see people in the comments going, well, what is that? I don't know what that is. I don't know what's in it. Is that a tumbler? Is that a headband? What are you selling? That was the answer to her. And I answered to that. I said, people don't know what's in that box. They can't clearly see your offer. And people don't read. So that's what I tell her. People don't read. Y'all know this. If you're a business owner, you know people don't read. My customer service team could tell you people read nothing. Okay, so we have to make our image show exactly what our offer is. So what are you offering and is it clear? Why does it matter? Why does your subscription box matter? I need you to answer that question. Who are you? People want to know who they're buying from. That's our best superpower. That is the highest conversion point for us, is us. It's free to be you, so let's use that. What's possible when you buy my thing? What's possible when you buy my subscription box? It's possible that you're going to have look and functional products for every occasion year-round. What's possible? What's included? This is where we get technical. What, what's in there? What's the price? And don't be shy. Don't be shy about your price. It is what it is, period. And then what's the next step? The next step is to join. The next step is to buy. The next step is to subscribe. If you ask yourself these 7 questions while you're building your sales page, you're going to have all the information that they need. All right. I thought that was a killer chapter. Okay. That was chapter 28. Now I told Stu last night when I was live with him, we were talking about converting people into membership. We were specifically talking about my subscription box coaching week and the fact that I had a 43% conversion from people that took coaching week to join my membership. And he wants to know why, like how do you get a 43% conversion rate? Because we know and he knows that you typically have a 1 to 3% conversion rate for products, for services, for everything. So how in the heck does Sarah Williams get a 43% conversion rate from Launch Your Box or from coaching weekend to Launch Your Box? How does that happen? And I said, because I'm showing up. I block everything off on my calendar for that week and I show up and I serve at the highest level that I can serve. I meet people where they're at. If they're brand new, if they're thinking about a business, if they're a seasoned subscription box owner and they've hit a plateau, I'm serving at the highest level the whole time. I'm overdelivering. I'm inviting my community to help them see what's inside my membership because people are still craving that connection. And this is why I keep harping on you guys about going live. If I never went live, would you feel connected to me? Someone's voice is a deep connection. When you listen to my voice, you feel connected to me, whether that's on a live, whether that's on a reel, whether that's on a podcast. So how can you create the connection in your own subscription box? You are the superpower of your business, and that's why we've got to build connections. These big brands, do you know— I'm going to get ranty pants right now. Because I'm feeling— I'm getting— I'm getting hyped up. How many businesses have gone out of business in the last 2 or 3 years? How many of your malls are empty? Because these brands are brands, period. We don't know JCPenney. We don't know Party City's going out of business. Big Lots going out of business. Our At Home just went out of business. These are corporations. They're not people. We want to buy from someone we have a connection with. We want to buy something, especially something that's a want, right? Especially something we don't need. We've got to connect with our audience. And it, it takes so much of the cost. These big companies, these big box companies have built their business on average advertising. And you know what? In 2025, it's the most expensive it's ever been, and they've not done anything organically to drive business, and they don't know how to pivot. And so they're going bankrupt because they've built their business on paid advertising. Commercials, newspapers, magazines, flyers in your mailbox. They don't know how to build organically, and they're pumping millions out in ads to stay afloat. And they couldn't stay afloat because it's more expensive than ever. You know what's free? Me sitting right here in my office in Wichita Falls, Texas, and flipping on the camera and talking to you. That's free. And I'm building a connection because we're having conversations. And I do it on Framed, and I do it here, and I've done it at the salon. No matter what stage your business is, people want to feel connected to you and then ultimately to the outcome. That you're selling. Okay, I'm going to talk about Chapter 32. I'm gonna let y'all go this morning. If I haven't convinced you to go buy Stu's book, go buy it. It's like literally $20-some dollars, $26, and it's like the blueprint of everything he's ever taught me is in this book. And he's taught tens of thousands of people over the years, and he's crammed it all into his new book. And I love it. And it's It's so easy to read because the chapters are a few pages. That's why I'm on chapter 32 right here and I'm not even done because there's so many chapters, right? Because it's just easy to consume. Okay. Number chapter 32, 12 Proven Promotional Tactics and Strategies for Membership Growth. I was like, oh, I could use some growth in my subscription box, in my membership, at my salon, right? I could use some growth. Raise your hand if you could use some growth in the chat. Just put I'll take some growth. Put that in the chat. Okay. So he has 12 ways for growth. One is a founding member launch. So he talks about this heavily in his membership, like getting your launch out there, doing it messy, all the things, right? Just getting it out there. Founding member launch. It's okay if you get 10 people, that's 10 people and that's a start. Beth says, I'll take some growth. Yes. Amanda says, I'll take some. There is an audiobook. Yes. And then Leslie said there is a Kindle too. I like the physical book because I use it like a workbook. Okay. I love a physical book and I think that's my age too. I just want the physical thing. Flash sales. We do this a lot with our subscription too. I do this with Launch Your Box. It's very successful. We've been doing it with the subscription box as well, but Doing a flash sale is great. It might be something, team, let's write this down. I'm gonna write this down. Let me do some training on doing a flash sale for your subscription box. We'll put that on the calendar and I'll do some training for you in Launch Your Box. I'll write you some emails, some swipe files. I'll make you a plan to do a flash sale inside our membership. That's something very easy I could do for you. He talks about doing evergreen, doing an evergreen, which I do for Launch Your Box as well. He talks about doing a challenge. He talks about my coaching week in this chapter as well. He talks about doing a video series, doing lives. He talks about doing webinars. I'll be doing a webinar in March for Launch Your Box. He talks about social media. He talks about paid ads. So these are all ways to continue to grow, right? Okay. So there's retention next. It's just, it's such a good book. Listen, I don't come up here and sell you on things that are not mine very often, but y'all know that Stu is near and dear to my heart. He is, has been my business mentor since 2018. I have been in his mastermind since December of 2018. That's a long time. And I just think that he's super smart. And I know this is about memberships, but I think you can really apply a lot of this stuff to your subscription business. And I'm just going to encourage you to grab it and use it as a workbook because there's a lot. Sometimes we just need to go back to the basics. And the things that I talked about that I highlighted in here are just basic core things. We get into this thinking that we have to do all these things and we don't. We just have to do something right, something well, something consistent. I posted over in our Launch Your Box newbie group. I want you to hold yourself accountable for February. So if you're in the newbie group, I want you to go over there and tell me what you're going to do in February. Maybe that's being consistent. In social media. Maybe that's starting to build your email list. Maybe that's working out a live schedule. Maybe that's finally putting a launch date on a calendar. We have to keep making progress. We don't have to keep jumping through hoops, but we have to keep taking steps towards the goal. And it's when we stop taking those baby steps that all of our progress stops, and it takes that much longer to restart ourselves. Whether you already have launched and you're wanting to grow. Let's go. What do we need to do? What have I told you today that we need to start doing? Make that your February goal. I'm going to start doing this. Let's just start putting them in the chat. I am going to start doing what? I'm going to— I'm going to get a launch date on my calendar. I'm going to start using social media to grow my email list. I'm going to start connecting with my audience more. I'm going to start serving more than I sell to them. What is it that you're gonna do? Because we have to start making progress towards that. There's a lot of things happening in the world right now, and I talked with Allison this morning, and we're going to host a talk about tariff talks on Wednesday night inside Launch Your Box. But we have to, we have to keep moving forward. We can't let all the things happening on the outside stop our momentum. Okay, so I hope that was helpful today. Again, shout out to Stu and all of his great wisdom. Let's start applying it. Let's stop just learning, learning, learning and not implementing anything. Let's start applying it. Okay. All right. I hope you guys have a great week. I got a lot to catch up to do from being gone last week, so I'm going to put my head down and get busy, and I will see you guys um, later this week inside Launch Your Box. Have a great week. Thanks for joining me.