Stop Winging It – Start Curating Your Subscription Box with a Plan

Are you always scrambling to figure out what's going in next month's box? If you're feeling stuck in a cycle of last-minute decisions, rushed sourcing, then this episode is for you. Let's talk about how planning ahead can take the pressure off and how I plan 6 months of boxes in just 1 hour. Come listen.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

If planning your subscription box feels more like last minute scrambling than thoughtful curation, then this episode is for you. In this Friday Fuel episode, I'm breaking down the planning habits that will help you finally get ahead and stop being crazy. Stop curating a subscription box last minute. It's all about being prepared. Now, one of the biggest stress points that I hear from subscription box owners all the time is I'm still figuring out what's going in next month's box. And y'all, if you are planning next month's box while you're packing this month's box, you're already behind. You've got to take time with your curation. You don't need to rush it. You need time to source products. You need time to build themes. You need time to manage the inventory, and you need time to tell the story in your marketing. And that's how customers fall in love with what you do. When you rush it, the box feels thrown together, and that shows up in your retention rate and your churn rate. My Six in Sixty workshop started as something that I had created for myself. I was overwhelmed. I was always chasing deadlines. I felt like I was always behind and tired of making last-minute product decisions that really weren't the best decisions because they were sometimes panic decisions. So I sat down and I built a system that helped me plan out 6 months of boxes in just 1 hour. And now I teach that system at 6in60workshop.com. That is 6in60workshop.com. It's completely free. We have a live brainstorming session where we walk through everything that you need to curate your boxes with confidence and give yourself enough lead time. So let me give you a few actionable steps that really go with the 6 in 60 workshop. Number 1, the theme has to come first. This is really important. This is how everything is going to go together. So I want you to map out 6 clear themes, or I call them anchor ideas sometimes. But these don't have to be complicated. They just need to be intentional. I want you to think about the seasons that are coming up and what your ideal subscriber is doing in the next 6 months. And then I want you to think about your product partners. That's number 2. Make a running list, something that you can use over and over and over. It may change, it may grow, you may take some off, but make a running list of your favorite vendors, your favorite wholesalers, maybe some handmade makers or past vendors that you use that you had a good experience with this. And then keep that handy because you're going to revisit this list every time you start planning your 6 months. Number 3, you've got to set your budget guardrails. Now you've got to know what you can spend per box. You've got to know what that product cost is. You have to know what your shipping cost looks like. You need to know what your packaging cost is so that you're not scrambling later. Stay in budget. That's how you stay profitable. Lead times matter. Number 4, you've got to give yourself enough time. Give yourself at least 8 to 12 weeks to order something. If you need custom items, those are going to take longer, 4 to 6 months sometimes. So you've got to give yourself enough lead time. And that was something that I wasn't giving myself when I was planning out my subscription boxes. I was just in the moment rushing to get the current box done. And by the time I had a moment to breathe, it was already a few weeks for the next month, and I was rushing to find product. I wasn't curating it the way I wanted to. I was sometimes paying a lot extra for product because I didn't have any other choices. And so now working out 3, 6, 9 months at a time, it gives me so much more time to really get what the product that I want. So those lead times matter the most. Number 5 is marketing. I want you to think about how you'll tease the box once you've curated the boxes. Like, I have all the boxes for the next 8 months planned out. I know what's coming up. I know what I can tie into different themes of products that can be used with different products in upcoming boxes. Each theme should have a built-in story that you can tell on social media. That's the best part about planning ahead. You can tease it, you can share it, and you're really more prepared when you're, when you're selling it on social media. I want you to understand that this really isn't about being rigid, like it has to be done this way, it has to be done in this timeframe. But it's about creating a system that gives you, that gives you back some of that space, some breathing room to be able to make decisions and not panic decisions. And you deserve that. And the Six in Sixty workshop gives you the structure to make it happen. Now, when you know what's going in your box months ahead of time, everything else gets easier. You can order more confidently, take advantage of early bird pricing, wholesale deals, time to shop around. I got a lot of great things from market specials or off-season items. You can really dig in with some of your vendors and you can order more confidently because you have more time. You are not panic buying. You can also build anticipation with your audience. I love teasing sneak peeks or creating lead magnets that might tie into an upcoming theme, so everything kind of revolves around that box and that theme. You can prep in stages. We are prepping for several months out right now because we have the product there, we've got it ready to go. We're prepping boxes, we're printing inserts, we have space set aside for incoming inventory. We've prepped everything ahead of time and we're not waiting for the last minute when it shows up on the dock and then we have to pack it right away. We have stuff there a month or two in advance so that we have time to prep when we're in our down periods. And lastly, your customer experience is really going to improve because the box feels cohesive when you have a thought-out, consistent curation plan. Everything feels really special to your subscriber, and that's how your customer experience improves. Planning ahead gives you room for unexpected issues, and I've had my fair share of unexpected issues. Had I not been planned ahead in some of these instances, I would have been very stressed out and probably spent way too much money getting product at the last minute. There will always be shipping delays. There might be supplier delays, like they may promise you it one day, one month, and you get it two months later. Like, you have to build that stuff in. There might be personal life events that happen with you, or you might just need to go on a vacation. You don't need to be so stressed out because you're not planned far enough ahead. I used to be a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of subscription box owner myself, and it led to a lot of stress, a lot of product issues, and a lot of missed market— marketing opportunities. And now that my boxes are planned 3, 6, 9 months out, I feel so much better. I know what's coming. I know how to plan for it. And now I'm able to help hundreds of box owners do the same by using the tools that I created for myself, like the Six in Sixty workshop. So if you're tired of feeling behind, if you're tired of thinking, oh my gosh, I'm so behind, I haven't bought product for X, I want you to do two things. Number one, I want you to start mapping out the next 6 months of boxes, just a theme. Some rough product ideas. And then number 2, go ahead and grab my free 6 in 60 workshop. You can find it at 6in60workshop.com. It'll be in the show notes for you. I will walk you through the entire process and give you tools to stay ahead month after month. You don't have to wing it anymore, and I want you to go forward with planning with a purpose. Now go get a month ahead or 2, and I'll see you back here next week.