Two Simple Strategies to Get Off the Sales Rollercoaster for Good

If your sales feel like a roller coaster, one week you're riding high and the next you're wondering where all the customers went, you're not alone. But here's the thing, you don't have to live in that constant up and down. Today we're sharing 2 simple strategies that will help you step off that sales roller coaster for good. One will bring you a steady flow of new customers. The other will keep them buying again and again. And the best part, you can start either of them this month. 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.

I'm Sarah Williams of the Launch Your Box podcast, and I'm here with Susan Bradley of the E-Commerce Roadmap podcast. And today we're going to do a podcast for both of our audience because we have so much in common. And today we're going to talk about 2 simple strategies to get off the sales roller coaster for good. Hey, Susan, welcome. We're in your audience. We're in my audience. We're all over the place. Talk to, talk to me a little bit. Let's do a little intros. Why don't you do an intro for my audience and I'll do one for yours?

Sure. That sounds great. So this is fun. Thank you. Always love chatting with you, my business bestie. Um, but I think that many of your audience knows me and my audience knows you because we have been working together for so long. But if you don't know me, I'm Susan Bradley. I am the founder of the Social Sales Girls. And simply put, we just teach e-commerce store owners how to build a business that pays them really well. And so that's what we do in our inner circle, have done it for years. And, uh, and we have a lot of subscription box owners in inside of our community.

Great segue there, my friend. I am Sarah Williams. If you're listening on Susan's podcast, I'm Sarah Williams. I have a membership called Launch Your Box and we help people start, launch, and grow subscription box businesses because product-based business owners need that recurring revenue in their business. And we have so many success stories and it's just one of the greatest things that you could do for your product-based business is have something that's coming in over and over and over again.

Again.

Now, if you don't know Susan and I, let's take them back just on a little journey of our relationship, um, before we dig into the nitty-gritty of our podcast today. But Susan and I met back in January of 2019.

That's exactly right. Yeah.

And we were joining a mastermind. You've probably both heard us talk about Stu McLaren. He is our mentor, and we joined his mastermind, and we were instantly like gravitating towards each other because we were the only two e-commerce businesses in the room. And it was one of those things where Susan was many years ahead of me on her e-commerce journey. But I was in the thick of it at that moment. Susan, what would you have to say about us and our relationship, how it's built over the years?

Oh, I think that, well, we speak the same language. So there's that. But also I think you and I are both really, really interested in in making sales. We're both super interested in what works for anything online, online product-based businesses. And I think we're both really good at breaking it down, like figuring out what works and then breaking it down and sharing it with our— the people in our communities. And I think the reason is both of us know what it's like to start these businesses and step by step by step figure out how it works And like, we know how it feels. We know how hard it is. We know how alone you feel sometimes. And we know how, you know, you can try many things before you find what actually works. And so I think we both, if there's one thing, it's that we're both driven by trying to help other people who are just like us build businesses that give them the lifestyle that they, they wanted when they started the business. Yeah.

And I think, um, for both of us, we speak the same language, but we also have specialties in different areas. And I think that that's what makes us really, what's the word, compatible as far as our friendship. Because I look at you and I see data, numbers, analytics, and a lot of your decisions are driven all by data, numbers, and analytics. And that is such a great brain to have. And then my brain is creative marketing sales. And so when we put those like two things together, we're like the powerhouse e-commerce entrepreneur because we have the best of both worlds. And so we could just sit and talk about numbers and marketing all day long and feel like we're both getting value from each other, which I think has been a huge part of our relationship as well. Yeah.

And also Sarah, like I think we're both really good at sharing, like not having to be the expert in the other one's field, sharing what the other one does. Like I actually had a call with a client, uh, not that long ago, a few weeks ago where I said, hey, you know, What would happen for you in your business if your recurring revenue from your subscription paid all your expenses? Yeah. Like, you need to listen up over in Launch Your Box. That happened, right? Because that is like, that gives you so much freedom. And, you know, I'm not a subscription box expert. I don't know that, but I know who is.

100%. And that's how relationships are built. So when you think about your own business relationships and the collaborations, this is This is a great segue into Susan's segment here. Yeah. But think about who do you collaborate with as business owners? What is your sweet spot? What is their sweet spot? And how can you come together? Not only for brand collaborations that Susan's gonna talk about, but just as business, like she called me her business bestie when we started this thing. You've got to find someone to do business with because if I talked about e-commerce every time I went to my mom's house for dinner, she'd stop inviting me to dinner. They don't get it and you need to find someone that gets it. So let's talk about these two really powerful strategies that we are doing today. And this is why we're doing it on a dual podcast, because we have two very, very powerful strategies to get off this sales roller coaster. So let's start with your strategy, which I know is brand collaborations.

Yeah, it's such a big deal, Sarah. I mean, I have been such a fan of collaboration for so long, and you and I have collaborated for years and years and years. And really, when you think about what a collaboration is, It's just a simple share of your assets. When I think of the assets you're sharing, it's your social media space, your audience there, and basically your email list. The people who are on your list that are your subscribers that you can talk to in your authentic voice every week. And so I think it's like, too many people don't do it because they don't know how or they're afraid or they're trying to protect their own space.

What makes them afraid, Susan? Like, why would I be afraid collaborate with you like we do so often. Why are some people, why do some people shy away from that?

Oh, I think that they, the biggest barrier for them is that they, they are looking for the right person and it's really hard to find someone who is, would have the right audience for you. Actually, that's not that hard, but they think it's hard, but would have the right audience, but also to get them on the same page. They're afraid of being rejected. They're afraid of it going sideways. They think it might be a waste of time. So I think that that's probably the biggest barrier. And then the second biggest barrier is they don't know what to say or what to do or what to offer. And then for some people, there's that little voice in their head that's saying, yes, but I don't, like, I don't wanna lose my customers or I don't wanna lose my subscribers. And thank goodness, like, once you get over yourself and you realize, like, thank goodness you and I haven't had that issue because It's really just our goal at the end of the day, no different than a product-based business, is to serve our customers. Yeah. And we don't need to be the expert in everything, nor do we need to have all the products that our customer wants. And so remember, at the end of the day, that's the most important thing. And I always find that what you give in this world comes back to you.

100%. So we're talking about specifically brand collaborations, right? And when I— let's take my box business as an example for our listeners today. So I have a monogram box, if you guys don't know. I sell graphic t-shirts. We personalize one item in the box, cute accessories, purses, handbags, totes, earrings, all the things. If I was looking to do a brand collaboration with my business, what would I look for?

So I think that what people— where they stumble is that they look for someone who sells a similar or a related product, okay, to theirs. And the real trick here is not to look for someone who sells a similar related product, it's to sell— it's to look for someone who has a similar client, like someone who has a person that might buy their thing, but also might buy your thing. If you think about the way we all behave in the world, you and I, like, when's the last time— well, I know you well, so I know you shop at some pretty high-end stores.

Just one or two. One or two.

Well, I've been there with you, where I'm sitting on the bench getting the free water. But I bet you any money you've been at the Dollar General in the last two months.

I just ran and got my Walmart pickup order. Does that count? Plus Walmart pickup order, like, that's who I am.

Yeah. And so we're all like that, right? We all have certain things that we're willing to spend more money on than others. And so one of the things that people struggle with is they're like, well, I can't because my— say my average order value is only, um, $59, and I can't collaborate with person who sells art that's $200 or $300 because we don't have the same customer. And I'm like, yeah, you do. You have, you have a woman that's a consumer that likes nice things. And so I think that's something that people really struggle with. The other thing that I see that they struggle with is that they, they might have a bigger business or a bigger list or a bigger social media following. And so they're like trying to like they're a scorekeeper and they're trying to keep it even. And like, I actually heard someone say once, well, I am only sending to part of my list because, because of, um, they don't have as big a list as me. And that's just like, that's just being short-sighted. Yeah, kind of tacky.

It feels like you're not operating in abundance. And I feel like that's when we talk about sharing our resources, like sharing our social media, sharing our email lists, sharing the spotlight with somebody. Sometimes we operate out of fear instead of out of abundance. And I think that it's normal, like you shouldn't feel bad about that. That's normal to be fearful. But I think that what we don't realize is that if we do these brand collabs, you're in front of their audience too, however big or small. Their audience might be smaller, but it might be full of buyers. Yeah, your audience might smaller, but it might be more people that would actually like your things versus someone that has a million followers and nobody's paying attention.

Exactly.

So I think we have to— this is the way I kind of view it when I, when I am working with somebody on a collaboration or an affiliate or anything like that. I view it as what can I do to serve that audience? And if something comes back to me, great. But I'm not doing it with the intention of getting getting something out of it. I'm getting, I'm doing it as a way to expand my audience. And if I get sales and I get new customers, then I did my job serving that audience. And if I didn't, I'm just expanding in front of new people. I'm constantly growing my audience. And I think we have to look at it that way and not always, well, I didn't even make $100 in sales by doing that. Right?

Absolutely. And also the other thing we need to remember is it's a long game. People don't often buy the first time they see you, right? It takes many, many touchpoints. And if you never get in front of that person, then you don't even have that opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. But let's talk about, let's talk about recurring revenue.

It's my favorite thing.

I know.

In the whole wide world to talk about, Susan Bradley. There's my, my sweet country accent coming out right there. Gosh, recurring revenue is one of the most powerful things that we can do as business owners. And that is in so many different ways, whether we have a service-based business, a digital business, or a product business. Generating that recurring revenue is what really— it stabilizes everything. And it, you know, that fear I was talking about takes a lot of fear of the unknown, like what's going to happen next month, what's going to happen next quarter, what's going to happen next year. I am so stable with that. I know what's going to happen next month. I know what's going to happen quarter because 75% of my annual revenue comes from my subscription boxes. And so it started for me, Susan, with one idea. I was trying to make sure I wasn't sold out of something when my regular customers came in. And so I created kind of this VIP experience with my subscription box. I wanted them to be the first to have it. I wanted them— I wanted it to be exclusive. And if I bought it in bulk, I could buy it cheaper than wholesale. And so this is how it started for me. And that was 44 boxes in the beginning. And I just curated 44 boxes. Everybody got the same thing. I slapped a monogram on something. It was great. And that turned into 75 boxes and 300 boxes and 600 boxes and 3,200 boxes. And so what happened is now we spend one week of our month shipping thousands of orders. Not only does it make it stable for my revenue that hits my bank account, but we know what we're doing. We don't have like— I mean, think about how long it takes to pack and ship 100 different orders.

Oh, forever.

All day.

Yep.

If you have several people working for you, all day.

Yep.

If you're by yourself, all week, right?

Yep.

You could pack 100 orders in an hour if they were the same thing.

Yep.

And that's what part of having a subscription box does. Not only does it generate the revenue consistently, now it creates the workload at a much cheaper price So your profit margin's going up and your inventory is coming in and out in a quick, rapid way. And it's not hanging around staring at you in the face every time you walk through the door. And it's just also on the, on the plus side, the unexpected side, it's created this raving loyal fan that will buy anything that's in front of you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know what I love too, as just someone who, you know, my history was before I was an online store owner, I was brick and mortar. And what I love about your boxes, Sarah, or anyone who has a subscription, is that that stuff is basically sold when it comes in the door. And so you don't have a lot of stuff hanging around. You don't have a lot of clearance. You're, you're not— all your money is not tied up in your inventory. And the other thing I love, yeah, is your story about when, when COVID happened and how you were able to keep going. If you hadn't had that subscription box, you probably would have had to like get lots of debt. It like, it would just have been a totally different picture for you.

But yeah, I would have had to let go of my entire staff and start over. I mean, I had a brick and mortar when COVID hit and I was doing great in my brick and mortar. I was doing $300,000 to $500,000 a year at my brick and mortar. It was a great revenue source. But when I got shut down in March of 2020, not knowing when we were going to open again, I had my subscription box and I had a couple thousand subscribers at that time. And I paid all my bills. I paid my rent at my retail store. I paid all my employees, even though we couldn't work there anymore. Everybody was packing boxes at their house. And, you know, the best thing about that situation was I didn't have to show up and sell in that moment. I didn't have to show up and say, buy my things, buy my things, buy my things. They're already sold and all I had to do is keep shipping. The payments kept coming through and I kept shipping and I didn't have to show up at a weird time in our world and ask people to buy cute things. And so, I mean, I would have had toilet paper, that would have been a whole nother situation. But, um, you know, it was one of those things that it was like a huge lesson learned. It's a huge visibility point for me because had I not had that, I would have had to let all my employees go and then I would have to start over and hope that I could hire them back at some point. I would have not had income for a month. And you know what? My rent was still due. My rent didn't come not due because I wasn't open. And so that was my first like leg into e-commerce was my subscription box from my retail brick and mortar. And it really, it's really easy. I'm just going to give you some quick actionable things to think about. If you have a brick and mortar, if you have an e-commerce shop, If you sell any of the things, I want you to think about what are people repeat buying from you. That was a huge thing for me. People were buying seasonal graphic tees like they were going out of style. Every season, new collection. Every season, new collection. I knew that was— I knew that was a thing. Tumblers were so hot back then, like you couldn't keep a tumbler, especially if you got to personalize it. Tumblers were really hot and all the accessories, bags, earrings, all the things that went with their cute outfits. Okay, so that was what people kept coming in and buying repeatedly. So I want you to think about that for your own business. And then the other big aha moment for me was in my store, what was my average order value? What was my AOV at that time? 2018, um, 2017, it was $40. Now it's like $68, but back then it was $40. I thought, okay, that's how I have to price this. I'm going to price this at $40 because people don't hesitate to come in and spend $40 with me regularly. And so that was my price. Here was my top 3 selling categories in my business. And let's see if I can make this thing a go. And did I know that day in 2017 that I would have curated 101 different boxes 8.5 years later? No, I would never. If you would have told me I had to figure out 100 boxes, I never would have started this thing because I didn't have the capacity to understand it. But you know what, every month I come up with something new. Every month I have a really great time curating this box for them. Every month I get to use my creativity to deliver a really great experience. And it just started from my top 3 categories and a price, AOV price point that I already had in my store. And I just built it around that. And I just kept listening and listening. What do you want more of? What are you sick of? What do you love? And I just kept listening. And every month when I would create the next box and the next box, I just kept listening and watching and seeing what made them stay. And right now my monogram box has a 17.3-month lifespan. So my, my subscriber stays on average for 17.3 months and I'm acquiring them at $36. So if you, if you think about acquiring a customer at $36 once and then they're paying you 17 times and you never have to acquire them again, there's a little, there's a little data from my Susan friend right there. Because that's what makes a strong business.

Yeah, and so profitable too. And you know, I have to say, it's kind of the same with collaboration. And if you think about it, what it costs us and what everybody's store is different, but basically it costs us money to acquire a customer. We're either spending money on ads or we're mostly spending money on ads, or we're spending money building our list, but it costs us money to acquire a customer. And actually, when you do the math, for some people it's kind of shocking how much it costs. And so when you can collaborate, what you'll find is that you'll be able to grow your audience with no cost. You'll be able to grow your, your traffic at no cost. You'll be able to get leads leads at no cost and you'll get some sales at no cost. And so that's what I feel like, kind of like your sub box is a long-term organic strategy that kind of has the snowball effect that once you start acquiring these customers and they haven't cost you anything, your profit, like you're less reliant on ads, less reliant on things you don't control, and you feel more like you, you have time and space and less stress so that you can actually make some really good decisions in your business or how you're going to go forward.

It's having that for, for brand collaborations. I, I think of everything in recurring terms, so it's like having that recurring traffic, right? So like it's this traffic we've, we've got to have a lot of different— we have paid traffic, organic traffic, and then you're actually just siphoning traffic from another person and they're doing the same from you. So siphoning might not be the word, borrowing, sharing, sharing. But you're doing that in a way. And if you're collaborating on a regular basis like you and I do, we're doing that recurring, sharing that. And it's also giving credibility because I know for my audience, this is not the first time they've heard from Susan Bradley and same for your audience with me. And so the more we can have a recurring collaboration with people that are really nailing who we are, what we're looking for, and the audience that we're looking for, that can only be good things, right? And it starts with one.

For sure. I'm going to share a little, a little story about that. So we have someone in our, in our community who decided she didn't have a ton of money to spend. She had a baby business and she decided to do a year of collaboration. She decided that every month she was going to choose someone and work with them together on a collaboration. And so what happened is she actually did 10 collaborations. So she got close to her, her year. Yeah, really, really fabulous. And she had a lot of success over time. But I want to caution everybody with everything you do, whether it's your sub box or if you're working on a collaboration, it all— the progress all comes in baby steps. And so when I asked her at the end of the year, listen, how was, how was your collaboration? And she said, yeah, it was okay. And I said, tell, tell me more. Like, can you go back and get the data? And, and she said, well, when she sent it to me, she said, well, you know, it's actually better than I thought. And she said every collaboration got her 200 or 300 new email addresses and she got a sale from every collaboration she did. And when she looked at what happened over time, she actually grew her list by 16,000 emails over those 10 collaborations. She got 34 brand new customers that she never had before, and she actually got 42 orders from those 34 brand new customers. And so some of them are repeat buyers. And so she said individually, when she looked at those collaborations, it was just like, kind of, okay. But when you add it all up, you use it as a long-term strategy. It's kind of a game changer.

Yeah, I think about how much it costs to get 1,600 new people on my email list right now.

A lot. Yeah.

And I think about how she was able to do that organically with brand collaborations that probably didn't cost her a thing unless she gave away some product, right?

Well, a couple of them were giveaways. Okay, some of them were giveaways, so she did give away some product, but I mean, really, that's wholesale cost of your product, that is way less. You are super lucky if you can get a lead from an ad for 50 cents. Yeah, right. And so even at 50 cents, if you can get one at 50 cents, that's still $800. Yeah, spend. So that's money in her pocket.

Yeah. And I bet she spent less than $100 giving away product, right?

Yeah, she spent less than $100 on— she did some promoting, but she did less less than $100 on a few ads. And then yeah, her average order value is $45, so she wouldn't have spent very much on, on product. But yeah, those are the things that I think it's really important for everyone to understand, that not only did she benefit, but 10 other people benefited. And then she can go back and she can repeat that next year with those same people and grow and grow and grow. And I think that I think that too many people just feel like it's going to be a waste or they're not going to get the results they want. But if they're not actually paying attention and tracking and measuring what they get from these collaborations, they'll think it's just meh.

So this is where this comes in, because my data-driven friend here, um, I was going to ask you what mistakes should you avoid as you're going into, say, a brand collaboration, and you just clearly laid out not measuring your results, right?

Not measuring your results and also not giving it a long, like a long runway. So you don't, you don't say you, say you do just a simple, simple. This is something everyone could do. Everyone could find a partner and do just a simple email swap where I'm going to email my list, you email your list, we'll introduce each other and we'll say, hey, we'd like to share a 15% discount code or whatever. So here's how some people, most of us actually, would analyze that. So we do it, we do it for a few days, we'd maybe send 2 or 3 emails or 1. Some people would only send 1, you know, we need to send more than that. And then a few days later, we'd analyze it and say, did you get any sales on your discount code? And, you know, who knows whether they would or not. And you take whatever that information was and, and you would use just that to assess your whole, your whole success of that event. But the truth is, what you need to do is you need to take a look at your traffic. Did your traffic go up for that event? You need to see how many people you got on your email list for that event. And the other thing that you need to do is you need to make sure that you're giving it a long period of time, that that person, if they're on your list, you're gonna email them and email them and email them over time. Maybe put them in a flow or for sure email them every week and just wait because they will actually convert over time. You will, you'll get a far better conversion rate on something like that than you will if you do a Facebook ad.

I was at an event last week and Neil Patel was there and he had this chart of how many times somebody has to see your offer based on the dollar amount. And the one that stuck out to me was $100 and under because that's what most of my products are. And they have to see see your product 8 to 11 times if it's under $100. So we don't give it that much time. We think they're sick of hearing about it. We don't put it in front of them that much. And right now in this economy, we have to keep showing them 8 to 11 times before they make a purchase.

Yeah. And so don't, don't assess your results on this one little thing. Like, you have to say this is a long game. Get yourself a little spreadsheet, track your traffic, track your leads that you generate, track your sales. And you'll be far further ahead than if you just say, well, how many discount codes did you get? Because half those people are never going to use that discount code, right? And so it's really a moot point. But I think, I think it's an amazing way to grow. So for sure you could do that, just a quick email. The other mistake I think people make is that they think that maybe a big influencer would be a better person to give away, or to do a giveaway, or to do any kind of collaboration with. And the truth is that actually, when this 10 months of events when this member did this, the worst performing giveaway, the worst performing collaboration was the influencer. And of course it makes sense if you think about it. We're all like, wow, wow, she has so many followers. But the truth is they're not buyers.

We're not connected, right?

People like us have an audience of buyers.

Yeah.

And that's way more valuable than finding someone that has, you know, 500,000 followers on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's talk about consistency. Okay, talk about consistency. Let's talk about it because I have this thought, and, and it's certainly for, um, for anything you do, but this is a great, a great place to talk about it, whether it's promoting your subscription box or doing collaborations. The first time you do anything, so the first time you launch your subscription box, the first time The first time you have a collaboration, you're probably gonna get your worst result. Would you agree?

100%, I would agree. And I wouldn't say that my 44 boxes was my worst result, 'cause I got the dang thing out there, right? Right. But when you launch again, I've never gotten 44 or less, right? So it actually was my worst result.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, like you have to learn, and consistency. You know, consistency really pays off over time. You don't have to do all the things. Pick a couple of things to do and just do it. So when I would talk to my audience, I'd for sure be saying to them or our members, hey, what can you do that gets you some recurring revenue, whether it's digital or it's product-based? You got to find something that's going to bring money into your business every, every month that you can count on. And it's the same thing with collaborations. That's one thing you could do. You could do it once a month. You're guaranteed that you're going to get more traffic. You're going to get more eyeballs on your stuff, you're going to get some email addresses, and ultimately you will get some sales. So consistency is maybe the biggest predictor of success.

It is. And when you look at a subscription box, it's 100% consistency. Your customer knows they're going to get a box from you the same time, same month, every month. And they're going to— and here's the other thing about your curation of your products. You need that to be consistent too. I tried the inconsistent thing and it didn't work out for me very well. Um, but they want the things you're putting in there. And I got to— I got to my 1-year anniversary season of my subscription box and I thought, I'm gonna do something completely different. They'll probably have all the graphic tees, all the handbags, all the earrings. I'm gonna do something different. And I did this bathroom box. I monogrammed a towel and I gave him this cute little soap dispenser and Q-tip holder and all the things, and they hated And they said, where's our t-shirts? Where's our bags? Where's our earrings? This was such a disappointment. And I got so many cancellations that month. And the biggest lesson I could have ever learned, that they want the consistency. They, they want to know that when they're giving us our money, that we're consistent with what we deliver to them. And so the best thing you can do, you don't have to be the greatest at everything, but you just need to be consistent because that will put you in front of people. That will make you a good business owner. You You don't have to be the best marketer. You just have to be marketing consistently. You don't have to be the best at getting traffic. You just need to be doing it consistently, right? And so that's the thing that a lot of business owners think, well, I'm not that great. You don't have to be that great. You just have to be incredibly consistent.

And you have to repeat the same strategy multiple times and until you really see traction with it. Let's talk about one of the things that I, I, uh, I worry about with subscriptions is let's talk about pricing. Okay, tell me, because you, you're doing it to be profitable.

100%. Yeah, a lot of times I see one of the biggest mistakes is people try to lowball their offer. Yeah, and I try to put this analogy in front of them. I need to go get my haircut today. Am I going to go over to $19 Great Clips across the Or am I going to go to the salon and pay $100? And we don't know who's on the other side of that door when we walk in, but we associate the $19 haircut as a cheap haircut that doesn't have a lot of value, and the $100 haircut is going to be what I want because that shows value. And I need you to think of your offers in that way. Um, underpricing— you don't need to be the cheapest on the market, and you don't need to be the highest on the market, but you need to be priced for profit because This is, like Susan said, a long-term play. We need to have our business 8.5 years later after you've curated your 100th box. We need to be able to do that. And we can't do that if we're taking 20% profit, 30% profit. Like, we can't do that. You can't, you can't pay for the next round of products. You can't pay for the overhead of your building. You can't pay the expenses that you need to pay to have a long-term lasting benefit. So being the cheapest, thinking you're gonna rake in the most people, is probably turning people away because they see it as not valuable.

Yeah, and I mean, really, your ideal subscription customer, is price their number one motivating factor?

No. Because listen, Susan, if you don't know this, you could go buy whatever I sell in my subscription box probably anywhere on the planet. There is nothing proprietary about what I'm putting in my box. Yes, I create designs for my t-shirts that are mine, But other than that, it's a t-shirt. Let's be honest, you have endless options in this world, but there are $10 t-shirts out in this world and my box has $30 t-shirts. And so you have to really understand what your value is and what you need to make a long-lasting business. There's nothing different except I might use higher quality t-shirts than a $10 t-shirt, right? They're using the hard crunchy one and I'm using the super soft heathered one. But The value is in the experience. The value is in that the t-shirt matches the earrings that matches the bag that matches the hair clips, and it's all curated in one experience, not random crap thrown in a box.

Yeah. Yeah. And people will pay for that experience and for the convenience of having it show up on their doorstep.

And the consistency that they know they're going to get quality. Every time my turquoise box shows up on their door, they know what to expect from me. That's that consistency factor. And then they get that, and then in my shop, I'm going to sell them a matching cardigan. I'm going to sell them a matching strap for their bag. I'm going to sell them something to add on to enhance their experience. And now I've maximized it all, all around my subscriber who brings me recurring revenue every single month.

Yeah, yeah. Listen up, everybody. Listen up. So you and I are both doing a little week.

Yeah, we have kind of workshop weeks coming up. Why don't you talk about yours first? Because yours is coming up first. It is.

So I'm, uh, for our community, we're doing a Brand Collab Bootcamp, and it starts on September 8th. And, uh, we are going to have hundreds of store owners just like you all together in a private group, and everybody is there to collaborate. They're learning how to collaborate. And this is perfect because the fourth quarter is coming. And so what I think that you, um, will walk away with for sure is you'll know— you'll be in a room with all these people that want to do the same thing, and we'll get it done in a week. You're going to walk away with understanding who you want to collaborate with, like who you are for and who else. Like, we're going to give you a way to label yourself so you can just say, this is my business, I'm blah, blah, blah.

Oh, that's good. You're going to give them a sales pitch, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

I love that. So that they can say, oh, okay, you know, I'm a middle-aged woman, no kids, same as you.

We're not going to call us middle-aged. We're going to call us well-seasoned.

Okay. Listen, I got a, I got an ad the other day that was about bras for elderly people.

Pre-menopause ads are all over my feed right now.

Look at this. Anyway, so they'll be in the group. They're going to understand how to label themselves. We'll also— they also have a, like, a one-pager to describe their business. We'll show them exactly how to do that. And then they will know a simple collaboration. They're going to work on a simple collaboration with email, email uh, emails, 3 emails, and we'll tell them exactly what to say and how to get that ready. And then social media posts, and we'll tell them exactly what to say and how to get that ready. And so they will walk away knowing who they're for, who they can collaborate with, and they'll have all the assets they need to provide each other with a great collaboration. And nobody will have to wonder about how they're going to get someone on the same page because everybody's doing the same thing. I love this. And so what I love about this is this is organic, won't cost them anything other than the $15 to come to the boot camp. It's organic, it's repeatable. They're going to be exposed to high-quality audiences. These are people that have audiences of buyers, and this is a great long-term strategy that you control. It's not like doing an ad on Meta where one day your ad's great and then the next 5 days it's garbage. This is something that you can control. And so this is like, it's so close to my heart that people need to do this because we're all kind of working in a silo.

We are.

Yeah.

We're lonely. We don't know which direction we want to take every 10 minutes. But I love this for my subscription box owners. So my audience, if you're listening, think about who you can collaborate with. I want you to go over to Susan's training. It starts September 8th. But if you had one subscription box collaboration. I think about it when I think about subscription box owners, they subscribe to more than one thing. They, I have more than one subscription. And so it's something I love. It's something that's convenient. So if they're like, if they're likely to subscribe, subscribe to one thing, they're, they're 10 times more likely to subscribe to a second box.

Right. And think about that. The barrier to, the barrier to that messaging is half, like cut in half because you don't have to explain nearly what a subscription box is, what you're signing up for, all those things. Right. Because this is somebody who has clients that are signed up to a list for— they're interested in subscriptions. So I think it's a great fit. And think about what's possible for you if you could do one every month.

Yeah. And we're going to put Susan's link in both of our show notes. So you can go over to either one of our show notes. Grab her link, get signed up. Best $15 you're gonna spend, except for you're gonna spend $15 with me. That's gonna be really awesome too. Best $30 you're gonna spend the month of September is gonna be with Susan and Sarah.

Yes, because I'm gonna be there every day. My coaches are going to be there. You're going to be there. Let's talk about your coaching week.

So at the end of September, Susan's is going to do hers September 8th. Mine is September 28th. So just remember, 8 and 28, you get both of us for an entire week. Week. Um, but I have Subscription Box Week, and it's something that we do once a year. Every year it's a big shindig thing that we do. Oh, we roll out the red carpet. I am— you're going to be so sick of me by the end of the week because I'm in your face every day. Um, but really what Subscription Box Week is designed to do is to help you lay out what a subscription box could look like for your business. Maybe You're a product-based business owner right now and you're like, I have these products. How do I create a subscription box out of them? I'm going to show you. Maybe you're thinking about starting a subscription box, but you're not sure what you would put in it. I'm going to show you. Maybe you have a subscription box and maybe it's just not curated the best that it could be. We're going to work through that and I'm going to show you what it could look like a couple of different ways. The full box experience or one thing of the month. And we're going to do that during the week of Subscription Box Week. I'm doing a couple of trainings. I actually have a bonus lesson this year that no one's gotten before. We'll also have a day where I'm going to do box openings live. I'm going to open the boxes and show you exactly what different subscription boxes look like. We'll have a Q&A. We're going to have so much fun. Lots of bonuses in the week. Again, it's $15, just like Susan's. So if you want to have more fun in September, come join me as well at the end of the month. My link will be in both of our show notes as well. So if you're listening on Susan's podcast or you're listening on my podcast, They'll be in the notes, but we would love, love, love to have you join us both on September 8th with Susan's Brand Collaboration Bootcamp and on September 28th for Subscription Box Week, because we think both of these strategies will help you continue to get traffic, continue to get sales, and just get off the, the hamster wheel of trying to run your product-based business. So, and it was perfect, perfect way to start the fourth quarter. Oh my gosh, that's so right. Start fourth quarter off the right way with really strategic things that you can do to grow your business. So thank you for listening to us today. We hope to see you over in our workshops next month. All right, y'all have a great day. We'll see you soon.