What Are You Resisting in Your Subscription Box Business?

Good morning. Happy Monday, everybody. Woke up to 30-degree weather in Texas. That's not normal for October. So battling the cold weather this morning. I was worried that my office would be freezing because we left the air conditioner on when we left here on Thursday. It's fine. We're dealing with it. Let me know where you're watching from this morning. I would love to know where you're at. We're going to talk about the calling versus the resistance this morning. And it's been something that's been on my mind all weekend that I wanted to share with you guys. I was at an event at the end of September and it was called Funnel Hacking Live. And it's something I've gone to the last several years. It is definitely a bro marketing kind of event. But here's what— here's my thoughts about events. If you go to an event and you kind of immerse yourself into this new world of, you know, things that are outside of what you would normally do. So this is definitely outside of something that I would normally do. And if there's one speaker or there's one takeaway or there's one idea that you get from going to an event like this, it is totally worth it. And there was more than one idea that I'd gotten from going to Funnel Hacking Live. But there was something in the opening ceremonies that I literally took tons of notes on, and I brought my notes today because I wanted to talk to you guys about this, this morning. But it was called The Calling Versus The Resistance. And Russell Brunson was the speaker and he hosts Funnel Hacking Live. And it was really this thought, this idea of a lot of people battle their calling and what's called the resistance. So you live in the resistance instead of leaning into your calling. And you're really called to share your gifts, and you're really supposed to be a good steward of your ideas. So all of us as entrepreneurs, all of us as business owners, we go through this battle sometimes of, you know, what I'm supposed to do, what I think I'm supposed to do. I've got this great idea. It may be starting a subscription box. It may be starting a membership, it may be starting your business for the very first time. Like, I've got this calling, this idea that's been laid upon me, this idea that I've laid in bed and thought about over and over again, but the resistance to it is so real. And what Russell was saying in this, in this talk was how 90% of people live in the resistance. And so I want to really talk about it today and see if you can figure out your resistant points. And, you know, most people live their life in the, in the resistance stage, like fighting against your calling. I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I'm not, I can't figure it out. I'm not smart enough. I don't know enough. Like a lot of people say, I'm not. So they live in the resistance of what their calling is. And so what I want to talk about today is some things that maybe you're resisting in your business. If you are an entrepreneur, you are a natural problem solver, right? So we naturally try to bust through the resistance. Here's the problem, I'm going to solve it. Every day as a business owner, you're a problem solver. Something comes up, I gotta solve it. Something happens, we gotta pivot. The world goes through a pandemic, we gotta figure that out. How are we gonna survive with the world shutting down around us, right? And so we are just natural problem solvers all the time. But what happens is when we get stuck, we listen to that resistance, we listen to that annoying voice in our head that tells us we can't figure it out, we aren't good enough to do this. See, I told myself that this would never work. See, I told myself that this wasn't a good idea. I'm resisting it at every point. So I want to talk about, for us, what are some of those resistance, resistance points? And if you know I want you to pop it into the chat. Okay? I want you to— I want you to— if you know what you're resisting right now, I want you to pop it in the chat. Because what I feel like is that so many of you don't even know what you're resisting, and you're going to keep resisting it until you figure out what you're resisting and why you're resisting. We can't break through the resistance if we don't know what that resistance is. And so I thought about it, you know, I have thousands of students and I think about some of the things that they resist a lot. And some of that is social media. If you are resisting social media, I want you to put social media in the chat. We resist it because it takes us out of our comfort zone, right? So if you've got to show up, like I am now live. How does that make you feel? You resist it because you say, I'm not good enough. Nobody will want to listen to me. I don't like the way I look. I'm not smart enough. I don't have enough to say. What's the point? I'm resisting social media. I'm resisting going live. I'm resisting short video. And it could be just social media in general. Like, it feels like a drag. I've got to create content, I've got to post content, I've got to show up, and I have to keep doing this over and over and over again, and I don't like it, so I'm resisting it. But what I need you to see, if you are resisting social media right now, what I need you to see is that in this day, 2023, in 2023 Small business owners have to be content creators. So if you've been resisting social media, you're resisting creating content for your followers, and that's only going to get you so far. And that's why it feels like it's hard. That's why it feels like you're struggling. That's why it feels like you're not growing or you can't make progress, because you're resisting the fact that you are a content creator. You may not know this, and that's why you're resisting it right now. We are content creators. Small business owners right here, right now, in this time, are content creators. And if you aren't creating content consistently and regularly and with quality, your business is suffering right now. So instead of resisting social media, I want you to lean into social media. I want you to figure out what is it that you're resisting, why are you resisting it, and how can you break through that barrier so that you can experience growth. Okay, what else are we resisting? I see someone right here says, I'm resisting tech. If you're resisting the tech, it feels overwhelming. It feels like you're not smart enough. It feels like you can't get it. It feels too hard. It feels like I just want to throw my hands up and move on because, man, the tech is hard and I don't have the bandwidth to figure it out. It could be your age. It could be your level of education. Even I have a lot of education. I have a lot of education. But some of this tech is like, I'm like, what? You do what? And there's got to be a point that if you're resisting the tech pieces of your business, you have to ask yourself, can I dig in and figure it out? Do I have the ability to do that? Do I have faith in myself to do that? Or do I need to hire someone to figure it out? Because that's not my zone of genius. Stop resisting it. Figure out the solution to this problem. That's either you learning it or you hiring someone to do it and teaching you what you need to know. That's what I did. I hired someone to do it and I said, give me the CliffsNotes version where I can at least manage my own website, build my website, and then give me the notes of how I can manage it. And that's how we learn. But if you are resisting the technology, you're never going to get your business going. If you're telling yourself you're not smart enough to do it, if you're telling yourself you're too old and you just don't know enough about tech, if you're telling yourself that you just— you don't have the bandwidth for it, so you're just not going to do it, you're not going to have a business, period. Is that what you want? It's not what you want. If you're sitting here listening to me right now, I know that's not what you want. Sorry, you guys know my voice has been struggling, so we have to problem solve the tech. We hire people that are smarter than us to do it for us, or we dig our heels in We figure it out. We stay up late, we get caffeinated, we sit there and we learn it until we've got it. Whatever way it is, we have to figure it out or we don't have a business. What else are we resisting? Jane, I'm resisting advertising. I see this so much. I'm resisting advertising. Jane, you have such an incredible business. All it takes is to get visible, and you've done an incredible job of getting visible, growing your company at a great level, a level that so many people here in the chat wish they were at. And if you've done that with no advertising or little advertising, can you imagine what small chunk of advertising could actually do for your business? If you've grown your business organically, there is so much that you can do with advertising. Advertising is— it's all it is. And this is what we get. We get in our head about it because there's tech involved in advertising, right? Setting up a Facebook ad, knowing what we're supposed to be doing on the back end, setting up correctly. But there's money involved in that. We have to spend our money on that. And if we don't know the tech side of advertising, the way we're setting it up, we don't feel comfortable spending our money on it. So we resist it. You're like, I don't know enough about ads to run my own ads, so I am resisting that so that I don't waste my money. But Jane, you know, and everybody else has heard me say this more than once, if you're not advertising, if you don't have an advertising budget for your business, you don't have a marketing budget for your business, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. We have to figure that out. It's part of being a business owner. You can't be a business owner and not advertise your business. This is why so many people get stuck And they don't make progress because they're not willing to put in the investment in their own business. You've worked so hard to get to this point, launching your subscription, getting subscribers. Like with Jane, Jane has hundreds of subscribers. You've done so much work. Why wouldn't you invest more dollars back into your business to get more visible? We have amazing products. We have amazing subscription boxes. But so many people don't even know it because we're not spending money to get visible. That's how we grow. And you know that I don't want you just to have paid traffic all the time. It's a balance between organic traffic and paid traffic. But we can't just build our whole business on organic traffic. We're going to grow So slowly, we're going to get stuck. We're going to plateau. We're going to start to decline because we don't have enough new traffic being infused into our business on a regular basis. But because we don't understand the tech side of ads, we're resisting it. So what do you do? You dig in, you figure out, or you hire someone to do it for you. Either way. Are we going to make mistakes? Absolutely. Absolutely. We're going to make mistakes. That's how we learn. Every person here in the chat, there's over 100 people here with me today on the various platforms. Every person here has made a mistake in their business. Every one of you have. I feel like I make them daily. Every person here has made a mistake in their business. And what happens when we make a mistake in our business? We don't do it again. Right? We learn from it. We grow from it. So if you make a mistake on ads, you don't see the results, you try something else. Ads are just a test and an ongoing experiment. What works today might not work next week or next month. We have to experiment with that. And it does require money. And that's why people resist it. Stop resisting it. If that's your resistant point, I'm giving you permission to make a decision to bust through it. Okay, what else are we resisting? I saw someone up here said failure. They're resisting failure. They don't want to go forward because they're afraid of failing. Wait a minute, I just saw something that really— this really touched me right here. Hang on, I want to talk about this for a minute. I don't know who this is because I can't see their name on social media because I need you to give StreamYard permission, but I'm going to tell you, this is why I resisted social media for a long time. And there's something about not feeling good about yourself or your appearance that will stop you in your tracks from doing a lot of things. But here's what helped me bust through that. If you guys have been around for any amount of time, you know that my weight has fluctuated over the last few years. I am thinner now than I have been for a long time. Um, and I look at my— some of my videos right now, and I'm like, God, my face was so round. Like, but it didn't stop me in that moment because here's what it— here's what it was. It didn't stop y'all from showing up and listening to me. It didn't stop y'all from knowing that I'm the expert and wanting to learn from me because my face was rounder. Than it is now. If you don't feel comfortable with the way you look, I need you to do something that makes you feel good. Okay? And that's what I did. First of all, it's about the angle of the camera. If you can angle the camera down a little bit, it kind of hides a double chin if that's what you're worried about, gives you a little bit of a sleeker look. Um, also is my hair. When I have my hair done, I feel good about myself and I, and I feel confident and I stand a little taller and I can project myself with more confidence. I think my hair is like my armor, and it might feel like a vanity point for some of you, um, but for me, it gave me confidence. So I want you to figure out what would give you confidence to show up Because let me tell you, your weight's going to fluctuate. Your weight's going to fluctuate. If you're waiting until you lose weight to show up, you're doing a disservice. If I would have waited till I lost weight to show up, y'all would not know me. I would not have written a book. I would not be speaking on stage. I would not have memberships that have thousands of students in them helping them grow their businesses. If, if I would have waited till I felt comfortable in my own skin, I wouldn't be here right now talking to you. And here's the thing, do I think everybody on the other side of this camera that's watching me feels glamorous? No. Are there some people watching me that maybe feel like they've put on a few pounds and they don't feel the greatest about themselves? Absolutely. But they relate to me. You, you related to me when I was heavier. Hopefully you can still relate to me as I've lost weight. But when people see who you are It's a connection point. And something that I realized about my business when I was afraid to show up— and I wrote about this in my new book— I was looking for an influencer, someone that was cute, young, tan, thin, all those things to open my boxes so I wouldn't have to do it. I needed an influencer that was cuter than I was because I didn't like the way I looked. I didn't like the way I showed up. And I realized that 70% of my subscribers wore an extra large, a 2X, and a 3X. Why do you think that that was? Because they saw me wearing that product. And I would openly say— it took me a long time, but I would openly say at that time I wore an extra large. And they thought, oh, well, if she looks cute in an extra large, I could wear that shirt too. They related to me and my audience grew. And I don't sell very many small t-shirts anymore. Like, I really don't, because my audience related to me. I found the person that felt comfortable. Do you know, like, someone that has gained weight, how hard it is for them to feel comfortable in anything that they buy? When you have to go up a size in things, like, That's like really degrading on a woman's self-esteem. When you like— we will suck it in and be miserable all day long not to have to go up a size of pants. Am I right, ladies? Like, am I right? We will do that to ourselves because it feels like a defeat. Like, I have to go up a size in my shirt or my pants. I'd rather just not go anywhere than have to go up a size. But listen, things happen. Things happen. We go through so much as women. We're mothers, we're wives, we're sisters, we're daughters, we're friends. We could be caregivers to our parents. We go through so much, and we are at the same time hardest on ourselves. But you showing up today as yourself No matter if you like yourself that day or not, it's going to mean something to somebody watching. Somebody's going to see themselves in you and they're going to love you for that. And they're going to be very connected to you. And that is our superpower as small business owners. We are us authentically and unapologetically. And when we can be us, people will know, like, and trust us. And that's how we gain this loyal following, these people that are raving fans of all the things that we do, because we're just us. I also wrote in my book about this, the time that I was afraid to say y'all. I was afraid to say y'all because I thought it made me sound unprofessional. I thought it was kind of this hick country thing that, you know, I'm Texan, I'm gonna say y'all, and they're gonna be like, oh, I wasn't authentic. I wasn't authentic. But you know what? 75% of my subscribers live in southern states. They're all saying y'all. I want you to be who you are. I don't want you to wait until you're the better version of yourself. Because if you do that, time's going to pass you by. If I would have waited till I was the better version of myself, I would not be here today. I wouldn't be talking to you right now. I wouldn't have thousands of students. I wouldn't have written a book, be asked to speak on stage. I wouldn't be here. I had to go through all of that. I want you to show up as you. Do something that makes you feel good about yourself and show up, and it's going to get easier and easier. Okay, there was a point I was going to talk about before I started all this, and I have completely lost it. So if anybody knows what I was going to talk about, um, I, I just want you to give permission to be you. That's honestly the most important thing you can do. I am, I am me. You guys know this about me. I am me every day. I'm me. I don't have to be something I'm not. God, that would be exhausting if I had to show up and not say y'all and be this perfect professional person all the time. That's, that would be exhausting and I wouldn't show up. I wouldn't because I would be so exhausted by who I had to pretend to be that I couldn't just be myself. I love this. Whoever this is said, for me, it's my chef coat. When they put on their chef coat, they feel confident because that's a great accomplishment. You are a chef. When you put that coat on, it's like you are a badass and you're going to go in there and handle things. What is your armor? I want you to ask yourself that. What makes you feel the best. I lost my train of thought. I don't know where I was at. Oh, fear of failure. Y'all are the best. Fear of failure. If you are not starting your business because you're resisting the fact that you might fail, here's a spoiler alert. You're going to fail. We're all going to fail at something. Do you know how many times I have failed as a small business owner? It's kind of laughable at this point, and I don't even, like, let it worry me. I'm like, well, let's try it. It could be a total flop, and sometimes it is. But you know what I've learned? I don't feel failure, and I never really have have the fear of failure, but I have the fear of what if. What if I don't do this and it could have been the thing that changed my life? I fear that. I fear the what if. I'm not afraid of doing something and failing. I'm pretty good at that. Pretty good at trying things and laughing at myself about how terrible of an idea that was. But I don't want to have regret. Is there something along the way that you've regretted not doing, and you think back, man, if I would have just leaned into that when I was 25 or when I was 35, where would I be right now? I didn't start my business until I was 35 years old. 10 years ago, where would I be if I would have started at 25? I don't want you to feel failure. Failure is natural. We are going to fail at things. And you know what happens when we fail at something? We pick up and we try again. We get back on the horse. We like, well, I learned a lesson here. I learned what was going on. I learned what not to do. I learned that I did a terrible job at this, and I'm going to do better next time. I'm going to do different next time. I'm going to learn from this failure. Failures don't stop us. Failures just teach us something. You're going to fail. You're going to fail at something. Stop resisting it. Stop resisting starting because you're afraid of failure. Stop resisting tech because you feel like you're not smart enough. Stop resisting social media because you don't feel like you want to show up in that way. Stop resisting ads because you're scared of the money situation. You have to keep growing your audience. What are you resisting right now? I want you to really think about it. And we've got to push through that. It's your calling versus the resistance. You are all here for a reason. I'm going to tell you about Tita. She is 78 years old. She has worked her tail off to build her business, y'all. She's 78. She knows what she wants and she's not stopping. And she's had hurdle after hurdle after hurdle going on, and she— you know what? She's here. On Monday Momentum, getting what she needs to get her week going. If Tita can do it, y'all can do it. Oh, I mean that. If I can do this, y'all can do this. And you can say y'all as much as you want. Be you. Be authentic. Move forward. Stop resisting. Stop resisting. Keep trying. Shanita, it's experiment. It's a lot like social media. The more you do it, the better you get at it. The more you do it and you see what's converting, the more you know what to put in the next one. Stop resisting it. Your email is your ATM machine. I want you to write that down and put it on your computer somewhere. My email is my ATM machine. I put content in and money comes out. And it's okay if money doesn't come out the first couple tries. But if you keep working at it, every time you put content in, money is going to come out. Your email is your ATM. Your social media makes you visible. The way you show up as yourself builds loyalty and retention. All right, let's do this. We got the last 2 days of October. Whatever you're resisting right now, I want you to really focus on the next 2 days and see how you can push through it. All right, let's have a good Monday. Let's have a great week. I'll see you guys soon.