Tears and Added Value

#035 - In this episode, Julie is replaying the audio from a video she recorded earlier this year in the exclusive Subscription Box Bootcamp group. She shares about how she handled getting a bad review from someone who wasn't happy with her Sparkle Hustle Grow box. It turned out to be a learning experience for her and her team on added value and how to properly communicate it to your subscribers.

The Subscription Box Bootcamp will be having a major update launching later this fall.
We are re-recording all of the materials and adding more templates, swipe files,  and bonuses. It's going to be absolutely amazing. If you want to get all the information as we release it, please make sure you're on our VIP list by heading over to SubscriptionBoxBootcamp.com.

Links:

Sparkle Hustle Grow
Subscription Box Bootcamp

Transcript

(00:01): So you want to launch a subscription box and don't know where to start? Girl, you are in the right place. I'm Julie Ball, a subscription box coach and your host here at Subscription Box Basics, a podcast for new and aspiring subscription box entrepreneurs that want to avoid overwhelm. So grab a coffee, some pen and paper and let's have some fun!

Hey, and welcome back to Subscription Box Basics with me, your host, Julie Ball. I am the founder and Chief Sparkler at Sparkle Hustle Grow a multi-six figure subscription box business, and your subscription box business coach. And I like to use this podcast as a way to pull back the curtain and teach you some of the things that I've learned along the way as I know you are listening because you have an amazing subscription box business idea, and I am cheering you on.

So this episode is a little different. I am taking a couple of weeks off in the summer because drum roll please...I'm updating Subscription Box Bootcamp, which is my online course that gives you the tools, tech and templates to launch and grow your own subscription box business idea.

I'm so excited. It's been two years since I originally launched this course and we've been evolving since then, but this is a major update. We are re-recording all of the materials or adding way more templates, swipe files, bonuses. It's going to be absolutely amazing. So please make sure you're on our VIP list. If you head over to SubscriptionBoxBootcamp.com, you can get on that list and make sure that you get all the information as we release it. And we will be launching that new version of bootcamp later this fall in September. And if you are a current bootcamper, good news, you get access to all of the updates as part of your lifetime access. So I'm super pumped about that. I hope you guys follow along.

And what I'm doing in this episode is replaying the audio from a video I recorded earlier this year in my bootcamp group, and it talks about tears and added value, but the tears is all about getting a bad review when someone's not happy with it.

(02:21): People can be mean, and I don't want you to think that I am immune to that just because I've been in the business for so long. It still stings. I have ways of coping, but I wanted to share with you a personal story. So without further ado, here we go.

So the first thing let's talk about tears. I had a rough week last week. I had a moment where I had someone in, we have a private Facebook group for our Sparkle Hustle Grow subscribers. Someone in the Facebook group there posted something negative. And even though the group is there for encouragement and support and all this good stuff. And when someone posts something negative, usually it's an invitation for other people to be negative. And so it became this like waterfall of me too's and like some people complaining about it. And then a lot of my tribe came to our defense.

The idea was essentially that some people had been posting how much they loved the January box and this person in particular said, "I don't, it's just, maybe it's just me, but I don't see what was so great about the January box". The irony is that the box theme was the power of positivity. Nonetheless started this waterfall of negativity, waterfall of Sparklers coming to defend the box and how much that they love this month. And I was in tears. I'm not gonna lie. I woke up to it. There was like 60 comments plus.

While I was really, really grateful for the people that came to my defense, not to me but to the boxes' defense and said how much they loved it. And a lot of people were saying, the value is there cause you have to do it. If you actually do the work and read the books and stuff like that. And so it got me to thinking about things after I had my pity party. I was really upset. And I just want you guys to know that it's normal.

Even though this is business, it's normal to take things personally. but you got to at some point like process them and then like bless and release and move on. That's part of this business. You're going to get bad reviews. Sometimes you're going to get cancellations. We all have to learn to deal with that. But this one in particular, just like it hurt for whatever reason maybe it was because, I don't know, maybe I was emotional that day. But I woke up to it and that was the first thing I saw. So I gave myself some space to feel sad and my team helped me get through it. My husband helped me get through it.

But then I moved on and I try to look at it and be like, "How can I learn from this?" And the whole conversation was around added value. So in Sparkle Hustle Grow, we include a book and we include a training and we include community. So the book is a physical product, but we can't force you to read the book. You gotta do the work. You gotta read the book yourself. But the training and the community are kind of priceless. And if you're not familiar with the box and what we really stand for, you could totally miss out on those. I thought to myself, "Okay, this person didn't see the value in the stuff." But we like to position ourselves as more than just a box of stuff. And so it got me and my team to have the conversation about how are we communicating that we are more than a box of stuff.

(05:35): And one of my subscribers very kindly, I had asked her for some feedback, she's very kindly helped me think through this. And she said, "If the training is one of the most important things, and if it's so much value, why is it the smallest postcard in the box? You're not giving the indication that it's the most important thing." And then I had Brittany, from Black Girl MATHgic, she was asking me some, some questions about like, she has the same problem that she includes training materials in the box. And sometimes people overlook the training materials and like, that's really important for her box. Like they're teaching about math confidence. Of course there's going to be math materials. So, today I wanted to just talk a little bit about how we're going to make it more clear and how our team is working to make sure people understand about the community.

One, we're changing our inserts. We are going to start doing a booklet where we have a welcome note from me and then the packing list. And then, the training information and a book study, stuff like that. So we're working on that. there is a price difference. I think it was, uh, about a 50 cent per box price difference for the quantities I'm ordering to upgrade. That's one thing we're working on.

(06:47): Two, we created a welcome video and it doesn't have to be professionally produced. Three years in, we finally got one professionally produced. But it says welcome, we're so proud of you. You just made the decision to join an online community and subscription box, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You just treated yourself to the best business expense ever. And so we talk a lot about the community in there. And so that's one way we want to make sure that they're aware. And so that is on the confirmation page. When someone checks out, they get a confirmation page that shows what they've ordered and the receipt, and it has the referral information. We were able to embed that video there. We also included it in the first email of our email welcome sequence. We have, I think it's either four or five days. So we added that welcome video to the email sequence and, like bold and highlighted about the community. So people see that.

(07:42): The other thing that we're looking at doing is this is our box right now. And we have a ton of plain white real estate here in the box, and it does cost more to print the box, inside and out. But at this point in the game, like it's going to be really important to us, but we're looking on putting a success path here essentially. Like these are the steps for you to take, to have success with this box and darn right it's going to include something about joining the Facebook community. It's going to include something about doing the work, actually doing the training, because there's always a huge value there with the training. And so we're still mapping out what that looks like, but I want you guys to just, I'll take you along the journey as we develop that and as we work with Jeremy at Giver Pack to get that printed.

(08:28): Other ways that you can share about these added value, things in your box are make it a regular post in either your Facebook group, if you have one, but if not, then on your public social media. Maybe make it a point twice a month to say something or once a week even to say something about these added value things like, "Oh, what I learned in the training this week" or what I learned in, for Black Girl MATHgic, "Oh, I just finished this worksheet". Take a picture of it and say, "How did your kids do?". But make it a point to do social media and email marketing to your subscriber base to make sure that they know about those.

'Cause I feel like so often people will buy something or like sign up for something without reading exactly what they're getting and you don't want them to miss out. And I'm going to try and give everyone the benefit of the doubt and be like, "Oh, they probably just didn't know we had a community". So I'm going to tell them lots and lots of times. I'm gonna tell them on social media. I'm going to email them. I'm going to ask them, invite them via email to join. I'm going to tell it to them on the box topper, all these things and just make it that much more prominent. You know what I mean, make it in their face. What is, I don't know, the number, but it was something like, it takes an average of seven to ten times for someone to like see something in a marketing message.

Even though they've seen it many times maybe didn't catch on or maybe you've posted it and they've missed it so post it again. It feels weird on our end to post post post the same things over again, but it's training your subscribers and you're reaching new people every day. So they need to know about those, that added value as well.

(10:05): And then the last thing I had on my list was to add it on all your marketing and advertising materials. So if you're doing a Facebook group, bullet point out, I mean, not Facebook group, a Facebook ad, bullet point out all the things that someone's getting in the box. It's not just a box of stuff. It's not just four to six items, but also it is a supportive community. It is a business expense that you can write off. I'm talking obviously about Sparkle Hustle Grow, but you relate it to your box. You're getting a training, you are getting a book plus a group-led book study, that type of thing. So add that kind of thing to your marketing materials and your advertising into your website, make sure it's all there on your website.

And so I am guilty as well. I'm going to be adding some things to the website to outline things, and don't be afraid to put values next to them. Like if that training is valued at $99, and they're only paying 50 bucks for your box, show them that like you're getting the value in the training. You're getting twice what you paid for in the training value alone.

So anyhow, that's my non rant, but like my share on added value. So, all right, I look forward to checking your comments later and helping you guys figure out how to add value to your box. That is added value that's not a physical item. So, I'll just talk to you guys later.

(11:27): Thanks so much you guys for tuning in week after week after week. And I appreciate the chance to update Subscription Box Bootcamp for you guys. I'll be back with more episodes. I promise I'll be recording new material, but I'm just needing to take this time right now to really focus in on re-recording the material and creating all the amazing resources for you in Subscription Box Bootcamp.

Thanks as always for listening to subscription box basics, and I'll see you on the next episode.