Subscription Box Basics

Planning for the Holidays

October 12, 2020 Julie Ball Episode 43
Subscription Box Basics
Planning for the Holidays
Show Notes Transcript

#043 - Julie chats with Jacqueline and Minna from The Product Boss to talk about planning for the holidays.

Links:

Sparkle Hustle Grow
The Product Boss
101+ Content Ideas Beyond the Discounts

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Julie:

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! Hello everyone and welcome back to Subscription Box Basics. I'm Julie Ball, your host and today we're talking about planning for the holidays. It's so important. I know it may feel early it's October, but you've got to get a head start on it. And so today I brought some friends on the podcast to talk through it with me. I have Jacqueline and Minna from The Product Boss. So welcome ladies. I'm so excited to have you here.

Jacqueline:

Hello, thank you for having us.

Minna:

Yeah, thank you for having us.

Julie:

I'm so, so excited to talk to you guys about it. Quick backstory. Um, I've known Minna for a few years now. We actually met at The Boss Mom retreat, which if you've listened to this podcast, probably half of the guests that I've had on this podcast have been from The Boss Mom retreat. We were at the same table. Um, Minna was just telling me that I was one of her first in-person friends that she met actually met online first. So I think that just goes to show you like the in person events still do work. And while we might not be meeting in person right now, it's definitely something that we're putting on our agenda for 2021. Let's talk, let's meet the girls. If you haven't met The Product Boss gals yet. Um, they're gonna introduce themselves, tell a little bit about your background and then we're going to dive into everything. So shall we start with you Jacqueline?

Jacqueline:

Sure. So hello, I'm Jacqueline Snyder. Um, I am one half of The Product Boss podcast and The Product Boss. Um, I am a fashion designer by trade and I've been a fashion apparel and accessories consultant since 2007 where I've helped launch over 2000 fashion apparel and accessory brands. Um, never thought I was going to have my own business, that I was going to be a designer working for big fashion companies, but it turns out my entrepreneurial spirit really kicked in when I was 26 years old. And I started this company consulting people. Um, and so for about 10 and a half years, I launched, you know, thousands of lines from scratch, you know, concept through, uh, the fashion product and then through production. Um, and then at that 10 and a half years into my business, I met Minna and I know we're going to go into that story later, but I really have had experience from the traditional. We like to call it traditional, um, perspective of selling. So wholesale, direct to consumer, uh, brick and mortars. I wasn't really into the world of, um, Amazon or subscription boxes, kind of all these newer ways of selling in the more recent years. And so really when I helped my clients, I help them from, you know, concept to how do we get them to your website and how are you going to sell to retailers? Um, and I met my dear friend Minna, who I'll let her tell you a little bit about herself.

Minna:

Yeah. So I, this is Minna Khounlo-Sithep and I'm the other half of The Product Boss podcast. And we really, um, you know, I actually started in graphic design and that's something that's always stick with, stuck with me through the decades of being an entrepreneur. I have gone down other rabbit holes of, you know, I published a book. I did all these different things, but I'm also the owner of Lil' Labels, which is a product based business. It's um, waterproof labels for baby bottles. So when I met Julie at Boss Mom, I was really just in the beginning part. I think I was a year and a half. Oh no, maybe a year into Lil' Labels. And I remember significantly that she was one of my in-person friends because we were assigned to the same table and I'm very much an introvert, but I had done coffee chats with a lot of people. Cause if you don't remember Julie, that was the time of coffee chats. It really was. And um, it took a lot of pushing and prodding for me to ever go to my first in-person conference, which happened to be Boss Mom in January. And we were, we were seated together and I thought, this seems really easy to make in-person friends. It turns out it was Julie because she's so warm and wonderful. And you know, there's certain people that you meet that always stick with you. And I think that for, for me meeting my first in-person friend, that's why she sticks out to me because I was such an introvert. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to in-person conference. And what Julie tells you is true is that when you meet somebody in person, it really bonds you together. Keep pushing yourself out of that comfort zone. So I own a Lil' Labels and I sell primarily on Amazon. And so a lot of big box places, Amazon Jet, Walmart, all those big retailers. That really that's where I put my focus. And then when I met Jacqueline, we kind of put those two together, right. She was out of the traditional world of wholesale and bringing things to market with B2B trade shows. And I was of the other realm of Amazon and Amazon or Walmart.com. The other part of it where it's like these big box stores getting online are really pushing to it like a third party marketplace. So we're getting really in deep at this point, but, um, that's really how we started talking the same language of Product Boss. We often refer to that as our love language. And that really is what sparked our friendship and relationship was feeling like,"Wow, there's somebody that really gets what I'm saying" and finding that in each other.

Julie:

Yeah. I think that's important because I remember when we met, you had given everyone samples of your little label.

Minna:

Yeah. I forgot about that.

Julie:

Which was perfect because it was the Boss Mom retreat and it's a product for moms. And I just remember feeling when I was talking to you about things, I was like,"Whoa, she knows a lot about a lot". That was so overwhelming to me. I had just started my product based business and I was selling on the Cratejoy marketplace and on my website and you're talking about, you know, scaling through Amazon. It just seemed really overwhelming to me. But then we bonded over the taco food truck. We had other friends that we met there too, including Renee Gonzalez and the all have girls the same age. And I remember that was one thing that we bonded over and Renee was my first hire in Sparkle Hustle Grow and is my right hand gal. She's our Director of customer experience at this time. So that event just was, it was so amazing that the people that I got to meet. So thank you both for telling your stories. Now tell us about how then The Product Boss got started and what your mission is and how you serve your audience.

Jacqueline:

So, funny enough, we are also an online relationship. It was my first online business friend I feel like. It's really interesting story. Cause we both have been married for a long time. We never got to date online. And so we kind of feel like this is our experience. Um, we had met through a community, an online community, a podcast that had a female entrepreneurial community and sort of the same idea. The podcast had mentioned Minna about that she could one day be an Amazon expert, but she sold product. Kind of like how you said she does know a lot about a lot. And I remember being in the community and thinking I'm going to reach out to her on Facebook and ask her questions because at the time, while I've been consulting, I had my own product line as well, called Cuffs Couture. And I was at the tail end of it, phones got bigger, it was a wearable wrist wallet. It just didn't make sense anymore. And I wanted to sort of, I had a lot of product and I wanted to liquidate it and I thought Amazon could be the place. So I reached out to Minna and she's like, Hey, let's do a coffee chat. And I was like, what is this coffee chat that you speak of? And we met online and we started talking and she's like,"Amazon's not the place to liquidate. It's a place to grow your brand". And I was like,"Oh, that's really interesting". And then her and I took the relationship off that coffee chat and we sort of started chatting on Voxer, which is a voice app system. And kind of like you said, when you met Minna, it was like,"Oh, we could talk the same language". And she actually doesn't talk about this, but she was also selling to subscription boxes. And funny enough, I actually knew Minna's product before I ever knew her when I lived in New York, because one of her products was in a kid's subscription box that I got. Yeah. I was like,"Oh, you're famous and

Minna:

Among dozens.

Jacqueline:

Yeah. Which is amazing for marketing. Right. Um, and so, yeah, so we had met that way. And similarly we talked and talked for like six months and I was asked to host a panel at the LA textile show because I'm from Los Angeles originally. And I would speak a lot at the like Ms. Fashion textile trade show. And I asked me, and I was like,"Hey, do you want to maybe meet for the first time, come to LA speak on this panel with me? And maybe just, maybe we sell a mastermind afterwards" and she's like,"Sure".

Julie:

No big deal.

Jacqueline:

My brother was like,"Hold on. You're about to share an Airbnb with a woman you've never met and start a business with her?" I was like,"Yes!".

Minna:

But I think online friendships and online relationships really happen fast. You know?

Jacqueline:

So we did and we launched it. We had, the panel was amazing. We sold out of our mastermind spots at that live event. Um, the speaking event and we were like, Ooh, we didn't even form the business yet. And that's really where The Product Boss started, where we started a mastermind for product based entrepreneurs. So what The Product Boss is that we are here to help product based business owners build profitable businesses with strategies for improving their systems, growing their visibility and ultimately making more sales. And so our goal is, is to really support the community of makers, manufacturers, people who have products, also subscription box owners or businesses, um, and really building lives that they want and businesses that they want that fulfill what they want, whether it's more money, whether it's leaving their full time job, whether it's supporting their family and retiring their husbands, whatever it is, our goal is to really create community and education to support everybody in that growth of their business.

Julie:

It is so needed. I'll tell you that because it is as a product based business owner, it's just so overwhelming at first. And it's like, you don't even know where to start. So you guys then through your programs, right, you take people from idea to scaling, right?

Minna:

Um, we have courses, uh, we don't work with a lot of startups though. They do come in for our courses and we educate them on all the different pockets that they might need help on. Whether it's Instagram, email, all those different things. We have a signature course that helps them Uplevel. It's called Multistream Machine. That is really where we focus on what Jacqueline was talking about, systems visibility and sales. And that's when they're taking, let's say you have a handmade business or you're pouring candles, you make jewelry. That takes it to the next level of thinking about how can you make money on a consistent basis from your, you know, hobby at that time or whatever it was, you know, maybe it's at that perfect time where you can Uplevel your business. And then we also have masterminds, but you have to qualify for our masterminds. Um, and those are closer knit ones where we find that it's most effective of the, of when they have a physical product that they've already been in business and made a certain amount of money that we can really go in deep with them and figure out, okay, now that we have this small group of all these eyes and the businesses, what can we do now?

Julie:

I love that. We're actually thinking about what we're going to launch some sort of small group program as well, where you have to qualify where you have a certain number of sales, a certain number of subscribers, because what we've found is that you experience growth and then you plateau, experience growth and then plateau. And at these different plateaus, you have very, very different challenges to overcome, you know, the where you're at at a hundred boxes versus 500 versus a thousand and more. It's so different. So we'll be sharing more details about that soon, but let's talk now about the holidays because they're creeping up on us fast, and this is going to be an epic year for online sales specifically. So let's talk a little bit about like when to start planning and executing your holiday promotions. Since we're talking about this right now, obviously that was the time to plan, but what do you recommend when it comes to like executing? Do we, do we wait until Black Friday, Cyber Monday? Do we wait until December 1st? I'm thinking the answer is probably no, because the answer is no,

Jacqueline:

Absolutely not. Well, I do want to say just online shopping, I think over 70% of Americans, I forget where we read the stat, but, um, we'll be doing all of their online shop, all of their shopping for the holidays online and they are buying earlier. And we all know that, especially in the States that there's uncertainty every day is uncertain. We're not sure what's going to happen the next day. So what we know that there's the planners, there's people who want to buy earlier. And we were seeing it like we saw Starbucks launch their Fall drinks, like pumpkin spice lattes. In August of this year, we saw Halloween candy in August of this year. So things are being pushed earlier. And if you follow these bigger brands that have huge marketing dollars, you can start to see like, Ooh, they're people. What we've realized in our community is people want to just kind of like move on. They want the year to get joyful. Again, they want to get in. You can see us, Julie's wearing a Santa hat and I'm wearing like a crown right now because we really wanted to keep this a festive podcasts Minna, what do you think?

Minna:

Yeah. I think people are ready for that holiday mood. They want that nostalgia. They want the traditions to still continue. We saw even with school starting, what big decisions can we can, they can wear you down. Right. And I think that people are looking forward to having an amazing, um, 2020 holiday season. And a lot of it will be from online experience. So the question is, how can you bring the online experience to your own brand, right? How can you bring your brand to the online experience and really showcase it in the way that your customers want you to show up? So we have a really good opportunity right now because we're planning so far ahead to warm up our audience in the way that they want to be loved on. You know, so they, right now they're wanting to feel the holiday mood. They really want you to have the foresight to say order early. And here are our bestsellers, for example, and you know, to give them a little bit of alleviation of, of, um, making decisions in such a crazy weird time in our lives. But also because we all need to that, uh, levity, we need to laugh. We need the joyfulness, we need the mood. And, um, and, and also you can't immediately ask them to buy from you. Right now we all have the opportunity to warm them up, to engage with them, to actually create a bond with them. Because the special thing about 2020 is that bonds made during these times will be especially crucial for how you grow your business. We really are getting bonded to our audience. And the more you can refer back to her needs, let's say, right. If it's a woman, It's your avatar. The more you can meet her needs during this time, the more bonded she'll get to you. And she'll remember you past 2020, she'll remember you at next Christmas. And that is really you showing up right now is really important to get that those moments in with her. Cause it takes a little bit of, you know, touchpoints and then moving that online.

Julie:

Yeah. So give them the warm and fuzzies, nurture them.

Minna:

nurture them. That's right.

Julie:

Are you in what you're seeing, do you think then people are going to be running their traditional Black Friday, Cyber Monday deals before that holiday shopping weekend hits.

Jacqueline:

We, so we've planned out the final three months of the year at Q4 for our community. We have a, we'll talk about a little bit later, but we have this, um, little mini tool course, um, where we've actually planned out every single day of something to talk about to your community. And what we said was they can run a sale at say an October. We're seeing the Amazon Prime day is coming up, uh, October 13, 14th. Um, did they, they had to push it from their normal time in July, but they're, they're having an October before Black Friday. So we encourage that. If you feel like you want to have your own sort of Prime day type sale earlier, you can. Um, we were really talking about November as being Cyber month versus that five days. So we still, people are still holding their dollars for Black Friday. They're not going to Best Buy and waiting in line all night, though. They will be online. Yeah. So we're still the general consumer is still waiting and holding their dollars for the traditional Cyber five. But you can, as you start to talk to your audience, you could do early deals, people on your list, you can start to really start to test some things out. Otherwise we were talking about Cyber month because the month is going to be again, it's elections. There's going to be a lot of weird things happening during the holiday season. So we're not sure, we're not sure when the election is going to have a result. We're not sure what's going to happen. So if you have the opportunity I think, to, to sell and make money and do as much as you can prior to the unknown, which everyday normally is unknown anyways.

Julie:

Righ now yeah.

Jacqueline:

But we're kind of trying to, we're trying to have our fortune, our ball and we'll be like,"Oh, this is what's gonna happen in the future". So yeah, I think you can start to sell now, but again, it's what Mina and I have been pushing actually with our community is, is building your email list. I'm really pushing and saying, like join our email list. So you're notified of when we have sales. So whenever you decide to drop those sales, they're aware of it because they've joined your email list.

Julie:

Yeah, that's smart. We're actually, um, our team is planning out our schedule right now for the five, but also for the entire month of November. So we can pre scheduled them all in our email service provider so that we can actually enjoy our holiday too. Like, we want to be present on Thanksgiving with our family. We don't want to be hustling. And um, so I think that's also a benefit of planning out earlier. So let's talk about mistakes. So I'm sure that you see a lot people making mistakes as they prepare their holiday season. I'd love to hear what some of those are so we can learn from them. And I'm guessing one of them would be, is waiting, waiting till the last minute. You know, that's why we're talking about this now. That's why we're encouraging the audience to plan ahead. But what are some of the other things you see people making mistakes, where they're missing out on that increased demand for gifts and that increased demand for online sales.

Minna:

So I think the big one is, even though we're telling you to get prepared ahead of time, and I honestly believe you can set it all into your calendar, even on automation right now, but the mistake is made in not coming back to it. So you should also putting notifications in your calendar to engage right, to come back and set it and don't forget it. So when you're enjoying pumpkin pie with your family and you have, let's say a sale for that day, you know that there's a schedule in your day that for this hour, you're going to go and engage with your audience, right? You need to bring that hype right. The Holiday hype. And so that will just give you this, um, ability to kind of enjoy that time with your family, but also to enjoy that time with your customers too, because you really need to get excited. You really need to engage with them and you can, you know, it's the power of suggestion, just put them in the right direction. And that is super, super helpful.

Julie:

And that doesn't have to be overwhelming that doesn't know all day or whatever. Like you said, just schedule a little time slot to show up and share your excitement for it and then let everything else run as scheduled. I like that.

Jacqueline:

Yeah. Um, I think another thing that I see is that, um, people try and do all the things are not enough. So they're either thinking I'm a lot of you and I'm sure a lot of your listeners are like, I don't want to do promotions for Black Friday. I don't want to train my customers to expect a sale. We hear that a lot. Like they don't want to train the discount shopping, but what we want you to know is that consumers are expecting this. This is the time of year. If any time of year they're expecting some sort of deal or discount or bundle or something special that's holiday promotion. Um, so either they're not doing it, they might pick one day to do it. Or they're saying, I'm going to do all of it. I'm going to do Cyber Five. I'm going to do it 12 days of Christmas. I'm going to do it November start. I'm gonna do everything. And if you haven't been running promotions, if you don't have a team, if you've don't send emails consistently, if you don't have, um, a lot of traction, like a lot of transactions happening, it's also too much. So we just want you to step it up one level. So it's like, if you normally do Black Friday, maybe you decide to do the whole Cyber Five, which is, you know, Thanksgiving to cyber Monday. If you always do the cyber five, maybe you decide to launch something a bit earlier, like for cyber month. Uh, we really, we don't want you to get that's, we've just run a, um, we have this challenge called Rock Your Holiday Promotions challenge, where we help people plan their challenges. Yeah. So many of your community are in there. And what we'll see is either they're like, we give them a list to check off what they want to participate in. And they mark them all. We're like, okay, hold on. Don't do all of them. Let's pick what makes sense for your customers and what makes sense for you as a business.

Julie:

It's overwhelming for us as the business owner to do all the things, but it's confusing for the customer. Then it's like, wait,"What is this? Like, what's the offer?" And if you're switching it up and trying to do too many offers, it can become overwhelming for them. And then that gives them decision paralysis, and then they will buy, right? So, and this is a good opportunity too, for the listeners. If you guys have excess inventory, use that as like a free gift with purchase instead of doing a discount and you can move some of that inventory out as a using it as a promotional tool.

Jacqueline:

I love that. And one of my, one of my other tips was going to be to lean into your best sellers. Um, what I think so many people do sometimes as they think, what am I going to put on sale? And they kind of want to put on the stuff that they want to liquidate sometimes on sale, instead of realizing their bestseller can help push other product through.

Julie:

So bundle it.

Jacqueline:

Bundle it, exactly. We teach bundles. So sometimes when you don't want to do a promotion or a discount, maybe if you bundle two things together, like your bestseller and one other product, even if it's the exact same price as it would be, like you said, there's decision fatigue and paralysis. Well, when you make a choice for them, you're like, Hey, this is the perfect gift. And it's put together and it's led by your star product. Then it is easier to move. So, um, after Christmas sales are great for liquidation, I love the idea of like a giveaway or free gift with purchase. Cause again, if you can't move it, you might as well get it out of your office. I mean, let's get it gone.

Julie:

Yeah. It's just like, it's stagnating your cash flow. It's taking up space. Yeah. Find a way to move that inventory. So let's close out here with some of your top tips for planning your holiday promotions, like what's working. What are some of your favorite tips that you're sharing with your community, that subscription box businesses could also use?

Minna:

So I think my favorite one is that you can never repeat yourself enough or you can never show up enough. Right? So I think that that there's this, especially being an introvert, I always think they've already heard me or I'm showing up too much or I don't want to annoy them or, you know, they should. I think that they already know. And the answer usually is no, they don't. Assume nothing. And so even when you they've heard it, a thousand times, they have their own lives. They have other offers that are in their inbox. They have so many things going on that as you, you know, put the same offer, whether it be in social media, on, um, email, wherever, it clears up, any confusion, like what you said with, um, but also it just reinforces that offer to them or reinforces your messaging. It reinforces the buying decision that they have to make with you, that leap of trust. And so I think that that's the thing is that don't hold yourself back to feel like you have already said it because you have it. Don't hold yourself back to think that you've already shown up because you could definitely show up if you feel in feel so, you know, pulled to show up on video 20 times a day, you, you do it, you know, because that is okay for you to show up that many times. So as you're going through the holiday season, I would say, just keep repeating your, what your messaging is and repeating your offers and just making it really consistent.

Julie:

I'm glad you said that because it can feel awkward, especially if you're a solopreneur. You're the only one sending emails. You're the only one posting on social media and they're like,"Oh, I've already said this 10 times". Well, I think it's important as well, because what if someone's not on Facebook for a couple of days, then they have missed your message. Or maybe someone hasn't checked their email in a few days, they may have missed your message. So you not only do you need frequency, like people need to see it multiple times to take action on it. You just never know where they're spending their time. So just keep putting that message out there. So I'm really glad that you said that because I think a lot of my bootcampers my subscription box bootcampers can feel that, like that hesitation, like,"Oh, I don't, I don't want to become annoying. I don't want to post it too much", but just keep posting it, right?

Minna:

Yup.

Jacqueline:

We hear it too. Cause we have a very similar community and um, it's,"I don't want to send too many emails" or, you know,"I get annoyed when people send me emails", I send an email once a month or you know, maybe twice a month. Um, we recommend sending emails at least once a week. At least if you guys can move to that, let's do it. It doesn't always have to be a sale email. There's so many ways and, and Minna and I talk a lot about content and we, and we, um, we have this new thing called 101 Content Ideas Beyond the Discounts.

Julie:

Tell us more. Tell us more about that.

Jacqueline:

Yeah. So I'm just gonna bring that up because it kind of goes back to all we're talking about because we know I'm the extrovert in the relationship. I mean, there's the introvert, there's, there's this, there's this place that we meet. And then there's our community. And a lot of them are introverts or they just don't know what to say. And they don't want to sound salesy. We get that a lot, but it is your job as a business to sell your product. That's literally what you're doing. And how do you do that? Well, you have to do that with marketing and, and we know that you don't want to be salesy. So we'd, we give you content ideas and it's called 101 Content Ideas Beyond the Discounts, the holiday edition for 2020. Cause remember we talked about voting, we talked about the pandemic. There's so many things happening this year. Um, and so we've really updated this content idea because we want to give you ways to show up and talk about your product, where you could really highlight it. Like one of them is like, this is our best seller and this is why customers love it. Or to talk about product features. It showed behind the scenes of you packing up your stuff and shipping it. Content ideas could even be, get your orders in because USPS is a little wonky this year. We want to make sure they get there in time for Christmas. So we really want you to just keep the conversation. Like imagine you're speaking to one person and keep the conversation going with your community. It's important for them to hear from you and also know that they're buying from a real person because above and beyond this year, what we've seen is that people want to buy from people. The bigger businesses are closing, but our community is thriving. Small product based business owners that we've worked with are having their like record breaking years because they stepped up. Um, we're not able to spend all of our dollars at Target or Home Goods or all the places we used to go to. It just like lose all of our money on random stuff we don't need. Now we're making value-based decisions. Um, so anyways, if they are interested, if any of you are interested in, you want more things to say to your customers, this is super important. We've had thousands of people go through this and it's at HolidayContentIdeas.com. So it's HolidayContentIdeas.com and it's our 101 Content Ideas Beyond the Discounts. And it's our 2020 holiday edition.

Julie:

I love that you updated it. I have it from last year and I have it printed out in my little holiday folder. And I just took that folder with me to our little planning, get together with my team. And we were going through some of these ideas and now I'm like, Oh, okay, we do need an updated version. C ause there's so much different. So that's cool that you updated it. And thank you for sharing that link. We'll put it in the show notes. So for those of you who w ant to, u m, listen to the podcast or follow, u m, J acqueline and Minna, where can they find you guys? Where are you online?

Minna:

Well, you can listen to our podcast, which anywhere you listen, we're at The Product Boss Podcast. You can find us on there. We're also on Instagram all the time. Both of us are we're at The Product Boss and our website is TheProductBoss.com and you can find all kinds of things on there as well.

Julie:

Love it. And I, I watched your videos all the time. You guys do tons of little tips, videos, so, and I was on your podcast, one of the fastest, one of the first 20 episodes or something. So I'm so excited to be able to return the favor and have you guys on my podcast now.

Jacqueline:

Thanks, Julie. Awesome.

Minna:

Thank you, Julie.

Julie:

Right on! I hope you guys enjoyed listening to our conversation and that you feel motivated now to get your holidays planned out. You want to make sure you get a head start. Um, so not only so you can capitalize on this increased demand, but also so you can enjoy yourself and you and your team could have a little break. You know, that things are gonna go as planned. Um, but still show up, right?

Jacqueline:

Yeah, still show up.

Julie:

Thanks guys again for listening and we'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 4:

[inaudible].

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