Introducing 1:1 Virtual VIB days (Very Important Box)

#063 - In this episode, Julie is joined by Amy and Renae to introduce a unique one-on-one coaching program that the team is offering. It's called the virtual VIB(Very Important Box) Day.

Tune in to know the details on how Julie, Amy, or Renae can help you strategize, problem-solve and inspire you to take action and move your business forward.

If the virtual VIB days program sounds like something you'll be interested in, you can head on over to https://www.subscriptionboxbootcamp.com/VIB.

Links:

https://www.subscriptionboxbootcamp.com/VIB
https://www.instagram.com/subscriptionboxbootcamp/

Transcript

Julie: 0:01

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 everybody, and welcome back to Subscription Box Basics, the podcast. I'm your host, Julie Ball. And I am so happy right now because I'm just grinning from ear to ear because I have two of my favorite people, my team members on the podcast with me today. I have Amy Lochran and Renae Gonzales. Ah, ladies, welcome to the podcast!

Amy: 0:44

Thank you for having us.

Julie: 0:47

So we today are going to talk about something super exciting. We get asked all the time, if we do one-on-one coaching and that's what we're going to talk about because we have a new one-on-one coaching offer that we want to share with you. And so you're going to hear all about it today. You're going to learn a little bit about what Amy does, what Renea does and what I do and how we can help you through this thing that we call our virtual VIB day and VIB stands for very important box. So before we dive in and kind of tell you how it all works, Renae and Amy, will you guys introduce yourself while we start with you Amy, and tell them a little bit about your background, of course.

Amy: 1:31

So thank you so much again for having me, as Julie said, my name is Amy. I'm the Director of Operations at Sparkle Hustle Grow and then here on Subscription Box Bootcamp. And I love all the things that most people who build a business hate. And so I like systems and spreadsheets and making things sexy and because the S's really work together in my opinion. My background comes from over a decade of corporate experience doing that whole climbing the ladder thing, and then just running like,"I don't really like this ladder. I think I would be happier if I did something that was at my own pace, which is relatively fast." And then also always getting to work with people that I love because you don't get that choice in corporate. And so that's kind of where I started in the online space and have felt incredibly lucky to be working in this team. And then I also offer consulting for service-based businesses and operation support for people who just really want to make their systems work for them and realize cookie cutter isn't always the answer. And I'm a really big fan of making something customized because that's what's important for you to love your own business.

Julie: 2:43

And at the risk of sounding a little bit dirty, you like to look at people's backend as a business, the backend of the business, people. Don't get your head out of the gutter.

Amy: 2:55

It doesn't matter what it looks like. It still looks good to me.

Julie: 3:03

What I love is that Amy acknowledges from the get go she's like everyone's backend of their business is always a little bit messy. And that's where her zone of genius is. And she can come in and help you sort out those systems and just take so much weight off your shoulders because you know exactly what needs to happen every single day. Your team members know what they need to do, and it is a beautiful thing. So I am very grateful to have you on the team, Amy.

Amy: 3:27

Thank you so much.

Julie: 3:28

Yeah. Renae why don't you introduce yourself.

Renae: 3:32

Hello everyone. So I am Renae and I also serve on both the Sparkle Hustle Grow and the Subscription Box Bootcamp teams. And then I run my own creative agency called Sandbox Creative, and I helped subscription box owners with marketing and also just anything email marketing, customer service. So, and then before I've been in the subscription box industry now for almost four years. And then before that I was a kindergarten teacher turned boutique owner. I owned a brick and mortar shop for over seven years. So have lots of past experience both in the teaching realm and in the business side and with customer service and all fun things marketing.

Julie: 4:19

And Renae has been my right hand gal for so many years now. And she's also my hype gal. When I need a little pick me up or if I just need some encouragement, I feel like I'm a cheerleader, but even the cheerleader needs a cheerleader. And Renae is that for me? So what a super fun team you guys, I am so blessed to have them. And what we want to tell you about is this. This coaching, this unique coaching program that we have, where you can choose any of us for your coaching session. So if you need help in the operations, you've got Amy. If you need help with marketing or customer service, you've got Renae, or if you need help with overall box strategy. And some of that nitty-gritty stuff you've got me. So this unique opportunity is a one-on-one coaching session over a period of, wait for it, eight hours. It's not like those one-on-one sessions where you have to show up and be on point and just like be ready for and be on for that one hour session. You have a period of eight hours to work with us using a free walkie talkie style phone app. And that app is called Voxer. And I'm going to throw it over to Amy to tell us a little bit more about how Voxer works.

Amy: 5:41

Thank you. So I think you really explained it in it's easiest sense. Voxer is an app you can download on your iPhone or Android devices. It's completely free to use. And really what it does is it turns your phone into an immediate walkie-talkie to anyone else who has the app. And so when you're using it, you can directly respond and get quick feedback on anything you can need. You can talk out the things, which is why we liked this so much, because sometimes if you think all these thoughts are jumbled in my head, I really need help with somebody to like break it all down for me, but then you think,"Oh my gosh, I have to write it down." That can seem so exhausting. And we realize it. And so Voxer lets us go in and have a communication back and forth over the span of the entire day. So you can really get movement. And it's just the simple as clicking a button. If you want to type you can, if you end up in a VIB day with me and you want to send gifs, just know you're going to get them back because they're my love language. But it's, it's probably one of my favorite tech apps out there.

Julie: 6:42

I would agree. And we use it the three of us on a daily basis to share information, to throw ideas, you know, to each other and get feedback. And that's what you'll have with us during your VIP day, you will virtually have a coach in your back pocket. We will be messaging back and forth with you all day. And let's take a step back to, to prepare for this. You will have a short survey that's going to help you identify what your goals are. We want to make sure that we prepare in advance and that we're really in alignment to help you reach those goals. Then starting at 9:00 AM. You have the whole day, basically 9:00 AM Eastern to 5:00 PM Eastern. You can send text, audio or short video messages to your coach and we'll respond back within an hour. But you know, one of the things that we love about this is we have time to like mull over the question. We have time to think things through, we have time to volley back and forth with questions to help you get clarity and to provide you with really solid coaching. It takes a bit of the pressure off of both parties, and brings down that intensity level of those, you know, one hour coaching intensive. That's why we chose this format because one, we love Voxer. Two, we want to be able to support you in a way that feels good and that is going to get you to your goals. And, honestly, like I said, it works so successfully for our team. So we want to offer you that same option. So let's talk about some questions that we think that you might have. We already talked about why we're using this format. It's a free walkie talkie style app. It's super fun. It allows us to respond back and forth. Actually, when you think about it, you don't have to be tied to your phone all day.

Renae: 8:39

Absolutely. And I think that regard, it makes it easy to book because regardless of what you have going on, instead of having that dedicated hour, where maybe you're meeting with a coach and you hash it out, but then you don't have time to implement and follow through this makes it really nice. Because like you said, regardless of what you have going on during the day, you still have time to do that brainstorming work or send a picture or get feedback and then same for us on the coaches. And we can still give you that feedback and then allow that time for brainstorming and thinking it through and then giving a good reply back to. So if you are taking a coaching session, you could be at the beach and still moving your business forward.

Julie: 9:19

Exactly. You might have a mid-day meeting or maybe you're going to brunch. We're still going back and forth at your convenience. You can respond when you want. And so kind of that leads to a really good question. How many questions can I ask? And quite honestly, you can ask as many questions as you need to throughout your session. So we're here. We want to help you get past these obstacles. We want to help you level up the conversation on this app is going to be private between you and whichever coach that you're working with.It's going to be a judgment free space. It is going to be a supportive space and you know, it might feel like that's a long period of time that eight hours. But again you won't need to be glued to your phone all day. It's going to be this natural conversation back and forth, and we can not wait to be there for you and to support you along the way and help you reach those goals. So the next question that I want to bring up is like, so what do we talk about? Right? So depending on which coach you choose, there's different specialties that each of us have. So I'm going to pass the mic back over to Amy. And she is going to tell you what some of the topics that you might book her for, what topics that she can really help you get through.

Amy: 10:40

Oh, so many Julie, so, so many. So my zone of genius is operations. And so I live in a land of, yes, this could be working, but could it be better? Could it be simpler? Does there any area that really stresses you out or annoys you and your business? I'll give you guys a hint. This is one of the first questions I'll ask. Because those are the things that I like to overcome because typically it's either something between the way that you might be choosing to work, what you have set up or how your entire process goes, that we can clarify and identify. And it's one of the things that I'm so excited about this format, because I'm sure all of us have had that time where you're in a conversation. And then 30 minutes later, you're like,"Ah, if I had only thought to say this, or this was something I really wanted to ask." That pressure's gone now and for where I'm specializing in it's with operations to understand your business. It's important for me to know a couple of things. So I'll ask you specific information. I'll give you a,"Hey, how would this feel?" And being able to have that information come back to be like, yeah, I mean, like, that sounds pretty, but it doesn't really match like where I intuitively work. And so we would spend a lot of times like of the time talking about your workflows, your day, how we can organize things. I mean, just like all that stuff where when you wake up in the morning and you're like,"Man, I can't wait to assess the back end of my business." I got you.

Julie: 12:15

One of the things that I loved most about, especially when you and I started working together, Amy were that you asked me questions like,"So what's your typical day like", or," Tell me about how you manage your customer service or how you manage this." And you were asking me specifically about processes and most of the time those processes were just in my head and you're like,"No, that you need to take them out of your head and you need to put them on paper or you need to document them digitally." That way we can, I can help you find the right person, maybe that you're going to hire out to take that process off your plate. And it was just this wonderful feeling of like, it felt like there was so much weight on me. As a small business owner where I had a very small team, I think at the time it was just Renae, maybe one other person. And you're like, yeah, we can simplify all this stuff, but I need to see how it works. Like you got to take it all out of your head and let other people help you. And some of that even had mindset issues that you were really good at talking me through about letting certain things go, being devil's advocate saying,"Well, yeah, that works that way. But have you tried it this way?" And you are a pro at spreadsheets too. I will say that. So you blew my mind with some spreadsheet work and I'm like,"What? How does, I didn't even know that could happen." So yes, your favorite quote, everything calls for a spreadsheet, right?

Amy: 13:42

That's the piece that not a lot of people realize is so important. Like the mindset of how you run your business and even like whether or not hiring is in the near future for somebody like we understand you're creating and building a business, there are so many systems and automations and things out there that cost zero or very little, and I'm a naturally frugal person by nature. And so I will be the first person to say like, I mean, we could correct this and it'd be like this amount. Or like, if you want to go like, you know, blazing and we spend a ton of money, I'll give you the recommendation on it, but we'll have that real conversation where it's, does it make sense for you and your business where you want to scale? And why do you want to scale there? Because if you give conflicting information with whoever you choose as your VIB coach, like, we'll tell you like, yes, but here's the impact it'll have on your goals and your future. So you really can get that traction through the day.

Julie: 14:34

Yeah. I love that. So if you feel like you really are having some roadblocks in your processes, in your systems, or you just don't know what's next, or what's like...

Amy: 14:45

As soon as the days are heavy. Like as soon as the days get heavy, that's usually where I'm the person that can come in and there's going to be a good two to three things. We can switch around immediately where the next week you're like,"Oh, I like my business again!"

Julie: 15:02

Yes, It's like that breath of relief, just like,"Oh, thank goodness we fixed that" you know? Okay. Let's throw the mic to Renae. Renae, let's talk about what some topics that you might cover with someone on a VIB coaching day.

Renae: 15:16

All right, let's do it. Well, I will not look at your business backend. I will help you.

Amy: 15:23

Backend belongs to me.

Renae: 15:23

I will help you get your business in front of your ideal subscribers. So anything marketing related, anything talking to your customer. A big thing that I could envision working through the day through Voxer would be a welcome series for your emails or a nurture sequence. Something where we would be able to get so much work done in the period of a day, just going back and forth brainstorming, and really putting things forward and in motion. So the beginning of the day you feel lost in your, you get these leads, but you don't know where they go. And then by the end of the day, you're able to have a whole series in place to really start to nurture your ideal customer to turn them into your subscribers and then anything social media strategy as well. And something I hadn't even thought of. But as we were talking on this talk, batch scheduling day, if you're like, okay, I need accountability. Like I have a couple ideas for social media, but I need someone to talk to bounce ideas off of back and forth throughout the day. If we did a batch scheduling VIB day and from the start to the end of the day, just work on getting things in place, in an automated for social media or email. I think that would be a really good use of the day and something where you would then same, not necessarily on the backend of your business, but just kind of have a weight off your shoulders by the end of the day, with your marketing. So you can be focused on other things for your business, for the remainder of the time.

Amy: 17:02

It's really good.

Julie: 17:04

That's a really good idea. And you know, when you think about it, you have been doing community engagement posts. You have been doing the front public facing Facebook page and Instagram page for years now for Sparkle Hustle Grow. So you have a lot of background and experience on what works. What's getting engagement. You're really good at creative thinking too. So when you get to know a business and when you sign up for a VIP coaching day with us, we are going to get to know you on a really much deeper level. Then Renae has this great ability to creatively think about, like, these would be some things that you could talk about in your lead nurture sequence, or maybe these are some of the things that you could post on your public page or here's how you can repurpose certain content in multiple places, thus making your life easier. Right?

Speaker 3: 17:57

And one of the great things about this format, regardless of who you're talking to, and we've already touched on it, but you can totally do that. Like, let me send you a screenshot of what I have so far. So not only is it just brainstorming, but you're getting instant feedback on what you're actually working on. So like if it was a social media posts, it would be something that we could bounce back and forth on the actual social media posts before it gets published, rather than it being just some like,"Oh, if you're crafting it, you could use your brand colors." It would be feedback on that post, which if you were just working with someone for an hour, for example, it wouldn't necessarily get that back and forth feedback on. So this VIB, the more I think about it, I'm loving it.

Julie: 18:41

That's awesome. Yeah. I'm so excited. And, just to tell you guys some ideas of maybe some topics that you would book me for is, I mean, you guys have been listening to me for hopefully a year now, cause what a year and a half the podcast is about a year and a half old now. So any of the topics I've covered in the past, I'm open to chatting with you, but very specifically, if you are brand new and you just need feedback on your subscription box idea and where to start and you aren't wanting to do the full bootcamp, this would be a great option for you. I could talk you through, you know, your prelaunch. I could talk to you about margins and pricing. We could just, I could help you get clarity on your next steps, whether that's at the beginning, the middle or like the scaling stage. So there's so many things that I would love to chat with you about. We could talk about building a strong, relatable brand. I've been an entrepreneur for 10 years now and have a background in marketing and web specifically online marketing. So I'd love to talk to you about that. We can also dig deep on what's broken in your business. A lot of times we have someone, we have box owners that come to me and they're like,"Oh, I just can't, I can't get past 25 or I can't get past a hundred subscribers" or, you know,"I have 200 subscribers, but my margins are really bad." Sometimes you just need to talk it out with someone who's been there already and has that experience. And over the past four and a half years running Sparkle Hustle Grow, I've learned a lot of things the hard way. And I don't want you to have to do that. That's the benefit of having a coach. That's what happens when you invest in yourself and you invest in a coach is that you can experience less overwhelm. You can experience growth faster and with fewer tears. Am I right about that? And it's just, it, it is one of those things where, especially if you've plateaued say you've grown to a certain level and you've plateaued at the same level for a few months, sometimes you just want to talk it out with someone who's been there already and say, okay, now it's time for you to do this. And all three of us, no matter what coach you pick have a natural, like encouraging cheerleader style mentality too. Amy plays a little more of the devil's advocate, which is so good within operations because oftentimes I'll say something, well, we're going to do this project and she'd be like,"Wait a second. Let's let's talk about it."

Amy: 21:16

The Yes, Maybe side of things.

Julie: 21:17

Exactly. And now you listeners have an opportunity to have those same conversations with any one of us through the VIB coaching program. So any last thoughts on it, ladies?

Renae: 21:31

I think if you are, if you have questions or you're on the fence, just like always, you can reach out to us through DMs on Subscription Box Bootcamp on our Instagram or email to, we are support@subscriptionboxbootcamp.com. So I think knowing that, well, hopefully this was very informational. If you have questions, we're still available to answer questions as well.

Amy: 21:56

Yeah. And I think I heard a quote, I won't be able to like directly quoted, but I heard it, this week where it was really like the most expensive thing you can do in a business is not take action or to keep trying by yourself over and over again. And I, myself, I know I've been guilty of that where it's like,"Oh, I'll figure this out." But when you look at how much time you could either lose or, you know, just the stress, it brings on yourself. I'm so excited about this because we'll be able to get you where you want to be so much faster. So if you feel the pull to it, I mean we're a hundred percent in your court. And I think one of the things we didn't bring up, I do want to say, this is if you have someone, if you book me or you book Renae, Julie, whoever, and you ask a question because we're also on Voxer all the time and I'm not sure I then have my two teammates to be able to reach out to, and the same for Julia and Renae. So like, you'll have so much support on like a hive mentality of like really responsible hype business owners. I mean, like, come on. I'm really glad

Julie: 23:03

That you, that you brought that up. It's true. We will be on Voxer supporting each other. You will book with one of us, but the ripple effect, you know, we'll, we'll all be chiming in. Let's be, let's be real about that.

Amy: 23:15

Like that buy one, get two free thing. Like we're not going to say it out loud, but I wouldn't hold back to be like, Hey Julie, real quick before I respond, I just want to make sure you co-sign on this. And so I think that that if anything, should just be even more reassuring the entire team there for you

Julie: 23:34

And what you were saying about, you could do some of this, a lot of this on your own, you really need to think about the opportunity cost. And by that, I mean like how much are you going to be spending, you know, looking on YouTube or Google searching or trying to piece it together on your own versus the action and the movement forward progress you could make with just one of these calls with us. And I just want to reiterate, like one of my favorite things about this is you can go about your day as you are working with us. And I think it's really intimidating when you, when someone, you know, book a one hour intensive call that can be really, really intimidating, that you just better hope that you're on point for that one hour. And then you get everything out that you wanted to say. That's again, what I love about this format is that we're just right in your pocket and we'll go back and forth. We're going to initiate some questions to get to know you better. Again, we'll have that survey in advance so that we can all be clear on our VIB day, what your goals are. And we're going to help you get so much success through this program. And we cannot wait for you to book with one of us. So if this sounds like something that you're interested in, you can head on over to subscriptionboxbootcamp.com forward slash V I B. Again, that stands for very important box. So that's subscriptionboxbootcamp.com forward slash V I B to get more of the details. And as Renae said, you can always hit us up in our DMs. We are@subscriptionboxbootcamp. We are so excited to be able to serve you and coach you on such a personal level. And we cannot wait to hear from you. So make sure that you reach out to us so we can hear about your goals. If you have any questions, DM us and otherwise, we'll see you in Voxer. Say goodbye, ladies.

Renae: 25:29

Bye!

Amy: 25:29

Bye everybody!

Julie: 25:29

Well, let's see in the next episode.

Speaker 5: 25:42

[inaudible].