#094 - In this week's episode of Subscription Box Basics, we are talking about selling your subscription box business and how to prepare for it. Joining us is Chelsea Clarke of BlogsForSale.co.
Chelsea is a content monetization strategist, educator, investor, and Business Intermediary. She went from being a waitress, earning $11 an hour to the founder and CEO of a seven-figure company. She now helps investors acquire profitable niche online businesses at her brokerage BlogsForSale.co while providing an avenue for digital creators to have gainful exits from those businesses.
Links:
#094 - In this week's episode of Subscription Box Basics, we are talking about selling your subscription box business and how to prepare for it. Joining us is Chelsea Clarke of BlogsForSale.co.
Chelsea is a content monetization strategist, educator, investor, and Business Intermediary. She went from being a waitress, earning $11 an hour to the founder and CEO of a seven-figure company. She now helps investors acquire profitable niche online businesses at her brokerage BlogsForSale.co while providing an avenue for digital creators to have gainful exits from those businesses.
Links:
Julie (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!
Julie (00:20):
Hey, everybody! Welcome back to Subscription Box Basics. We've been covering a lot of different topics over the past few months, and today is no exception. We are going to be talking about selling your subscription box business and how to prepare for that. I was asked about this recently and I came up blank. I said, this is something that I have zero experience in. I've never sold a business or a subscription box business. And so I wanted to bring someone on the podcast that could talk to us about that.
Julie (00:53):
So I would love to welcome Chelsea Clarke to the podcast. She is a content monetization strategists and business intermediary. She went from being a waitress, earning $11 an hour to the founder and CEO of a seven figure company. Y'all if that's not inspiring, come on. She now helps investors acquire profitable niche online businesses at her brokerage BlogsForSale.co while providing an avenue for digital creators to have gainful exits from those businesses. So we're going to be talking to Chelsea about selling your subscription box business. Welcome to the podcast, Chelsea!
Chelsea (01:29):
Thank you so much for having me on your awesome podcast. I'm really happy to be here.
Julie (01:34):
Oh, right on. I've just seen you run in the same circles as a lot of the coaches that I follow. And I'm just so excited to connect with you. You know, I've talked to you on a personal level a little bit about what it looks like to sell a subscription box business, but I thought that this would be really interesting topic for our aspiring new subscription box business owners, because you know, it's something in the back of our mind and some businesses are built to sell, like that's why they start the business. But sometimes in the back of our mind, we might need that exit strategy for whatever reason. So we're going to cover that today. But before we do that, would you give them a little bit of background information on, you know, what your background is and, how you're qualified to do what you do?
Chelsea (02:19):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, thank you so much for having me. And yes, I actually started as a hobby blogger back in college, I was in school for media marketing and I always just sort of had a blog on the side. And then when I finished school, I went into corporate marketing and I was building websites for these companies and I was creating campaigns and blogging for them, monetizing the content, having different revenue streams coming through their websites. And so I really got a great sort of jumpstart on how to monetize an online business just from that.
Chelsea (02:55):
And then when I made the connection between the business side of blogging and my own hobby blog, something really clicked and I monetize my own blog. I quit all of my jobs inside hustles. This was in 2017 and I ran this one. It was a beauty blog at the time. And I ran it for one year as a business. It was making a couple thousand dollars a month through affiliate marketing and I sold it on his one-year old birthday. And the thing was the job that I left. So the last job that I had working for someone else was at a business brokerage and I was in the marketing department there. And so I was creating these marketing campaigns for the business brokers and they really focused on selling brick and mortar businesses like mom and pop shops and a store you could walk in on the street, but I was thinking, "Hey, you know, there's a lot of opportunity in the digital space for online creators."
Chelsea (03:52):
And, so I went through the IBBA, which is the International Business Brokers Association. And I learned how to be a broker for brick and mortar, but then I applied it to the digital space. So in 2019, I launched my business brokerage where I help people buy and sell businesses. And we've actually sold a number of subscription box companies. And so that's how, sort of how Julie and I, how we connected here, but actually I've actually been following you Julie, for a number of years because when I was promoting affiliate products, I was promoting your subscription box and I had an actual subscription box blog that I was running. And then I sold and your box was always coming through and it's always a great one to promote. So I'm just really happy to be here. This is just wonderful.
Julie (04:36):
Full circle, right?
Chelsea (04:37):
Totally. Yes, it's funny how that happens.
Julie (04:40):
And I honestly hadn't thought much about this whole topic until over the past year and a half, it's been really challenging for all business owners in the new landscape. And I noticed in a couple of the Facebook groups that I was in, people asking, you know, who wants to buy my subscription box business, or where can I list this? And it was just kind of dawned on me that that was a part of the business I didn't know, and something that I should know as a responsible business owner. So let's first talk about, you know, some of the scenarios when you might sell your subscription box business or your business in general. And as I was talking through this with you before the podcast, I said, you know, one of the things that I've seen before is some people build a business to sell it, like that's their end game.
Julie (05:30):
So that would be, you know, one scenario in which you would sell your business. Another scenario that I thought of was, so say you started your subscription box business and then over the course of time, or maybe it's a different season in your life, your life circumstances could change. You might not be able to run that box business anymore because there's a lot of moving parts. And so that might be a pivot that you need to make in your business. Can you think of any other scenarios where you might sell?
Chelsea (05:58):
Absolutely. And those are such great points and I really do think there's no wrong way to go about it. If you've never thought about selling your business before, you're not like behind in the game, but I really do think that for any business that you start, you should have sort of an exit strategy in mind for one day.
Chelsea (06:16):
So as you're mentioning, maybe you're intending to run the business forever or to pass it on to your kids one day. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's a great way to focus on the business, but you also have to think what if your kids don't want it? What if something happens something a health issue happens and there's no one there to run it when it needs to be kept up. You know, there's other things that can come into play. So just having an exit strategy of what you might do if you get in the point to the place where you would want to sell and some people, yes, like you say, they actually start the business with the intention that they are going to sell it in X amount of years, or when they get to a certain amount of profit, they're going to cash out and either start another business or go have a drink on a beach and you know, be a beach bum forever. And that's a great thing too. It's really a personal decision.
Chelsea (07:04):
And another way that we actually find a lot of people have decided to sell in the last year is they saw an opportunity because with COVID, lots of people lost their job or their hours were cut. And a lot of people had to sort of pivot and realize, "Hey, I can't work in my nine to five day job because something like this can happen. There can be a pandemic out of nowhere. And I have no job stability. I need something else of my own that I can work on". And so what we saw was a lot of people who had either left the job force or lost their jobs suddenly came to us, looking to buy an online business. Something that was already established already had followers in the case of the subscription box businesses already had know inventory and a whole product line and a brand behind it.
Chelsea (07:50):
And then the people who own those businesses, they saw the opportunity where, Hey, I've I know how to run a business like this. I've got it started. I can sell this one. And then I can start another one and, you know, take this big lump sum of cash and apply it to my next venture. So there's so many different ways that people get into the place where they want to sell. And like I say, there's no wrong way to do it. It's really what makes sense for you, your business, your family, and really just your goals in the end.
Julie (08:17):
I agree. We have to, everyone needs to define their own story of success and what those goals might look like. And listeners, I want you to think about this too. Like I know that when you're starting a subscription box business, that's your baby. And when you start thinking about selling, you may get hit with some emotions that you weren't expecting.
Julie (08:37):
And I personally went through these because I was preparing for this interview and I was trying to think about and reflect on this with my own business. And one of the first things I thought of was like, what are people going to think? Or why would I sell it? This is my baby. And I just want to give you permission right now to have this conversation with us and to listen along today, without any feelings of sadness or shame or guilt for potentially wanting to sell your business, because that's, there's going to be some of those emotions, but just listen along today, gather the information and see what this might apply to you right now, or maybe applies to you in five, ten years, who knows? So I just wanted to give everyone that permission to just like, listen along judgment free and see what applies to you.
Julie (09:26):
So let's talk a little bit about what it even looks like to sell. And I imagine that there's a lot of things that you can prepare for. So where do we even begin, Chelsea?
Chelsea (09:38):
Yeah. So the great thing about thinking about maybe selling your site one day, your business one day is a lot of the things that you were doing right now, just to focus on growing it and scaling it. Those are things that are just going to help you put it in the best position to sell to. So some really basic things like just making sure that your website, if you have your own website or you're selling on Cratejoy or Shopify, just wherever you have most of your traffic, you have some sort of analytics attached. So if you're using WordPress, you have Google Analytics attached because that's something that when we go and we want to speak with buyers, they want to see that traffic history. They want to understand where your customers are coming from, what blog posts they're landing on that then make them convert and actually subscribe to your subscription box.
Chelsea (10:22):
You know, all of that history is really important. So most likely you already have that tracking, but if you don't turn it on now and make sure that it's tracking, whether you intend to sell or not, it's just going to really be helpful. And then the next thing is, well, think about your financials. You're either doing quarterly or maybe monthly tracking of your income and your expenses. So continue doing that. Whatever you're doing now for your taxes, that's just a record of finances that you're going to then show to a buyer. If it comes time to put it up for sale. Because again, buyers want to see that there's a history of revenue. They want to understand how long your customer stay subscribed.
Julie (11:01):
They just really want to be able to see how they could go into your business and run it. If they were to purchase it, they want to understand what they would need to do to keep those sales coming in. And so having that history as many years back as you can, is just going to, again, help you put your site and your business in the best position to sell. So having something just like a really simple profit and loss sheet, whether it's monthly, monthly is usually the easiest because you can really have a breakdown of exactly what you spent that month, how much your cost of goods that are, the types of tools you might use to run your business. And then when we're thinking about expenses. Again, I'm not a tax accountant or anything like that, but just a basic something to be aware of, of things that you may be claiming on your actual taxes are not actually things that would go onto your profit and loss sheet when you are selling the business, because you might be claiming things like your office space, or you might be claiming your truck payments.
Chelsea (11:59):
If it's not related directly to your business, you might have some insurances or personal expenses that you have that don't actually go into operation of the business. So your profit and loss sheet, you're only including expenses that the new owner would expect to pay. So expenses that directly go into operating the business would be on that type of a sheet. So that's a little bit different between your taxes and your profit and loss. But then another thing is you just really want to make sure that your social media accounts and your actual website is just updated with consistent fresh content because when buyers are going to look at your site, they are going to look at your Facebook page. They are going to look at your Instagram and they just want to make sure that the business is active, that there's someone answering any customer questions so that they can say, okay, I understand this business is active.
Chelsea (12:48):
It's generating traffic. There's happy customers. I can see testimonials. It's just going to make them feel much more comfortable to make an offer because they could see how they could fit into that business.
Julie (12:58):
That's so interesting when you were talking about the profit and loss statement, I never really thought about that because, you know, we look at our expenses, but we look at everything. And so for example, Sparkle Hustle Grow is a membership and a subscription box that you can write off as a business expense, but you wouldn't necessarily put that in the line item as an expense of operating your business.
Chelsea (13:21):
That's right.
Julie (13:22):
If you were to sell it because you know, that's more of personal development, that's not making the business turn, you know, new customers. And that's so interesting. I never thought about that.
Chelsea (13:33):
Yes. And that's a great thing. You mentioned too, for anyone who has coaching or pays for training courses, things like that. That's for your personal development, it wouldn't be an expense that you would put onto the business when you actually go to sell because the new owner wouldn't access those courses or meet with your coach or anything like that.
Julie (13:52):
Right.
Chelsea (13:52):
So you just have to think about the operational expenses and that helps to increase the value of your business because you have different expenses and you just really have to think about what it's really going to the new owner would expect to have to pay themselves.
Julie (14:08):
Okay. So that's good segue into value. So where do you even begin when it comes to, like, how much is your business worth and how do you show it in the best possible light?
Chelsea (14:19):
So the biggest thing, the number one thing of course is revenue. We want to see profits, high expenses, low. That's really a very basic thing. And buyers in the market, they expect to pay between two years to three years times your profit. So let's say that your business, let's say your subscription box is earning a thousand dollars a month right now in profits, after expenses, your net is a thousand dollars. Well, we would then look to price your site, 24,000 to 36,000 as a selling price. And then there's other things that you would want to look into because that's a standard, but there's always deviations from that. And there's other things that we look at. And as a business broker, I'm looking at the market value of your site. I'm looking at the profit and loss. I'm looking at all of, you know, the, the comparables of other businesses that may be similar that have sold to yours, but as a content creator myself, I'm also looking at other things that I know is valuable.
Chelsea (15:21):
So things like your domain authority, your DA, how high that is, that has value. I'm looking at the quality of your actual content. So I am looking at the quality of your subscription box, but I'm also looking at your blog posts, your social media. I'm looking at all of these things that I know will actually add value to the listing and to add value to a buyer who's looking at your business from all angles as well. So these all come in, they're all things that factor in. If you have social media accounts with lots of followers are engaged, they're commenting, you know, this is all really good to help increase the value of your business. So revenue is number one, but then there's all those other little things that just help give it a boost too.
Julie (16:02):
Yeah. And not just revenue, but profit, right?
Chelsea (16:05):
Yes, yes, yes.
Julie (16:05):
Okay, and so the math that you did, you said two to three times the annual revenue. So you were saying a thousand dollars say for your example, a thousand dollars profit per month times 12 months. So your annual profits looking at about 12,000 and that's how you figured the two to three X, right?
Chelsea (16:22):
Yes. Yes.
Julie (16:23):
Okay, I just want to make sure I was clear. And when everyone was listening that they could do that same math knowing though that there's a lot of other factors into it. So when you were talking about content and domain authority and blog posts and stuff, are you saying then the content that we create for our marketing channels that can increase the value of your business beyond what your profit is?
Chelsea (16:49):
Yes, I am. Because think about it. If you have a blog post that is ranking for a great search term, that directly relates to something that a customer would be looking for. So it's ranking, let's say on the first page of Google, it's a keyword directly related to the subscription box that you sell. So you're getting targeted traffic for free coming to your website. And then some of those people are converting to subscribe. This is part of your overall asset value and something that I see as being really good to increase the asset value, because one thing Google is the the number one search engine it's free. You're not having to pay for that traffic. So these are just really good things to keep in mind and also Pinterest traffic. That's another great one.
Chelsea (17:35):
If you have your pins ranking on Pinterest search, because Pinterest is another search engine as well. If your content is ranking on Pinterest and people everyday are coming to your site from clicking on your pins. That's really good too. That's another high value thing.
Julie (17:50):
What about things like influencer marketing or affiliate marketing. How does that impact?
Chelsea (17:56):
Yes. Great ones. So, yes, if you have a team of people on your affiliate program that are promoting your product, you have consistent sales coming in. That's a great asset right there, because therefore when someone comes in to take over the business, there's already this virtual team that is in place. They don't have to go and get a whole bunch of new people to join the affiliate team. You already have this group of people that are already promoting you. So right there, that's really great. And if you have those partnerships with influencers and you've been doing some influencer marketing with campaigns, and it's been really working well for you, and it's helping you to get more customers, or even just to get more people on your email list, you know, these are all important things. So it just shows that you've been putting effort into your marketing overall, and you're getting other people involved.
Chelsea (18:43):
So whether it's affiliate partnerships or influencer collaborations, you know, you're not just sitting there putting your subscription box up and hoping someone buys. You're really actively, you've been out there, you've been doing the work and making those connections that then trickles down into the business. And it's a good look.
Julie (19:00):
Yeah. They're like your sales team, right? Your virtual sales team.
Chelsea (19:02):
Totally.
Julie (19:02):
Yeah. Okay. I have so many questions. Trademarks, intellectual property, is that something we need to consider when we're looking at the value of the business?
Chelsea (19:12):
Yeah. So a trademark doesn't necessarily add monetary value to the business, but it does add a certain level of professionalism and trademarks are fairly easy to transfer ownership to. We usually get the lawyer involved at the closing. So when I'm working with my clients, I manage the escrow and the transaction. So I'm making sure that your business, all of your assets get to the buyer and I'm making sure that you get paid on time.
Chelsea (19:39):
And so when all of that is happening towards the end, that's when we bring in the lawyer. If you have a representative that you worked with when you actually registered the trademark, that's usually the person that we bring in and that they are sort of a third party that works between you and your buyer to just make sure that the trademark registration goes into their name. And if you have an LLC, something like that, you may want to dissolve or it could be carried over in some cases to a new owner, really depends on what you, as the seller see as best and what you're comfortable with. And then for me, I'm just there to support and make sure that happens. But really you are in control so that you, you know, your assets and the things that you've built, you're going to be able to give it to someone else in a way that feels right for you.
Julie (20:23):
Yeah. Okay. So this, this is bringing up the thought, like, what does the broker do? So you act as the broker. And I think about, like for me, I have commercial insurance and I have a broker who tries to find the best deal and the best coverage for me. And then there's like a realtor who works on your behalf to help you buy a home and make sure all the T's are crossed and all the I's are dotted. So is that a good analogy to what you do in helping someone to sell their business?
Chelsea (20:50):
Yes. So as a business intermediary, I am close more close to a real estate agent and I'm actually selling my house right now. It's funny. We have like viewings happening tomorrow. It's like, my house is all crazy, so I'm cleaning it at the same time. But yeah, so what I do is I have a marketplace online and where we can actually list your site. And if you're interested in looking at sites, you can even just go and see what other people are selling there right now. And you can actually see their financials and see what comes with the business. You kind of get a feel with it. That's at BlogsForSale.co. And so what we do is we have a marketplace and we put your listing up first. And then what I do and what my team does is we actually have a network of buyers. We have thousands of investors in our network who, you know, this is a list that we've built up for years and years. We reach out to them first. And then what we do is we go out and we market your listing. So I partner with other marketplaces, I partner with other brokers just really to make sure that we can get the most eyeballs on your listing and really just find the right buyer.
Chelsea (21:54):
And it's funny because a lot of times when you start thinking about this, you think, well, how long is it going to take to sell my business? And I get asked that a lot.
Julie (22:03):
I was gonna ask that.
Chelsea (22:03):
Right? It's the first thing you want to think about. And there really is no straightforward answer because every business is different. And sometimes I have listings, I put them up and the next day they're sold and other ones have taken a few months to sell. And that's also normal because the industry standard for selling a business is known as they say six months. So if you're prepared to have that sort of, you know, you're prepared that it could take a few months, that's a good thing because you know, it does take time to do these marketing campaigns and reach out to people. And what I'm doing as an intermediary also is I'm actually meeting with buyers behind the scenes and I'm getting on Zoom and I'm having these conversations.
Chelsea (22:45):
And I'm really just trying to get people in that I could speak to so that we can get an offer for you. And then when we have an offer, that's when a present that to you, the seller, and you get the, you're able to either accept, decline, counter, and I help you with the negotiation of that as well.
Chelsea (23:02):
And then really the next step is once you agree on a price, you're happy with that's when I provide all of the paperwork and the legal contracts, I really keep it really simple. So it's not like a big stack of papers or anything like that. We really have it pretty streamlined. And what we do then is we open an escrow account that I managed to make sure that the buyer sends the payment. And once that payment is in, it's secured, that's when we actually start sending all of the assets to them.
Chelsea (23:28):
So that's when we start thinking about, okay, where's your inventory? How are we going to get that to them? What are sort of the logistics of that and what are sort of other assets that are coming with the business, we need to make sure that we get that to them. So things like you might have Canva templates where you have all of your, your pins or graphics for your blogs or the sort of marketing templates and things that you use in your business.
Julie (23:50):
All that photography.
Chelsea (23:50):
Exactly. All of that photography. You know, even just your domain, the domain transfer, really, it only takes about a week to two weeks to go from accepted offer to closing the money is now being sent from escrow to your bank. So sometimes it can take a little bit longer, depending if maybe your domain takes a bit longer to move from register to register, or if you have a lot of inventory that needs to actually get from place to place physically, things like that to take your mind.
Chelsea (24:20):
But really it's actually a very seamless process and it's a lot less scary. I know, than people think before they've done it. And that's a lot of feedback that we get too. So when we actually have people that have gone through it, you know, they always say to me, well, like I didn't realize, I didn't know what I didn't know. And now that I've done, I feel so much more confident in selling my next business.
Julie (24:39):
Well, that's because entrepreneurs generally, I feel like have a very DIY spirit. They're like, I'm going to get scrappy. I'm going to do this myself. Then, like you said, you don't know what you don't know. So there's no way I would try to sell my business without having someone like you in my corner because you don't want to miss something that's super important and then figure it out in hindsight when it's too late.
Chelsea (25:03):
Especially when there's so much money involved, you don't want to miss a step, especially if it's your first business, like we're saying, it's your baby. You don't want to screw that up. You want to know that there's like someone who has your back and isn't going to miss anything. You know, you don't want to get taken advantage of by a buyer. If a buyer knows more than you do, you know, you don't want to just be hoping that they're telling you the truth. You want to have someone on your side. This is actually there to tell you, no, no, that's not right. Like we're not going to do that. We're not putting that in the contract. You know, like things like that. That was really important.
Julie (25:32):
You know what, though, just based off of this short conversation that we've had, just now, it sounds so less intimidating.
Julie (25:41):
I definitely would want to have you as part of it, but it sounds like it's just a really exciting opportunity for a business owner, whether it's by choice or by need that they have to sell their business. So I am so excited about the idea of like, even thinking about what that might mean for my own business. But so one of the things that you talked about was valuation. So you have a tool, right. That helps you figure out what that is. Can you talk to us about that?
Chelsea (26:10):
We do. Yeah. So anyone who is interested in finding out what your business could potentially sell for, if you have it in mind that you might want to sell one day, we actually just have a valuation tool right on the site. You can go BlogsForSale.co/val. So val like valuation, you can just go there.
Chelsea (26:27):
There's a couple of questions to fill out. Just gives me some information about your business, about your, your traffic, about your sales, things like that. And then I actually will just go, I'll do a little bit of research and then I'll personally get back to you and let you know a suggested asking price as well as some information. If I notice anything that I think could increase the value or maybe your business isn't quite ready to sell at that high price just yet, I'll just let you know what could be done, or if it's ready to go, then I'll give you some options of what to focus on next if you're interested in listing. But it's no obligation, you know, it's really just there for educational purposes. And it's a great way. If you have any questions with me too, you can always get in contact and chat if you're curious about it too.
Julie (27:11):
I love that. So we'll put that link in the show notes, but where else can they find you too? We talked, we talked about blogs for sale.co. And what about social media? Where can they follow you?
Chelsea (27:20):
Yeah, well, my main company actually is called Her Paper Route. So BlogsForSale.co is the marketplace. And then Her Paper Route is sort of the umbrella company that I run everything under. So you can find me at HerPaperRoute.com. That's where I have online resources and just a ton of free training. So how you can scale, grow and sell your business. And you can also find me on Instagram @HerPaperRoute as well.
Julie (27:44):
Thank you so much for having this conversation and being just really candid about the opportunity and the challenges when you are selling your business. So it's been so helpful.
Julie (27:56):
I know that our listeners, as they're thinking about starting a box or pivoting as things as the environment changes as the landscape of business changes. It's so nice to know that you have choices, you have options and an exit strategy can be one of those. I know when I was in corporate America. I was planning an exit strategy for other reasons, but now it's, yeah, it's your business. And you get to choose what success means for you and what your next steps needs to be, whether that means scaling it or selling it. So thank you so much, Chelsea. I really appreciate you.
Chelsea (28:36):
Thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun.
Julie (28:40):
All right, listeners, thank you so much. I hope you've been inspired and that you feel lighter about the whole topic of selling your business. And now you have resources that you can go to, to figure out what your company is worth and what would be the steps, and I think it's so cool that you have a marketplace of buyers and that you have this network of buyers, because that was one of the things that kind of stopped me in my tracks. When we first started talking, it's like, well, who the heck am I gonna sell this to? And that's part of what you bring to the table.
Chelsea (29:12):
Definitely. Yes, people who have already been vetted. A lot of our customers, a lot of our investors buyers they've actually purchased a few sites already. So we've already vetted them. We know they pay, you know, were there certain things in place that we know that it's a great person to work with. And I also want to mention too, when I was talking about sort of the steps of when you're selling your site, we can get the seller and the potential buyer in on a group call together.
Chelsea (29:39):
So it's, you're not in the dark. You get to choose who is going to take on your baby. So that's an important note that I do want to mention. It is personal and as a content creator, I know like it's personal, it's a big deal. So I'm right there. I understand.
Julie (29:52):
I'm so glad that, and you brought that up because there would be moments where I'd be like, Hmm, sorry, not going to sell it to that person because I don't align with the way they might run the brand or whatever. And so there's, there's that process that goes in, who are you going to pass this off to? Yes. It, you know, it is a two-way street because it's a, there's a buyer and a seller, but you're saying you have options. You have the opportunity to back out of it, right?
Chelsea (30:21):
Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. You, you would never have to sell someone that you didn't feel comfortable selling to. It's we want it to be a good experience for everyone. And that starts with you and from each step, you know, you have to be comfortable in how things are going and who it's going to. Cause when you, you get to the point where it's closed and that money is in your bank, that is such an incredible feeling, knowing that you, then you have a choice, you can do whatever you want with that money. Right? So you have to also feel good that you earned that money and it's your business went to the person that feels right for you and you're free. Or if you're just like, you know what, I built it to sell, let's go like, that's the next one? Like, there's that too. It's not as personal. And that's okay.
Julie (31:00):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Before we wrap up real quick, that leads me to this one. Last question that I have for you is, are sellers usually involved in the business after they sell it? So for example, right now I am the face of Sparkle Hustle Grow. I do most of the video marketing. I do a lot of the relationship building and connecting. So what does that typically look like? Or is, or is there no one size fits all?
Chelsea (31:26):
That's right. Yeah. So there's no one size fits all. Everything can be customized to the deal. So if you want to remain, maybe you just post one reel a month or you post one blog post a month, or you're just there to share the, you know, the reveal of the box at the end of the month or something like that, that can be included in the deal.
Chelsea (31:46):
So if you want that, you can make that part of your conditions, that there's your brand somehow stays your persona, stays with the business in a way, or you make it your condition, that your persona is completely removed and you just welcome the new buyer into the community or the new owner into the community. And then it's their face. You know, you get that choice of how it's going to be run and what your involvement is moving forward, whether it's involved or not at all.
Julie (32:09):
Awesome. Thank you. That, that gives me some peace of mind too, because it sounds like it's not just a transaction. It's, there's a lot of thought behind it. There's a lot of like, how do you feel about this? How do you want this to pan out? So that definitely gives me some peace of mind.
Chelsea (32:26):
Absolutely. And thinking about what your community wants the best, uh, best possible scenario for your community and your customers, people who have subscribed to you. So thinking about them as well and what you can do to make sure that the sale of your business really is still going to benefit them. They're not going to be affected. They're not going to suddenly be like, wait, this is totally different. Who's this, you know, just taking that into consideration as well, because your community is the most important part of your subscription box.
Julie (32:54):
Excellent point. I couldn't agree more. So. All right, well, let's wrap it up. Thank you again, Chelsea, just really grateful that you're sharing this information, as you could tell, just from the inquisitive nature of my interview. Like I am learning this with my listeners and guys, I hope this gives you a lot to think about when you're building your business. So you have any questions about this. Hit me up in the DMS. I can get you connected with Chelsea or just check her out at BlogsForSale.co. And thank you as always for listening. We'll see you in the next episode.