Speaker 1: 0:00

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 and I'm Renee Gonzalez, your host here at Subscription Box Basics, a podcast for new and aspiring subscription box entrepreneurs wanting to avoid overwhelm. So grab a coffee, some pen and paper and let's have some fun. Hey, and welcome back to Subscription Box Basics. I am Julie Ball, your head coach here, and today I'm going to do a rapid fire episode. So grab your pen and paper.

Speaker 1: 0:32

I'm going to tell you 10 ways to help fund your new box business. Whether you are brand new and you are in pre-launch and you're like I just need some money to get started. Or maybe you've been in the business for a while and things are just a little bit tight right now. I totally get it. So let's run through these 10 ways to help you fund your box business. First of all, before we jump into this, let me just tell you there is nothing wrong with doing other things to help fund the business of your dreams. Whether you're working a full-time job, a part-time job or you just are trying to find some things to get some extra cash, there's nothing wrong with taking that time and spending it on building your future, building the business of your dreams. So let's get started.

Speaker 1: 1:15

Number one is sell stuff on Facebook Marketplace. If you're not familiar with Facebook Marketplace, think of it as like a local classified ad section that you would see typically in a newspaper back in the day. This is where you can list items for free. You put up a couple of pictures, write a little description and then other people in your area can search for them and buy things. Now I'm not going to give you all the best practices for Facebook Marketplace, but I will tell you. One is when you make a sale and you meet those people to give them the product and they're going to give you the money, meet them in a safe place. What I really love about our little town here in Black Mountain is that we have specific parking spots right over by the police station for this type of transaction. So I love that. Check with your town if they have that, but otherwise, this is a really great way to offload things that you aren't even using. So maybe your kid grew out of some clothes or a bike. Maybe there's something in your garage that you thought was going to be a hobby of yours and now it's collecting dust. This is a great time to declutter your house, find some things to sell on Facebook Marketplace and list them.

Speaker 1: 2:25

Number two sell clothes on Poshmark. So Poshmark is think of it as an app. It's a website, but think of it as a marketplace for secondhand clothes, like consignment store type vibe. Go through your closet, pick out some of your clothes that you either have grown out of or you no longer like and you can list them right on Poshmark. There are some fees per transaction and, of course, there's going to be shipping fees. That's taken into consideration when you set it up, but you have control over a lot of that stuff. So go check out Poshmark and just browse around there to see what are some prices, what are people listing. We also have some local consignment stores that you can physically take products to. For example, we have one called Plato's Closet. We have one called Clothes Mentor and you can just take your clothes in there. You're going to look at them, make you an offer and you can either walk away with credit for the store or cash in your pocket. So think about what clothes in your closet can you sell to make some money.

Speaker 1: 3:29

Number three in our 10 ways to help fund your box business. Number three is sell books at used bookstores. Now, this stuff still happens and I am living proof of that. At the end of 2023, I had gathered up a ton of my books from the bookshelf that I had read. I knew I wasn't going to read them again. There's no reason for me to keep some of them. Now. I do have my favorites that I'm going to keep. But I took I think it was maybe four boxes full of books to our local used bookstore. I walked away with over $100 in cash I'm not kidding, they still do this and in fact, when I went in to drop the books off and they were going to take a look at them and make some sort of offer, the bookstore had a lot of people in it. I know there's ways to do this online too, but I don't have any experience with that. So check in your local area. If you have lots of books that you might no longer want, check in your local area to see if there is a used bookstore.

Speaker 1: 4:25

Number four I want to tell you about the Amazon Influencer Program. So this is a program through Amazon that you make content and you provide recommendations to help influence people on which products to buy. If they buy the products that you've recommended, you get a kickback, and I've been playing around with this since September of 2023. And I've probably made since then. I've made about I think, about $500 or so, and what's cool about it? It is truly passive income. I am not set up as an influencer where I have a social media for this side of my business. I don't do that type of stuff. I do the videos that are on Amazon and I also have an Amazon storefront, so I'll drop that link in the show notes so you can check it out. It's basically I've rounded up some of my favorite items from Amazon that helped me run a subscription box business and I have them in a little list so it's easy for you to go and purchase them, whether it's something like a digital scale or a label printer, things like that and one is good for buyers because they have vetted lists from people they trust, like me. For example, you trust me for subscription box advice and if I give you this link to this list of products, you may be likely to choose some of those products. I would get a small kickback. You would get an awesome product, so it's such a win-win. Now, I don't train people on this. I participate in it but I would love to recommend Kathleen Cobal. She taught me how to do this program. I'm going to put links to her information and her course. She's got this great little course about it that I just devoured in probably two days straight and was up and running that same week, so I will put that in the show notes. You can check out more information on that. Amazon influencer program. All right.

Speaker 1: 6:18

Number five you can be a virtual assistant. What I want you to think about is do you have skills online that other businesses might need? Some quick examples would be copywriting, graphic design, social media, things like that things that you might be really good at that someone else might not be good at. You can offer your services to them to make money. So it's a really great way to help others but also earn your own income through this. And you could just start out by asking on Facebook say I really love doing social media. Do you know anyone that needs social media help in their business? If so, let me know if that's you, or tag your friend below. It's as simple as that. Asking your own network, or even on LinkedIn, for example, is a great way to start with something like that. So think about do you have any virtual skills that other businesses might need? And it can be such a win-win. Number six you could sell services. Now, this is similar to the virtual assistant, but this would be services in person. So that could be something like maybe a driving for Uber or doing DoorDash deliveries.

Speaker 1: 7:36

My husband, not long ago, had posted in our local Facebook exchange. It's just the local community has a Facebook group just for community members. He posted in there about hey, does anyone need their leaves blown? This was in the fall. Does anyone need me to come leaf blow their yard? And he got a few takers. It was as simple as posting about it and then DMing with that person saying, okay, what's the size of your yard, I'll come take a look and let you know how much that would cost per hour, that type of thing. So what are some services that you could provide to people in your community to earn some money? Maybe that's house cleaning, maybe that is organizing. What about babysitting? Or maybe even pet sitting house sitting, gosh. There's so many different services you could provide. So think about that and just ask in your local community, ask your neighbors, ask your friends, ask the people in your shirt. There's going to be a lot of people that really need some help somewhere in their life that you could step in and do that thing for them.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Okay, the number seven way that you can help fund your box business is through a credit card. It is inevitable as a business owner that you may need to get either a business loan or a credit card. In my experience, credit cards are easier to get than filling out information for a business loan when you don't have any data or you don't have any existing income from it if you're in pre-launch, for example. So I highly recommend a credit card. Now you're going to have to do the homework on what's the best card for your situation. I can't give you that advice, but I will tell you what I use. I use the Spark Capital One Visa and I've used it for years, and what I really like about it is that I was able to get the credit limit that I needed, and it changed throughout the years of running my box business. As my business grew, my credit limit grew with it, which was great, because the orders that I placed got larger and larger, but the best part about it is getting cash back. So many of these credit cards will give you cash back based off of your purchases, and so I think my Spark Visa maybe is one person, maybe one and a half, I can't remember it. I have to go look, but I will put a referral link to the Capital One Spark Visa options so you can check those out. Now you have to be careful with credit cards. You don't want to get in over your head, but sometimes it is going to be one of the best ways to get your business started, to get you the funding you need for some of those startup costs that you inevitably will have as a product based business owner.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Okay, number eight pre-sell your product. Now we talk about this in subscription box bootcamp. This was something that I did. I had a zero dollar budget when I launched my subscription box Sparkle Hustle Grow, which I've since sold, but in those early days I did a pre-sale and that just means selling your product before it's ready, and I know that can be scary and you might be wondering how can I even sell something that is not ready yet? You sell the concept of it, you sell the idea, you sell the journey of it that they're going to experience once they get that product in their hands. That could be a pre-sale of just a couple of days, it could be a pre-sale of a week, or it could be a pre-sale of an entire month. It just depends on how long your customers will be willing to wait for that product. If I remember correctly I think my pre-sale they had to wait six weeks to get their first box. But I continued to nurture them, I continued to take them on their journey and I actually sent each of them a $5 Starbucks card and a handwritten thank you note in the mail during that six week time frame so that they could still stay engaged and excited about receiving that box. Stick with me. We're almost done covering the 10 ways to help fund your box business.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Moving on to number nine shop around. What I mean by that is look at services that you already have and see if there's ways to shop around and cut back on some of the costs that are going out the door. If you free up some of that money, maybe you can redirect it to your box business. I'm going to give you an example. I'm currently in the middle of testing out Verizon wireless internet in my home we already have Verizon phones, okay, so we've been with them for years, we love them, but my current internet is through another company and I was shopping around and I found out that I can save $50 a month if I switch to Verizon, and I was shocked. I was like what $50 a month? Do the math on how much that can save you per year? I'm literally on the new Verizon Wireless Home Internet right now as I'm recording this video, so I'm testing it out. Verizon is giving me 30 days to test it out. I've got the other Wi-Fi as my backup right now. I did not cancel that account yet. I'm testing out the Verizon side of things and if it works well, then I'm going to keep it and cancel my other Internet. That means $50 savings per month. What could we redirect that $50? To Think about the services that you use.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Just check your credit card, check your bank account. What are you buying on a regular basis? Call them up, call up Netflix or call up your phone company, whatever you're using. Say, am I on the best plan available for my usage? Do you have any new plans available that might be better fit for me? It's worth a quick phone call and maybe you'll be like me where you can free up some of that money by shopping around.

Speaker 1: 13:19

And number 10, you're not going to like this one. It's cutback the same concept of freeing up some money that is going out the door already. You might be able to free some of that up and redirect it to your new business. Some examples might mean some of those memberships and subscriptions that you currently have. So look at your credit card statement or your bank statement. What are some of those things? So maybe it might be Netflix. I know if you don't have it, you're going to survive, it's going to be okay, but maybe that could be something you cut, maybe it's. At one point we had Amazon Prime Video. We had Hulu, netflix and Disney Plus, and we talked about it as a family. We said we don't need all of those, so we cut back some of those, and that freed up some money for other things. So maybe it is a spending habit that you have, maybe it is Starbucks, or maybe it is an unhealthy habit that you're trying to cut anyhow, like smoking, for example. How much money are you spending on that? Think about some of the things that you are maybe just spending a couple bucks here and there on, but by the end of the month it is added up to $50, $7,500. So look at those things that you can potentially cut back, save and or redirect to your new box business. So those are my 10 ways to help fund your new box business or come up with some cash to help you in your existing one.

Speaker 1: 14:52

Let's do a quick recap. Number one sell stuff on the Facebook marketplace. Number two sell clothes on Poshmark. Number three sell books at your local used bookstore. Number four sign up for the Amazon influencer program. Number five do virtual assistance for other businesses. Number six sell services like house cleaning or leaf blowing or door dashing. Number seven sign up for a credit card that is going to give you cash back.

Speaker 1: 15:27

Number eight pre-sell your product before it's even ready. Number nine shop around with your vendors, your utilities, whatever memberships you have, shop around. And number 10, cut back. Maybe it's cutting back some of those subscriptions or your Starbucks habit. Hopefully you're able to hand pick a few of these. Whatever's the most low hanging fruit. Start there and I hope that this has been super helpful for you to get in a can do mindset versus a mindset of negativity or lack. You want to get into that abundance mindset. Hopefully, these 10 ways are going to help you find some money to help you fund that box business. We're cheering you on. I know you can do this. Look through that top 10 list. Use the show notes for some of the links and references so that you can get started on this right away. Thanks for listening today and we'll see you in the next episode. Bye.