Welcome to Subscription Box Answers with your host , liam Brennan . You're no rubbish , no crap . Straight to the point podcast with real , actionable tips , real strategies and insights from the industry which will help you start and grow your own successful subscription box business . You ask the questions , you ask the questions , you ask the questions .
Liam gives the answers . It's as simple as that .
Welcome back to a brand new episode of Subscription Box Answers and happy 2025 . I can't believe I'm saying that 2024 went by so quickly . On today's episode , we're talking about preparation for this year . Preparation is key If you want to push on and have a really successful 2025 when it comes to your subscription box business . It's so important .
We need to get very clear on our goals . So we're obviously in January now , right , and January can be a weird time for any kind of subscription business , mainly because people overextend themselves during Christmas . They spend a lot of money . They come into January they're like new year , new me , I want to sort out my finances .
I'm going to cancel my subscription . So that isn't great . Now , depending on your niche like if you're in the health niche or the finance niche , or obviously if you have a gym and you're selling subscriptions January can be very good , but for other companies , myself included , it can be a bit more challenging churn wise .
But that doesn't need to hold you back because the upside is CPM prices usually drop in January and you can acquire customers for a cheap enough price . The purchase intent obviously isn't as high as over the Christmas period , but the CPM price is cheaper , so it kind of balances itself out .
I remember last January we got a lot of people signed up , but anyway , preparation is the key for 2025 . I really mean this . You need a very clear goal of where your subscription box is going . Are you scaling it up ? Are you selling it ? Are you launching one ? Are you quitting your job and going full-time in your business ?
Everybody listening will have different goals , so you need to get really clear on what your goal is and reverse engineer it backwards . Look , if you're looking to launch a box , that's great , but what steps do you need to follow to have a successful launch ? Where can you get that information ?
We obviously have a lot of information about that on this podcast and I obviously have my Subscription Box Founders membership for new people looking to launch a box . But anyway , if you're not getting it from me , that's fine , but get it from somewhere . If you're quitting your job , what kind of revenue does your business need to be producing to make that happen ?
How much money do you need to save up as a lifeboat to make that happen ? Now is the time to get moving on this stuff and start planning and start taking action . If you've been building your business for a few years , and 2025 is the year you're going to sell it . What does that look like ? How do your books need to look ?
What kind of price are you looking for it ? How will you justify your valuation ? When are you going to start working with a broker ? All of these things need to be considered early in 2025 . Now , if you're looking to scale your business up , what is the goal ?
I know the majority of people listening to this will be looking to scale up , and that's exactly what we're doing in BusterBox .
We want to surpass 30,000 subscribers and continue growing our at the box revenue , our extra subscription revenue and revenue in our new ongoing store , which has done very well over Christmas , and some other revenue streams we have as well . Now , if you're looking to scale it , what is the goal ?
I really recommend getting very clear on the goal , because only when you're clear on the goal can you put a plan together and the resources needed to make that goal happen . It won't just happen magically . You won't just wake up one day and have 10,000 new subscribers . It doesn't work like that .
Now let's say you have a fashion subscription box and this has been running for a number of years . You have , say , a thousand subscribers and your goal is 5,000 by the end of 2025 . What do you need in place to make that happen ? Here are some things to consider . Do you need capital or are you able to scale up with what you have ?
Will your business support it ? Pretty much as the business in a place to support the growth you're looking to go after ? If it is great . If it's not , you need capital . If you need capital , where are you getting it from ? Are you going to try and raise some money through investors ? Will you do a crowdfunding campaign ?
Will you take some debt from the bank or will you use one of those debt platforms that give you some cash up front for a percentage of your revenue till it's paid back ? What's the plan here ? What's the plan forward ? Get very clear with it and start taking steps . If you're looking to do a crowdfunding campaign , okay .
What crowdfunding platform are you going with ? How many investors do you need to start reaching out to ? Do you have any of these relationships in place ? If you don't , it's time to get moving , because raising capital takes time . Whatever your situation is , I would advise getting very clear on it early in 2025 .
Time goes by quickly and if you want to get anywhere . It's time to take action very , very early . If you need capital to achieve your goal , how much ? I would look at your average churn so you can work out how much subscribers cancel on a monthly basis and then map out how many subscribers you will need over the next 12 months to hit your goal .
Then work out your average customer acquisition cost and multiply it by the number of subscribers you need . This will give you a very good idea on what the capital requirement is to reach your goal . Next point what else do you need to make your plan a reality ? Are you lacking skills or knowledge in your team ?
If somebody gave you all the money you needed , tomorrow do you have the skills and knowledge to grow the business or are you missing that ? If you're missing that , what is the solution ? It's time to look closely at this and identify gaps in your knowledge and skills . Do you need to hire somebody ? Do you need to work with a consultant to learn quickly ?
Do you need to join a program to get all the support you need ? Subscription box experts will be opening again soon . That's for people who are looking to scale up . If you don't want to join , that that's fine , but where are you getting the knowledge from ? You need to get very , very clear on this .
Whatever gaps you have , it's time to close them up early this year so your plan pays off . You can have the best plan in the world , but if you lack the skills or knowledge , you will most likely spend another year going round and round and round in circles .
Now is the year to break out of this cycle and get very honest with yourself and address what you need . There's no shame in this . We all have to learn from somewhere . Next point Is there any big problems in your business that have been holding you back ? Maybe you have been burying your head in the sand and not addressing them .
Example Maybe your churn is out of control . Maybe your supply chain is all messed up . Maybe you were banned from an ad platform due to something completely outside your control . Whatever the problem is , let's address it nice and early . We need to get past this problem . It's time to address it head on , early this year so your plan comes together .
Most things can be solved , but if you bury your head in the sand , nothing will happen and nothing moves forward . Is your aim this year to get a pay rise from your business ? Okay , that sounds great . There's so many people I've been speaking to and they're like I'm going to get a big pay rise from my business this year .
Okay , what are the steps you're going to take to make this pay rise happen ? That's great . I hope you get the pay rise , but what you're saying isn't really making sense , because you've no plan on how you're actually going to earn more money from your business . How many new subscribers do you need to get the pay rise ?
Do you need to sell more add-ons to existing subscribers ? Do you need to sell more one-time products ? Whatever you need , it's time to get very clear and then start taking action . What are the action steps that you need to take to make your goal happen ?
First , identify the goal and then map out what resources you need , what action you need , what gaps are missing from your team . Identify it all and put a plan in place to do it all . It's the only way you're going to move forward .
Especially if you've hit a wall in your business and you feel like you've just been going around and around in circles for a long time . It's time to push forward . And when it comes to business , okay , this is so common . It happens so often to people .
They hit a wall and they do end up going around and around in circles for a long time , but not this year . It's time to break out of that nice and early . Do not say this is my year and then by the third week of january you're back , going round and round in circles with no plan and no direction .
It can easily happen it's happened to me in the past but this year it's time to avoid that and actually make a clear plan and reach a goal that will make you really , really happy this time next year .
Now , if you want more of a tactical podcast on what to do to have a good January , I highly recommend going back and listening to the one I recorded last year , as all the same stuff applies this year . It's all about getting clear on what the goal is and going after it very aggressively . I hope this helps .
We'll be back next week at the exact same time as always . If you have a question you want answered on the show , head over to subscriptionboxresourcescom , join the free Facebook group and post your question there .
And can I ask a big favor , if you've been listening a while and you've enjoyed the episodes and you feel like you've got a lot of value from this podcast . Would you mind giving me a review , either on spotify , on apple podcasts , wherever you listen to the show on it doesn't matter , it just helps me get it out to more people . Thanks very much .
We'll be back next week with more content . Chat to you then .
