and tell me about your vision for your business.
Yeah, sure.
So I think a lot of this started
as I was in corporate America for years.
And when I made the leap from corporate America
to the online entrepreneurial space,
the realization that I had to have was,
the best way I can describe it is,
I use the analogy of checkers versus chess.
That was like the breakthrough I had
was that entrepreneurship versus corporate America
is like checkers versus chess.
The game board looks the same.
The rules are completely different.
And so in order for me to really master
the game of online entrepreneurship,
like playing a different board game,
you have to learn the rules.
And so that when I like finally got to that realization
that I needed to learn how to play a new game,
the my biggest struggle that I had was,
the online space is so much like the wild, wild west.
There's no structure and rules and means of protection
in the same way that you have in corporate America,
but it also has its own advantages.
And so for me personally,
my biggest struggle is digital content is so easy to produce.
It's so heavily saturated and people have started
to stray away from the physical aspect
of what you had previously before we hit this digital age.
I think that entrepreneurs make it too hard
for their customers to get results.
And that was my biggest frustration
is that I'd spent all this money on programs,
but I'd have to run through hoops
and manage all these obstacles
before I can even get started with their program.
So my whole thing was,
why don't we give our customers
the tools and resources they need?
How do we set them better up for success
so we can get the results faster?
So that's what started this journey
of building these physical experiences
that compliment a digital online experience
to make it easier for people to understand,
how do I go from start here to the desired outcome
of what I bought with your product,
like your promise when you're selling a product,
and how do I create a clear journey or pathway?
And then how do I make sure I've sent them
everything they need to get results faster?
And through doing this journey,
it just opens up so many new opportunities
to start exploring how to optimize
lifetime value of your customers.
So that's really the problem we solve is,
how do we simplify transformation?
Yeah, so this is all for that same, the Box Company,
I can't remember the name of it right now.
Custom Box Agency.
Custom Box Agency, and so it all ties together.
All ties together.
Are you working with other swag bag people
or is it like you are the swag bag creator?
So we say swag stands for stuff without a goal.
We are not prone to swag.
Swag does have its purpose.
And for me, if you've established connection
and community with your people,
swag has meaning, otherwise swag is stuff.
And so this is kind of why when we work with clients,
we're very much about stop sending them swag,
because what ends up happening is you're spending,
I feel like most swag bags or swag boxes that I see
are 60 to $120, it's branded from the event organizer.
There's no connection to the recipient.
Stuff typically gets left in the hotel,
gets sent to Goodwill, gets thrown out.
When you create products with a lot more intentionality,
think of the way that I would rather you think about
what we do is a little bit more like a board game.
Like how do I create the journey
and then how do I literally break down the frameworks,
tools and resources that you need?
Because our typical box experiences
have about 30 to 50 pieces in it.
But when it's organized, it's truly an experience
that activates the digital platform program
that they're going through.
Yeah, so you're like reverse engineering
what the box needs to have in it.
Correct, and just like gamification is huge for us.
So how do I gamify your business?
How do I make it something that rewards
or incentivizes people as they start to progress
through the journey, as opposed to
thanks for joining my program,
here's a hat, t-shirt and a journal.
There's elements of that that can work,
but I would rather do what,
are you familiar with P90X?
That was a good phrase.
P90X was Beachbody, this was a huge craze
in like the early 2000s.
And it was at home DVDs that you would put in.
And it was a 90 day workout just using your body.
You don't need weights, you can just use your body.
And what ended up happening was
if you went through their 90 day journey,
day one they asked you to take a before picture,
day 90 they asked you to take an after picture.
And when you submitted your before and after picture,
they then sent you a t-shirt.
To me the t-shirt is a celebration mark
of your transformation, the journey you went through.
It wasn't you bought the program, here's a t-shirt.
It's something that you've earned.
This is where, like this is how I like to see swag used,
but we don't lead with swag.
We lead with what are the tools that they actually need
to get the result.
Yeah, and I like the comparison to P90X
because that makes a lot of sense.
It's not a, you bought the thing, it's a here.
We're celebrating you, you did the thing, here you go.
And I think that means a lot more,
especially in a customer's eye.
It's not just you buy one, get a t-shirt.
Say again.
And it's a retention strategy.
So now we're leveraging the t-shirt as,
and what happens is they send you the t-shirt
to celebrate you.
It's something for you to strive for,
but guess what's gonna happen?
They're also gonna introduce the next journey
or other ways that you can go deeper.
And for someone who has struggled in their situation,
getting in shape, now they have a means that says,
we can get you results,
but let me share how else we can help you.
All of a sudden, they are opening up a conversation
to say, I am your trusted mentor
and I can help you get the result you're trying to do.
I gotcha, yeah.
Yeah, I've got one other question
that is kind of on the same line as this.
It's where are you going with your vision?
What's your goal for this thing?
You know, it's interesting.
So for me, when I look at my business
and the impact and the results that we've had,
we've built out, we started this business in 2020.
We have not invested a dime in advertising
and it has grown year over year over year.
And so what's really cool is we built out,
I think about 150-ish campaigns
and to see the results of and the impact
of what we do for our customers and clients,
where I'd ultimately like to be is,
the analogy I like to use is,
if you have a phone or an iPhone,
ideally you have an iPhone case.
Do you need an iPhone case on your phone?
No, but what an iPhone case does is it protects the phone.
It allows you to customize it,
it extends the lifetime value of the phone,
the protection and all the elements of it.
Your phone is just better off with it.
This is what I want with boxes.
If you have a business with a strong digital presence,
you don't think twice about whether or not
I need a physical presence.
And when we think about experience,
experience is seen through the senses,
what you see, hear, touch, taste, smell.
Online and digital only taps into what you see
and what you hear.
The cool thing about sending someone physical
is now we can activate the kinesthetic.
We can activate touch, taste and smell
in addition to what you see and what you hear.
So that dynamic nature of stimulating more senses,
I'm not gonna be able to recreate Disney,
who is incredible at the second you get on site,
everything is activated.
But what I can do is provide a better experience
than those who only have a digital only presence.
Yeah.
So this is as I would be something that across the board,
nobody, like you just don't think about
having a digital experience without the physical.
Yeah.
So it's really a two customers or your priority.
Yeah.
I'm in the same boat right now.
Personally, I do video stuff.
So I create live streams and I post videos.
And for me, there's not really a physical aspect
whenever I send somebody a video of here's all your highlights
and here's all your stuff.
And now I'm getting into the podcast side of things
and there is no physical at all
because I'm just doing podcasting just like this.
And so it's a matter of how can I get the other senses
or how can I maximize the two senses that I am working with?
And there's not, there is some conversation
about how to maximize what you can do on a podcast
or how to maximize behind a camera
or get the audience, the live audience intrigued
or interested, but it's not gonna captivate fully
because it doesn't involve all of the senses
like you're talking about.
And so that's right on the nose for me.
And I will also say this,
as we say there's three types of campaigns
and it's linked to the customer lifecycle.
Your customer lifecycle, you acquire a customer,
then you deliver the product or service,
the thing that they bought and then you retain.
So acquisition, delivery, retention,
those are our three types of campaigns.
So when you start to look at it through that lens,
from a podcast perspective, there could be some
really prominent influencers that you wanna feature.
How do we deploy an acquisition strategy
utilizing direct mail?
That's a very different strategy than thinking someone
who's been on your show that you may wanna build
a deeper relationship with and to see the other things.
So there's so many different strategies
of how you can leverage it, but that one framework to say,
is this an acquisition campaign?
Is this a delivery campaign or is this a retention campaign?
It's just a really, really powerful anchor
to thinking about how to optimize that experience.
How do leaders lean, it should say lean
into funding their vision?
Like it's interesting that when you have a compelling story,
you don't need to overthink it.
So we with Custom Box Agency, I don't have any funding.
We self-fund it.
Like it was through just clever strategies
because I didn't want to be responsible to a VC firm.
And it's interesting to say like, could we get funding now?
Yes, but it's gonna be a very different game
than before we had like proof of concept
where we're just begging for someone to like invest in us.
One of the things that I did pretty early on
to test out an idea is, and I call this
the empty box strategy.
Actually, do I have it?
I should have it.
Oh, right here.
This is it.
There's a product during COVID that I was like,
okay, everyone is like at home in quarantine.
And like we're all in lockdown
and people were doing these like virtual happy hours.
And I'm looking at this to say is like people
want connection.
So one of the things that I did just to say
maybe there's an opportunity here where I can send out
a box and no matter where we are,
this is the connection that like the thing that we have
in common, no matter where we are.
So played with this concept of a virtual social box
to play up with what people were already doing
with these happy hours.
And I downloaded a font.
I built a box in like a web builder.
I think I utilized Packling as the platform
and I wanted to see what a shipper box looked like.
So I think that the whole thing cost me,
I mean, we're talking like $2 per box
to get an empty box printed.
And this was the result of virtual social box.
And this is a little bit more swaggy.
This is early days of CBA with the product.
And what was cool about this box is again,
I think I spent like for three boxes,
it may have been six bucks at that time.
I think I had a coupon that I was able to use.
And then I took glassware mugs and wine glasses
from my pantry that were unbranded
and did a post on social media to say,
hey, I told the story of why I was looking
to launch this product and easily said,
I'm looking for 10 founding members.
I think there was two offers.
There was a $2,000 and a $4,000 offer.
And I wanna say we ended up generating through this,
through I think two or three posts on Facebook.
And this is like, I have like no following on Facebook.
So this isn't like I had a hundred thousand followers,
but what was really cool about it was my small following.
I was able to sell the 10 spots,
I think within two or three days,
it generated about $24,000.
I think this is what we ended up generating on this campaign.
And so to have 10 buyers, I had $24,000.
I was able to take the $24,000.
We built a custom software platform,
our own QR code platform that we still utilize today.
We, at the time we had to have custom die lines
and a custom insert for what was to become
the virtual social box.
So this was never the virtual social box.
It was a huge display box, really cool experience,
but they validated the concept for me.
And then the second that we had the 10 boxes produced,
that became like a platform to then say,
hey, look at all these boxes that we produce.
Do you want us to do it for you?
And it was an easy way to grow virtual social box.
That business without putting a dime down.
It was literally, I think I spent six bucks
and glassware for my pantry and a story.
And I have the picture that I posted on Facebook
because it was as simple that anyone,
in the pack lane and websites like boxup.com,
like usually they let you have your first box free.
But when you hold up an empty box saying,
I wanna send this to you,
either people are gonna buy it or they won't.
And if you see that you have engaged buyers,
especially with a pre-sell,
that's just being clever with strategy
in order to help fund the vision.
And that is something that just catapulted that brand.
And again, you're talking about the cost
of a Starbucks cup of coffee.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.