How Nancy Case Built a Thriving Membership Site in an Unconventional Niche

Shelli: Nancy Case, welcome to the It’s A TRIBE Thing Podcast. How are you? Nancy: I am very excited to be here. Thank you so much. Shelli: It’s our absolute pleasure. I absolutely loved reading your bio and how you became the membership site owner you are because there are probably people out there that think they can’t have membership sites because their particular niche or thing is unconventional and you, my friend, have shown us otherwise. So, I’m grateful that you’re here and I’m grateful to be able to have this conversation with you. Nancy: Oh, that’s awesome. I’m excited to share my learnings with you and with your audience. Shelli: That’s awesome. Can you start by sharing your story with us sort of where you started and we’ll get into what your membership site is, you can explain that to us, but who you were before you had the membership site and how that transition occurred? Nancy: Yeah. So, I initially started off wanting to – I have a brick-and-mortar store but I also do some occasional pop-up events as well and I wanted to transition to a membership site but I wasn’t exactly sure how and I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do. And actually, I wanted to start out with an art club membership. But as I was learning about memberships, one of the things I came across was maybe you should consider doing a membership on something that you already have going on, on the back burner, and that for me was taffy. I’ve sold literally thousands of pounds of a gourmet salt water taffy. It’s kind of an addiction I have. Shelli: Love it. Nancy: Good gourmet taffy. And as I was kind of getting into it, I had actually collected some vintage candy displays and I thought, “Well, what’s kind of vintage for me?” Taffy is kind of vintage and I started selling it and I sold like I said, thousands and thousands of pounds of taffy and pieces of taffy. Customers loved it. They raved about it and I thought, “You know what, starting a membership site can be intimidating and can be hard and why don’t I start with something that’s easy, a box club membership?” I felt like that was a little bit more attainable, and I thought why not start with taffy? I already know my customers love it and when I started sharing the idea of having a membership, my customer is like, “That is a great idea. We love that idea.” So, that’s kind of how… Shelli: Sorry. Just to jump in for everybody listening, just to remind, a box membership is one that physically gets delivered to your door as opposed to an online membership. Nancy: Exactly. And you can always have a combination. We actually do kind of have a combination but the true value I believe from the membership is the combination of the actual box. In this case, you receive three bags of gourmet salt water taffy and also the community of other taffy lovers if you will. Shelli: Well, that’s amazing. So, I want to also get into how the spirit and the mission behind your taffy business works as well, but I wanted to point this out like I’ve been having this conversation with a lot of people recently with respect to connection and community, and that human connection, and it’s so interesting to me because box subscription, box memberships are becoming more and more personal and I feel like as tech is kind of making us more connected, but less connected in terms of human-to-human, I think the box membership there’s something really special about that because not very often that you receive something in the mail. And when you’re receiving three bags, my friend, of amazing salt water taffy, that is a good day, but even more important than that to me when I was reading your story was that you deliver three bags for a reason and I wondered if you could share how that works. Nancy: Yeah, absolutely. So, when I was thinking about my membership and to give out what’s the core to my membership, one of the things that I’ve always wanted to do is to be able to give back to people and so I thought when I was researching my audience or my intended audience for a membership, one of the concerns that people had is or one of the reasons why people won’t accept even a free sample of taffy is they’ll say, “Well, if I have a piece of taffy then I’ll eat the whole bag.” And in order to actually have a membership that was meaningful to me, I wanted to combine my spirit or my value which is giving back along with the membership so I thought, “What if I turn that negative into a positive?” And so, even if you don’t want to, our motto is we have one to eat, one that you can enjoy yourself, one to gift so they make great gifts. You’re always needing a teacher’s gift or a little drop-in gift or whatever but even more importantly, one to share. And the one to share concept is really meant so that you can actually share that taffy with someone who’s maybe having a bad day or maybe celebrating someone, a success they’ve had. I’ve had customers walk in the store and I just knew they were down that day and I gave him a bag of taffy. I’ve actually even given a bag of taffy to a Costco employee before. The smile that actually lights their face is just amazing. And so, when you get these three bags of taffy, we make it easy within the membership to gift and to give that taffy away so we include these little gifting stickers that say, “Have a great day!” or, “Good luck!” or “Shine on!” along with the taffy and then we also have come up with a calendar that has all the unusual holidays on it. So, for example, like National Left-Handers Day or those kinds of things so sort of unusual kind of gifting opportunities that you don’t think about it. But in reality, is as you go through the week-to-week, month-to-month, there’s actually a lot of opportunities to gifting to share and so I thought, “Well, that’s perfect.” I want to stand for something, one you can eat, one to gift, and one to share. Shelli: I cannot tell you how much I love that and I’ll tell you why because you had this idea and took what you knew and took who you were in terms of somebody who’s benevolent and somebody who wants to promote connection and giving back. Then it’s is so incredible because oftentimes in business we will think of the features of what it is we do. So, if it’s a car, it has this type of engine and this many horsepower, but really what you’re selling in many cases is the benefits like it makes me feel affluent or whatever that might be, the benefit of actually purchasing that product and for you, like you’ve done just such a beautiful job of stitching together not only what you know and love in terms of taffy, but who you were, who you are in terms of spreading the love. And the taffy now becomes the vehicle for connections with complete strangers and getting back to the fact that you have the box subscription to get this gift in the mail. So, like you’re spreading love on like four different levels here and it all started from this one idea you had which was, “Hey, I’d like to have a membership site,” and how might that look. Nancy: Exactly. And I think it’s really fun to be able to share the taffy and as you said, it really starts out with the gourmet taffy and it really bloomed into something much more than that which is the spirit of gifting and giving which is very, very magical. So, we’re in our beta launch right now but my intention as I go through 2019 is to be able to grow that. So, when you talk about membership clubs and you talk about the member success path, what I want is I want people to be able to consume this taffy on three different levels, the eating, the sharing, and the gifting and giving. And so, I want to be able to have other people share how they’re gifting and how they’re sharing. Maybe you’re a small business and I actually do have a small business owner who runs a physical therapy shop and he is, this is a subscriber, and what he does is when he has doctors that refer him patients, he’ll actually just send the doctor a little bag of taffy as a little thank you. So, you can use it to grow your business. You can use it to share with people. One of the things that we’re doing in our local community is, our local elementary school, we want to support our local town and their drama club wanted to do a fundraiser. So, we’re actually finishing off a fundraiser with the taffy. For every bag of taffy that was sold, we donated money back to the school, basically all of the profits back to the school. And it was so much fun to see these little kids. They’re second and third graders and they’re doing a play for Cinderella in January and that was their membership drive. So, there’s just so many different ways in which you can give back to the community and to share and to me, that’s really important and I think that’s the connectedness that sometimes is missing from just a traditional box club membership. Shelli: For sure. Well, it sounds like you’re not just creating a membership. You’re creating a mission and a movement. Nancy: That’s my hope. Yes, absolutely. Shelli: Well, you said in the beginning before you started on this journey, you said that you were thinking of a membership site that you wanted to do one and you had the idea of a membership  and then try to figure out, “Okay. What is it that I could use a membership site for?” What was your initial thought of like why did you want it to be a membership site? Why was that important to you? Nancy: So, I just thought my reach could be so much broader and so much better if I could transform the transactions that were happening on a daily basis and I didn’t want to be limited to just whatever comes to my store or whoever shops at my pop-up event, and really just reach a much broader audience. But as you said, there’s something about getting something in the mail that just lights up your day and makes things so much fun and I couldn’t think of anything better than getting a little piece of gourmet salt water taffy love. So, like I said, initially I was wanting to actually share my love of art and I still do. That’s another goal I have for 2019 is to start up another membership club and share my passion for art, but I have never met anybody who – that the other thing about taffy is it brings back memories. So, when you talk to people, when you share taffy with people, they’ll be like, “Oh man, I remember when I was a kid and went to Estes Park,” or, “I went to the Iowa State Fair and they had such good taffy. This taffy reminds me exactly of that taffy.” And so, there’s something nostalgic about taffy too that taps into people’s memories, but they’re always good memories. Nobody says, “Oh, I have a bad memory around taffy.” They’re all happy memories. And so, to have that positivity and that effervescence around the taffy is also a lot of fun to share. Shelli: That’s incredible. Well, taffy sounds like the delivery of joy in this particular case. When you are starting, what was the biggest limiting belief you had and how did you overcome it? Nancy: That’s a great question. So, there was a couple of times along the way just making sure that I really wanted to do it right and I think that can get in the way. Perfection can definitely get in the way, and so I was doing my research. I turned the negatives into positives. I was looking for the question behind the question, you know, that hidden need or that unmet need from the customer and things were going pretty well, but I was afraid I couldn’t do it or I was fearful that it would not work, or I knew people wanted it but I wasn’t sure that this concept would really take off because it’s a little more than just the taffy. So, I kept telling people, one of the ways I kind of got over it is just having that accountability. So, I kept telling people, “I’m going to launch a taffy club. I’m going to launch a taffy club.” And finally, one of my friends, close friends, just said, “So, why haven’t you launched a taffy club?” Shelli: Yes. You set yourself up to be held accountable. That’s awesome. Nancy: Exactly. So, then I was like, “You’re right. I have to get serious on this.” So, I did a little more research and figured out what I wanted, what are the elements that I wanted to have both the online and the box club membership. So, just working through the logistics of the packaging and the steps and what I want, the cost points, but then I wasn’t sure because I didn’t have a huge following. So, I actually collected emails from folks who actually bought taffy from me. They were willing to share their emails and then when I was ready to launch, I actually did a Lookalike Audience on Facebook. I started out with about 235 people who had purchased taffy from me and I had collected their emails and then went to Facebook to do some advertising and launching out of my Facebook. So, that was a little tricky because I hadn’t done that before either, but I just kept thinking, “I just need to take the next step. I don’t need to take all the steps. I just need to take the next step.” And then the other thing I think that was sort of pivotal for me is, again, it doesn’t have to be perfect. And so, I was very intimidated by launching an actual membership like a sophisticated all-in kind of membership, but when I came across the idea of doing a beta launch or beta membership, I’m like, “Okay. That gives me a little bit of grace,” and I don’t have to be perfect. I just need to set expectations, “Hey, customers, this is a beta launch. You’ll learn with me.” For example, I didn’t know if people would want three different flavors of taffy or all the same every time, or one bag of top favorites or two bags of top favorites. And so, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what people would want and I had done some surveys that I thought, “You know what, if I do a beta then I don’t have to have everything all figured out and I can use my customers to help me grow into something they want, not what I want, but what they want.” So, those are two things I did to help, just getting over the fear of being perfect and having some accountability with some friends of mine. Shelli: So, what was the biggest positive surprise that you enjoyed that you weren’t expecting? Nancy: Again, a great question. I was sharing my ideas with people and I was surprised and continue to be surprised at how positive people think the membership is because they get it. That’s the part I was hoping for but I wasn’t sure they would get. The idea of gifting, giving, and sharing has really resonated with a lot of people and I think positivity attracts positivity. So, it’s wonderful to feel that back and to hear people say that is such a great idea like what a good concept that is and to have people get it, that’s been the most positive surprise that I’ve gotten back is just that overwhelming positivity for not just the taffy but the taffy and the gifting and giving too. Shelli: Well, it’s funny that you say that because as I’m listening to you, I’m immediately thinking, “I would like to get taffy in the mail and also, but I would like to be able to give taffy and spread the love and spread the joy too.” The next thought I had though is for all of those people who are receiving the taffy as a gift like this is such a brilliant idea on so many levels because immediately, I’m glad to think that your membership site is going to explode just because you just said that to me. Now, I want to be the person giving. I want to be the person getting but I also need to be the person giving and I can see how very quickly that would spread like wildfire because you’re not just spreading taffy, you’re spreading joy or you’re spreading connection, you’re spreading smiles, you’re spreading all of that kind of stuff and, yeah, heck yes, I would like to be part of that. Nancy: Yeah. And like I said, part of our goals for 2019 is to actually get those stories from our members and have them share them because that to me is like it’s just like feel-good over and over and over again. Like there’s so much negative in this world today like a positivity thing is just so needed and so that’s why also part of the reason why we’re still in beta because I wanted to launch under sort of controlled circumstances where I could kind of we’re not quite there, we’re not quite perfect, but my thought is sharing those stories and having people to record those stories would just be magical for everybody, and you can be part of that giving community just by gifting the taffy. The taffy is, like you said, it’s just a vehicle. The real joy comes from the gifting and giving and that’s what’s fun about it. Shelli: Don’t get me wrong. The taffy is magical but the gifting and giving is next level. I so appreciate you. Honestly, the story has completely filled my cup and I’m so grateful that you were able to stop by the It’s A TRIBE Thing Podcast and share it. If people are looking for you online and when they want to join up for your Taffy2You subscription, how are they able to find you? Nancy: So, they can go on the web and type in Taffy2You.com and there you’ll see a waitlist actually to get to our membership because we do have a closed cart. So, our cart will open again sometime this spring but you can leave me your email and I’ll put you at the top of the list if you want to join. We also, for our members, have a private Facebook group that once you’re a member then you can belong to that group and share those taffy gifting and giving stories as well. And then we’re also on Facebook under Taffy2You.com. We’re on Pinterest under Taffy2You.com and we’re also on Instagram under Taffy2You.com as well. Shelli: That’s fantastic. Thank you so much for your time and thank you for spreading your joy bombs because the world needs more of you, my friend. Thank you. Nancy: Thank you so much. It was fun. Thank you. [END]