Proof To Product

Today’s episode continues the conversation about the State of the Product Industry survey that we did. Last episode, I summarized what we learned when 400 product-based business owners shared intimate details about their income, profit, how much they pay themselves, their product line, their team, their sales and marketing strategies. If you have not listened to that one yet, I would suggest starting there, that’s episode 392. Today, I am diving into 10 opportunities that I see for all of you after having spent dozens and dozens of hours crunching the data.  Before we jump in, I want to remind you that now is an excellent time to join us in the LABS community. LABS is our community focused on supporting product-based business owners and helping you build strong foundations, and we bring in all kinds of cool guest experts to share about their business journey. And fun news! On May 14, Emily Ley of Simplified, who was recently on episode 390 of the podcast, is joining us for a coffee chat in LABS.  LABS is wher

Every founder I know has been wondering at some point or another how much other brands are making, what tech they're using, and how big their teams are. Everyone wants to see what other brands are doing and how they are successful.  Even though we know that every business journey looks different, it's natural to be curious. The product world is shifting so fast. Right now, we're seeing rising costs. We're seeing tariffs, supply chain delays, and changes to consumer buying habits. That's going to ultimately change how we are creating, marketing, and selling our products. We know that there are a lot of folks pivoting, a lot of people making changes to how things are going.  That is why I wanted to take another temperature check of our industry. We recently collected 400 responses to our state of the product industry survey. We had 400 brands that stretched a wide range of product categories, experience levels, and income levels, and they shared their insights and their business details so that we could create

Do you have excess inventory that you have no idea how to move? On today's podcast, we have Melodie van der Baan, cofounder of Max Retail. It's a platform designed to help independent retailers and brands easily sell their excess inventory online.  During our conversation, Melodie shares how she started out as a sales rep, and then how she owned her own retail store in Palm Beach and how the challenges she faced with unsold inventory inspired the creation of Max Retail. She shares how Max Retail integrates seamlessly with popular sales platforms like Shopify, Square, and Lightspeed, and the innovative ways that it gives new life to seasonal or aged inventory through a vast network of e-commerce channels.  We also talk about the importance of inventory management, staying adaptable in uncertain markets, and why a strong partnership between brands and retailers is more crucial than ever. Today’s episode is brought to you by our Proof to Product LABS coaching program. This is a coaching program specifically buil

Today's episode is an important and timely one. It is a conversation about resilience as small business owners and what we can do or how we navigate things when we are backed into a corner by forces outside of our control.  Our guest this week is Emily Ley. She is the founder of Simplified®, a wildly successful brand of planners and organizational tools that many of you know and love. She also happens to be one of our Paper Camp alumni.  You have seen Emily's products in Target, Walmart, Staples, and independent boutiques worldwide. But behind the scenes, like so many product-based business owners, Emily has been navigating massive shifts in things like the global supply chain, rising costs, and now devastating tariffs. Her company has paid more than $1,170,000 in tariffs since 2017. With the newly announced 150% tariffs as they stand as of recording this today.  She is facing over $1,000,000 more in fees this year alone, and Emily is not staying quiet.  Earlier this month, she filed a federal lawsuit agains

With everything going on in the global economy right now, there have been a lot of discussions about price increases. It's been a hot topic in Paper Camp, in our LABS community, and even in my Advisory Board mastermind.  People are asking about how to raise their prices, if they should raise their prices, and also how to communicate those price increases with your customers, whether you're selling retail or wholesale. And it's a great and valid question. I understand why people are asking it right now. So I'm bringing back an episode that we aired in 2022. It's called How to Communicate Price Increases with Your Customers, and this is honestly more relevant now than when I first aired this episode. With increasing tariffs and practically everything getting more expensive, a majority of you will need to increase your prices. I want your businesses to survive for the long haul. I want you to thrive. I want you to be building a profitable business that will continue for a long time. Understanding when it's time

Let's talk money. Money is a necessity in business, but it can also be a pain point, particularly for product-based business owners because our investments, overhead, and risks are generally heightened compared to service-based businesses.  We not only need to make money, but we also need to spend money for future expansion and growth. But where does that money come from? How are people doing this? We get this question a lot when we talk with our students.  Many brands in our industry are self-funded, meaning that they use their own money for start-up costs and then they reinvest those revenues or profits back into the business.  Another option is grants. We talked with Ashley Sutton of Hustle and Hope in episode 374 about how she has utilized grants to grow her business, and grants are funding that we do not need to pay back. Today, we're gonna talk about leveraging debt and funding as a means to expand your business. I do not want to glorify going into debt for your business, but I do believe and know firs

It has been almost one year since we conducted our 2024 State of the Product Industry survey, and we are back doing it again. So from now until April 11, our 2025 State of the Product Industry Survey is open, and we wanna hear from you and all of your physical product-based business owner friends.  You can head to prooftoproduct.com/2025survey to share your responses with us, and I encourage you to do it sooner than later and then help to spread the word. As a recap, in last year's survey, we found out a lot of information. We asked about annual revenue, take home pay, the revenue streams that people were utilizing, how much help people have within their business, tech tools that they use day in and day out, and so much more.  Last year, we had 925 people respond, and this year, our goal is over 1,000 participants. We're going to dive into many of the same questions and topics that we tackled last year, and I want to do a year-over-year comparison of how things have shifted.  We have also added new topics and

When should I release new products to the wholesale market, and how do I align my release cycles with wholesale buying seasons?  I get these questions and more about product release cycles all of the time. In fact, this has been a hot topic in this round of Paper Camp, our coaching program about wholesale.  If our Paper Camp students are asking about release cycles, I know that many of you have similar questions too. So we're going to talk about wholesale release cycles today on the podcast.  Before we dive in, if you missed this round of Paper Camp, I highly recommend that you join the waitlist for the next round, which will run later this year. You can get on that waitlist at prooftoproduct.com/papercamp.  Paper Camp is our wholesale coaching program where we teach you our four-part framework for building a profitable and sustainable wholesale business.  Over the course of four weeks, we will ensure that you have your wholesale foundations in place, and we'll tackle growth strategies for your product line,

It's been a minute since we've talked about Pinterest marketing here on the podcast, so I thought it was time that we revisit this topic.  A lot has changed over the years with Pinterest, especially given the explosion of AI. So this week, Heather Farris is joining me on the podcast. She runs a Pinterest agency and education company. Heather has helped hundreds of creators on Pinterest grow their traffic and sales through both organic and paid Pinterest ads.  During the episode, we talk about how to use the Pinterest trends tool, which helps you determine which keywords are and are not popular on the platform. We talk about missed opportunities that e-commerce brands make when it comes to Pinterest, how much time you should allocate to Pinterest marketing, and also how AI is affecting how people use Pinterest and so much more. This episode is brought to you by our Email Marketing For Product Makers guide. 49% of our customers want to hear from us consistently, yet, only a small percentage of product-based bus

When you think of public relations or PR, what first comes to mind? Is it holiday gift guides, being on the Today Show? What if I told you that PR can often be more effective than social media or paid ads for boosting a business's credibility and visibility? That's exactly what today's guest is sharing.  Gloria Chou is an award-winning PR strategist and the host of the top-rated Small Business PR Podcast. Known for her untraditional yet proven approach to PR, which makes visibility and access to media accessible for anyone, Gloria helps BIPOC and female founders get featured organically in top-tier media without needing PR connections or a large social media following. Her strategies have earned small businesses in nearly every industry over a billion organic views and features in outlets like The New York Times, Oprah's Favorite Things, Vogue, and Forbes without any pay-to-play options. Gloria shares how to write a compelling pitch to the media, how to pitch and find gift guides that happen year-round, how

Today's guest is LABS member, Sarah Hart, the founder and creative director of Simply Curated, a home fragrance brand that has been in business for twelve years. Sarah also recently launched a sister brand called Hart and Co.  In this episode, Sarah shares the origins of her candle and home fragrance business, including the pivotal moments and challenges that she faced along the way. She provides insight into the nuances of the candle industry and the unique hurdles that it presents, like seasonal fluctuations in demand and the importance of in-person customer experiences.  Sarah also shares what it was like to launch a sister brand that ventures into new territory with a different aesthetic appeal and product approach. Sarah shares how she balances managing two thriving brands to really harness the power of social media in supplementing her business. Today’s episode is brought to you by Digital Lizard, who is a sponsor of our Paper Camp program. Digital Lizard is a leading marketing company that offers a wid

I know we've been talking a lot about our wholesale coaching program, Paper Camp, which is where we are going to teach you everything you need to successfully sell wholesale.  But today, I want to hand the mic over to four of our Paper Camp alumni to share their experiences. I'm calling this our “Before and After Paper Camp” series, where you can hear from real people who took our program.  They came to Paper Camp. They actively participated, asked questions, and soaked up everything that there was to learn. Then they went home and did the hard work. And friends, their transformations are incredible.  In this episode, you'll hear from: Janine Kwoh of Kwohtations | Follow on Instagram Jesse Regis of Virgins on Fire Candle Co | Follow on Instagram Carly Brenton of Paper Script | Follow on Instagram Amy Frazer of Keller Design Co | Follow on Instagram Today's episode is brought to you by our Paper Camp program, which is now open for enrollment. Paper Camp is our wholesale coaching program where we te

To successfully sell wholesale, you must focus on your product line first. If you do not have a product line that has a unique point of view, is priced right, and has strong profit margins, you'll have a difficult time when you start doing sales and marketing, particularly on the wholesale side.  A strong product line is the foundation of a strong wholesale revenue stream, which is why we start every round of Paper Camp, our wholesale coaching program, helping everyone audit their product line.  We want to ensure that your products are priced for profit and they meet industry standards. For seasoned wholesalers, we want to ensure that you're releasing new products when the market is primed to buy and that any new product categories that you're offering will fold well into your primary offerings.  Now more than ever, it is easy to start a product-based business, but strategically growing a product-based business and selling those products to the wholesale market requires unique strategies, which is what we foc

How did you decide that it was time to start wholesaling for your business? This is one of my favorite questions to ask my coaching clients, our Paper Camp students, and even the guests here on this podcast.  Even though there are a lot of similarities between our stories, everyone's journey is so incredibly different.  In some cases, like mine, deciding to sell wholesale was a very intentional and deliberate choice. When I started my stationery business, I knew that wholesale would be the best business model for me and the life that I wanted to live. I had already dabbled in custom design, and I didn't really love it. I had an Etsy shop that was bringing in a decent volume of orders, but it felt like a slow grind, and they were smaller orders one by one. I was intrigued by wholesale, although I was also a little bit naive. The idea of selling in higher volume, building relationships with other business owners, that felt right for me, and it felt like that was right for the season of life that I was in at the

Hey, friend. I'm pulling an amazing episode from the archives with over 375 episodes here on the Proof to Product podcast. There is a gold mine of information for you to help you grow your business, and, frankly, it can be hard to take it all in.  Today's episode is a look back at Paper Camp alumni, Brittany O'Brien's journey growing her stationery and gift company, Brittany Paige. In episode 258, Brittany shared how she scaled her wholesale program up to 500 accounts. That was a big milestone for her. In this replay episode, she shares what it was like expanding to 1,000 wholesale accounts, and now she's grown even beyond that. Brittany has had such incredible growth, and I know her story has been inspiring for many of our listeners, which is why we are re-airing it today.  Speaking of wholesale, we are gearing up for the next round of Paper Camp, our four-week coaching program that teaches you how to start and scale your wholesale program. We have coached more than 31,000 wholesale brands in this program an

Have you been thinking about joining us for Paper Camp, but aren’t sure if this program is a good fit for you?  Or maybe you're a new listener of the podcast, and you're thinking, what the heck is this Paper Camp program that I keep talking about? This episode is for you.  I'm answering the top questions that we get asked about our wholesale program to help you decide if it's the right fit for you. The next round of Paper Camp is coming soon. We're opening enrollment very soon. And if you are looking to start or scale wholesale, you are not going to want to miss this.  Today's episode is brought to you by our Paper Camp program. Paper Camp is our wholesale coaching program where we teach you everything you need to know to build strong wholesale foundations. Over the course of 4 weeks, we tackle your product line, sales tools, and marketing plan, and we even talk about how to exhibit at trade shows if that's what you want to do. We start with your product line and go into everything from how often you should b

If you’re listening today that means you’re likely interested in applying for our Paper Camp scholarship! Giving back is one of our core values here at Proof to Product and we give back through our time, knowledge as well as financial scholarships. Since 2011, we’ve awarded over $275,000+ in scholarship funds to creative entrepreneurs who sell physical products to the wholesale market. These brands had big dreams of seeing their products on the shelves of their favorite stores and they have obtained huge results. These scholarships are a big deal and we treat them that way. We typically have anywhere from 80-90 scholarship applications every round of Paper Camp. My team and I dedicate several days to view all the videos, read the applications, review websites, and ultimately whittle it down to one full tuition scholarship winner. It’s never an easy choice, but we do put a lot of care into our selections. And, today I want to share 5 ways that you can stand out when submitting your Paper Camp application. You

Hey, friend. This week, I'm pulling an amazing episode from the archives with over 375 episodes here on the Proof to Product podcast. There is a gold mine of information for you to help you grow your business, and, frankly, it can be hard to take it all in.  So whether you are a new listener or you've been around for a little while, this one is a must-listen. It features Ginger Diaz, a two-time retail shop owner of Feliz Modern and Rancho Diaz in San Antonio, Texas. We talk about a lot of different topics in this episode, but the one I want you to really pay attention to is what retail shops are looking for when they are making their wholesale buying decisions. We are gearing up for our next round of Paper Camp, which is our 4-week intensive coaching program.  We have coached more than 31,000 thriving wholesale brands who sell their products to retail stores all around the world, and we would love to help you do the same. Our next round will start soon, so get on that waitlist by going to the link listed belo

I love using our platforms, particularly this podcast, to highlight our community members and all of the cool things they are doing within their businesses and lives. I also love to bring folks back for updates, a “where are they now” situation. So today's guest is Jodi Kostelnik of The Neighborgoods. Jodi was previously on episode 233 which aired in January of 2022. In that episode, she shared real numbers and feedback about her exhibiting experience at Shoppe Object, covering sales numbers, expenses, etc. We got a lot of positive feedback, emails, and notes from listeners about that episode because Jodi shared so openly and freely, and people appreciated that.  Today, she is back with an update and sharing some things that have gone on, some big changes that have happened with The Neighborgoods over the last 3 years. Jodi talks about her experience in opening up an airport store in Washington, DC, including how that opportunity came to be and how she has a unique ownership interest.  We talked about the hig

Have you ever thought about licensing your art, but have no idea where to start? Licensing can be a really great supplemental revenue stream for your business. Nowadays, there are lots of folks looking for art to apply to their products.  This week, we have Bonnie Christine on the show. She's an internationally renowned surface pattern designer, an entrepreneur, and an award-winning online educator. She's been creating artwork for brands and products around the world since 2009. She's a self-taught designer and runs the Surface Design Immersion program that's geared for creative entrepreneurs. She's also the host of the Professional Creative Podcast, I have an interview coming out on her show soon. During our interview, we talk about how making residual income through art licensing, how it can be lengthy, but also rewarding process, and also a great way to make extra income for your business. We also talk about the importance of being proactive, how to handle rejection as a creative, and a breakdown of how cr