In this episode, I'm answering a question from our recent round of Paper Camp regarding abandoned cart email automations. If you have ever shied away from sending out these emails, you are going to want to listen to this one and rethink your strategy.
Read MoreIn this episode, we're talking about mistakes that folks make when they are hiring, how to identify appropriate KPIs, (key performance indicators for the individual roles you're hiring for), and how to have tough conversations when managing a team.
Read MoreCarina Murray joins me to discuss how the industry was impacted by COVID-19, how wholesalers and sales reps can work with Faire and other third party wholesale platforms, plus we’re highlighting unique benefits that sales reps bring to the sales process!
Read MoreWith the new year right around the corner, my team and I have been making time to really reflect on the past year.
This year has been one of introspection–about our businesses, about the state of the world, and about how we balance our work and personal lives. We’ve been forced to adjust to this new normal, like it or not. But I’m proud to say that here at Proof to Product, we never stopped making progress.
Read MoreInsurance. It’s admittedly one of the least fun parts of owning a product based business, but it’s also one of the most important.
No one wants to imagine a disaster in their business, but they happen, and it’s best to be prepared. If you’re unable to work, your business gets sued, or your equipment breaks, you’ll be glad you set up a safety net well in advance.
Read MoreOftentimes in business, we set our sights on the next big thing–the next product, the next launch, the next program–that we forget to rethink the systems that are already working in our business. But most of the time, those systems could run even better and make us even more profit with just a few small tweaks. Take a listen for my four-step brainstorming exercise to help you identify what’s working in your business and make minor adjustments to improve your systems even further.
Read MoreIf you’re like many of the people in our LABS and Paper Camp communities, you’ve pondered the idea of opening a brick & mortar shop for your business. In this episode, you’ll hear from Jen Palacio, owner of Tiny Turns Paperie, a brick & mortar shop in Somerville, MA.
Jen uncovers what brought her to the idea of opening her own brick & mortar shop and some of the misconceptions people have about owning a physical store. She talks about how she intentionally set boundaries and the shifts she made during COVID to ensure her business survived. She also shares her thoughts looking back and why she wishes she had prioritized hiring a team sooner.
Read MoreThe upcoming holiday sales season is upon us! The worldwide shipping delays, supply chain issues and labor shortages have been causing some massive challenges for small businesses everywhere, particularly for physical product businesses. Take a listen to hear my 5 action steps you can take to prepare yourself so you don’t face as many disruptions in your sales as we head into the holiday season.
Read MoreIf you’ve been itching to grow your business then you’ll love today’s inspiring episode with Megan Fowler of Brown Parcel Press. In 2020, Megan’s business exploded and she saw over 300% growth. Even more impressive, just one SKU accounts for over 50% of her business’ annual profits.
In this episode, Megan shares how she leaned into her passion and ultimately started her now thriving business. She talks about her strategies for loving on her customers and how she’s leveraged both our Paper Camp and LABS communities (along with a lot of hard work and determination) to build the business she has today.
Read MoreWhether you’re in the infant stages of your business or you’ve been running it for 10+ years, you may have had the thought at one point or another of making an exit.
Selling your business can be an appealing thought, but is it right for you? In this week’s episode, I had a conversation with Chelsea Clarke of Blogs for Sale and Her Paper Route. Chelsea explains everything you need to know about selling a business and her tips on how to prepare your business for an eventual sale.
Read MoreConsidering making an exit from your corporate career? If you feel like you’re almost ready to make that jump then you’ll want to take a listen to this episode to know exactly what to prepare for as you make the leap!
In this week’s episode, I chat with Desiree Perez of Paper Anchor. Desiree made this transition herself in January of 2021 and she takes us through her journey of how she knew she was ready to do it, how her experience has been so far and what she’s preparing for now as she is in the process of hiring her first employee.
Read MoreAre you ready to put money back into your pocket? In this episode, I am uncovering how you can do just that by increasing your products’ profit margins.
I will walk you through everything that you need to know about profit margins from a micro-level. As a business owner, you’ll want to observe the profit margins for many reasons but it can be especially important when it comes to knowing what sells, what should be discontinued and to help fuel your strategic decision-making.
Read MoreOne big lesson I learned over the past year: the importance of routines! I crave a routine and to be honest, before now, I don’t know if I ever realized how deeply I needed routines. When we were thrown into the pandemic and our school, work and household routines were constantly in flux, I saw the influence that routines had.
In this episode, I’m chatting with routine expert, host of the Routine & Things Podcast and founder of Routine & Things, Ashley Brown. Routine & Things is a product based business company that equips women to consistently live their happiest life one routine at a time. She opens up about how she began this business based on her personal struggles as a stay-at-home mom.
Ashley shares her insights into why she decided to hire a graphic designer for her products instead of creating them herself. She talks about her experience with gaining press and her strategy for getting her brand featured in the media. We also talk about the incredible giveback program she did with She Rises for Mother’s Day.
Read MoreDream with me for a moment: what could happen if you committed to posting daily on TikTok for 2 months straight? Could you perhaps significantly grow your visibility, traffic to your website and even sales?
In this episode, I’m talking to Kyle Sommer of Sommer Letter Co. She's someone who did exactly that and her results were pretty incredible. Kyle and I dive deep into her TikTok growth including how she’s grown her website traffic by 30% and increased daily sales by 15%+. Kyle reviewed her stats after we recorded and found her stats to be even better than she shared in the episode with a 40% increase in website traffic and increased daily sales being 25%!
She shares her story of how she got started on TikTok and why she decided to commit to 2 months of daily posting as a test. We also chat about how the platform is different from Instagram, her content strategies (plus what hasn’t worked in her experience) and of course the analytics that she monitors to track audience and financial growth.
Read MoreClosing one chapter and deciding to put an end to things is never easy. Whether that’s discontinuing a product line that was close to your heart or even shutting down your business entirely. In this episode, I had a conversation with Tammie Bennett of Show Up Society.
Tammie is a creative entrepreneur and mindset coach who closed down her business at the height of its success. In fact, during the pandemic, her business, Tiger Pocket Press tripled and had tremendous growth but that success didn’t change her mind about where she was headed next. She followed her intuition and decided to close her product based business so she could help people through coaching.
She shares how she prepared for that transition and how she made the final decision to make this big change. She gives her candid advice for how she communicated this change to customers, got rid of inventory and the process of closing down that business. We also explored the work she’s doing now to help creatives ditch overwhelm, procrastination, fear of failure, and imposter syndrome.
Read MoreAre you wearing all of the hats and juggling all of the balls in your business? That might be a sign that it’s time to hire help and bring on support.
Your time as an entrepreneur is so valuable and you want to make sure that you are focusing on what you do best. Recently, my mastermind retreat clients and I got together virtually for a retreat and one of the big topics that came up was hiring. This has also been a hot topic within my Labs community so I wanted to create an episode to chat about it.
In this episode I talk about the pain points that lead to reactive hiring, why you need to shift your mindset about hiring and the 3 key areas you should hire for first in your product based business.
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