Proof to Product
Ranked in the top 1% of ALL podcasts, the Proof to Product podcast is your trusted resource for sustainable business growth - especially if you make and sell physical products! Join Katie Hunt, each week as she shares strategies & solutions to enhance your sales & marketing so that you’re building a business that supports your best life. If you’ve ever asked yourself can I make money selling physical products? Am I ready to sell my products wholesale to stores like Target, Anthropologie, Nordstrom or Barnes & Noble? When should I consider hiring a sales team or sales reps? Can I really turn my passion into profits? Whether you’re a just starting out on your business journey or you’ve been at it a while growing an empire, this show is for you. Proof to Product is like on-demand business school for product sellers spanning a wide range of industries. Whether you’re in home decor, apparel, beauty, food & beverage, hand-made items, jewelry, consumer gifts or the stationery world, you’ll gather new ideas each week to help you grow your profit, build your team and lead with integrity. Host Katie Hunt and her guests bring you actionable ways to expand your product line, manufacturing overseas, optimize your e-commrce websites on Shopify, Faire, Etsy, Abound, Tundra, Squarespace or in brick & mortar locations. How to start or scale wholesale sales including pitching stores, wholesale outreach, trade show exhibition, working with sales reps, managing inventory, warehousing product, sales systems, wholesale follow-up strategies and working with key accounts. Marketing strategies for small businesses including content creation, leveraging tik tok and instagram tactics without feeling burned out, why you can’t rely solely on social media for sales and why email marketing systems on platforms like Klaviyo, Flodesk and Active Campaign are so powerful. Listen in as Katie and our guest experts help you strategize and tackle your biggest business goals. Host Katie Hunt brings a unique perspective to entrepreneurship. Since 2011, she’s helped thousands of product brands get their products on the shelves of their favorite retail stores through her Paper Camp program (www.prooftoproduct.com/papercamp). Prior to that she worked in the corporate world for over a decade leading business development and marketing teams. She has two MBAs - one in finance and one in marketing. And, she owned & operated her own product based business for over 8 years, selling her products to stores throughout the world from her garage. Katie knows the struggles you face as a product based business and she’s here to pull back the curtain and share her best kept secrets so that you don’t have to learn things the hard way. Find our free trainings & resources for product based business owners at www.prooftoproduct.com/resources
Show episodes
390 | How Trump's Tariffs Are Affecting Small Business Owners with Emily Ley, Simplified®
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 o
389 | Communicating Price Increases to Your Retail and Wholesale Customers with Katie Hunt
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
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 expa
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 proo
386 | How Do I Align My Product Release Cycles with Wholesale Buying Seasons with Katie Hunt
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 Pape
385 | How E-Commerce Brands Are Using Pinterest Trends To Get More Sales with Heather Farris, Heather Farris Co
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 edu