395 | Navigating Profit Margins, Burnout, and Tariffs with Jessica Totillo Coster, eCommerce Badassery [Part 2]

We are back with part two of my conversation with Jessica Totillo Coster, covering the State of the Product Industry survey. You can listen to part 1 by heading to prooftoproduct.com/394.

During part two of my interview with Jessica, we cover how product-based businesses are making money in their businesses, including the percentages of those that are selling wholesale vs retail vs licensing. We talk about how many revenue streams product business owners have, their gross revenue versus net revenue, what people are actually paying themselves, and the importance of paying yourself.

Friends, if you are not paying yourself, you should. We have a podcast episode that helps you figure out how to start paying yourself.

We also discuss Jessica and I's thoughts on burnout in the industry, just generally as a whole, but also how to handle balancing real-life struggles while running a business.

I really appreciate Jessica taking the time to sit down with me to talk through this. She was a huge help as I was crunching the data and assessing the numbers. I do think this survey and the data will help all of us grow stronger businesses together.

You can get the full results of the survey at prooftoproduct.com/2025survey.

Today's episode is brought to you by our Is Wholesale Right for You private podcast! This free 12-part audio series will help you decide whether wholesale is a good next step for your specific business. After listening to this audio series (in less than an hour), two things will be true. You'll know whether you want to pursue wholesale for your product business, and you'll have the confidence and action steps to get started with wholesale. Sign up for the private podcast today!

MEET JESSICA

Jessica is an eCommerce & Email Marketing Strategist for boutique owners & product entrepreneurs. She supports scrappy female entrepreneurs with actionable steps & strategies to grow and scale their eCommerce businesses. After 20+ years in retail, owning her own multi 6-figure brick & mortar boutique and 3 years as the ONLY employee of a 7-figure eCommerce store and having the pleasure of learning from the top experts in the digital marketing & eCommerce industry - now she’s sharing everything she learned the hard way so you don’t have to.

CONNECT WITH JESSICA

WEBSITE: ecommercebadassery.com | INSTAGRAM: @ecommercebadassery | FACEBOOK: @ecommercebadassery | LINKEDIN: jessicatotillo

Connect with Katie Hunt

Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.

Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct