Sisters Jordan Catapano and Jocelyn Dunn are truly examples of how persistence and tenacity can pay off for brand owners. Over the past decade, they went from bartenders to authors to owners of a bartending business, then became CPG brand owners with the launch of a line of cocktail mixers called This Girl Walks Into a Bar.

Then earlier this year they lost the bartending business to the Los Angeles wildfires. During this same time, however, they landed KeHE Distributors from a meeting at ECRM’s On & Off Premise Adult Beverage Session, which led to a deal with Total Wine & More. Most recently, they earned a Fast Pass at Walmart’s Open Call from a RangeMe submission.

In this podcast, you’ll hear how the sisters stuck with their passion through this wild roller-coaster ride and evolved their business over the years into the fast-growing emerging brand it is today.

Managing the Growth of CPG Teams: Founders Share Their Stories

Cosset, Global Beauty Care and Okay Pure Naturals each started with only two or three people, and over the years have grown their companies to dozens of team members. This growth comes with several challenges, such as deciding which roles to fill first, finding the right hires, grooming future leadership, and handing off the reins of certain responsibilities.

In this podcast, ECRM's Joseph Tarnowski speaks with the founding members of each of these brands, who share how they handled their respective growth journeys and what it takes to scale up a brand.

What's in a Name? A Lot, if You Ask Yes Honey Founder Heather Mincer

Nobody wants to enter “naked chicks” into their browser search while they are on their work computer. But that’s what people had to do to find the honey-sweetened sodas and drizzlers created by Yes Honey Founder Heather Mincer, when her company was originally called Naked Chicks Pasture.

When you know the brand’s origin, the name makes sense. It sold pasture-raised chickens with no chemicals or antibiotics on a small farm in Norwood, Mo. It had no online presence, and most of its sales came from word-of-mouth. Even when it started making honey-sweetened soda and drizzlers, the products were initially sold only at local farmers’ markets, so the brand name worked. It was catchy. (In fact, Heather still retains the title of “Head Chick” in her LinkedIn profile!)

But as Mincer’s sales grew and she looked to reach a broader audience of consumers and even retail buyers, it launched a website and became a RangeMe Pro subscriber.

That’s when things got a little … weird.

In this podcast interview with ECRM's Joseph Tarnowski, Mincer tells the story of her brand refresh, and how it led to an explosion of direct-to-consumer sales, as well as much more buyer engagement on RangeMe.