Day 2 kicked off with coffee from Crew Coffee again AND an extra surprise from Ciara at Vintageoats! Ciara set up an acai and granola bar for breakfast for our attendees and it was delicious!

While guests ate and drank their coffee, they mingled, shopped our marketplace vendors and connected on all they learned in Day 2!

Our emcee, Renee, took the stage to share the devastating outfit malfunction Cat had that morning at our AirBnb, RIP white jumpsuit. We laughed, we cried, we kicked Day 2 off in true UPP keeping it real style.

Hot seats!

That brought us right to Hot Seats! Our panel, Hilary Krueger, Allison Carter, Erin Sarpa and Cat Hildner, critiqued two businesses on stage with real time coaching and feedback on a specific question or need that business had! First up was Tara Sutton from Everything Done to a T. She shared her need to hire, get out of the one woman maker routine so she could expand her business. After the panel gave some advice to Tara, we switched gears to map out a launching strategy for Kim Evans new inclusive wedding subscription box, I Do Box. 

ACtion wall

Before sending guests to their first breakout sessions of the day, we opened our ACTION wall! We are a no fluff kinda conference. We want our guests to know the target they’re aiming at and have a plan on exactly how they’re going to get there. Cat designed action cards where guests wrote down their big, scary audacious goal and claimed them out loud. Then they taped them on the wall and we got to be surrounded by the immense power of dreams and goals written and spoken into existence! Some of the goals included, hit $1,000,000 in revenue for the year, write and publish their first book, and see their product in a big box retailer. So inspiring to read each goal!

morning breakouts

We transitioned into breakout sessions for the morning! Kicking things off were Kaila Piepkow with Dox Design sharing her expertise on branding! She walked attendees through their branding elements and helped them get started a looking at their brand as a cohesive whole that makes sense to their audience and showcases their personality! 

While Kaila was slaying branding, the other half of our guests were attending Allison Carter’s of Allison Carter Celebrates breakout about PR from your product and getting featured in gift guides. We talked about the best ways to pitch, the 5 parts every pitch needs and how to differentiate your gift guide pitch from a regular pitch. Guests attend both breakouts so after 30 minutes, they switched!

keynote

Kerrie Fitzgerald of Marketing by Kerrie led our first keynote of the day all about organic marketing strategies without the need for paid ads. She walked us through some different brand examples and pointed out their strengths in content creation, storytelling, visuals and more.

Lunch time! Guests enjoyed a sunny patio lunch of Greek salads and pita while they chatted, connected and brainstormed next steps for their business. The break times of the day are so fun to just hang out and really get to know one another and have that space to chat! Definitely where the magic happens!

money panel

We’re ready to kick off the final stretch of UPP with a money mindset panel led by Cat! She interviewed Amanda Dare of Woman Owned Wallet, Ashley Sodipo with Pink Flamingo Party Co and bookkeeper with Local Ledgers LLC, Carrie Poppelaars. They discussed funding, investments, the importance of finances and money mindset. It was a really insightful and beneficial panel about a very impactful topic.

Last Roundtables of UPP 2022! Guests had the opportunity to visit any of the roundtables they hadn’t gotten a chance to attend on Day 1 or ask any lingering questions from prior sessions! For the full list of our Roundtables, head over to our Day 1 recap post!

breakout sessions

Product photographer, Cristy Cross, and social media marketer, Polina of the Marketing Model hosted the final breakouts of the day. Guests got to experience a hands on workshop with Cristy all about product photography and best practices for flat lays. They attended their session on the patio for optimal lighting and got to use backdrops and props to walk away from UPP with some ready to go product images for their website or social media! Score! The other half got to learn about social media and the power it has to market your business with Polina! She talked about Instagram and Pinterest the most and the power behind both powerhouse platforms and the impact they have on product based businesses specifically.

And finally our last keynote of the day, Crystalyn Aucoin! Widow, mom, speaker and jewelry designer, Crystalyn couldn’t have ended UPP 2022 on a better note. She shared some stories of women she met at the conference and talked about the impact of relationships and the power they’ve had on growing her business. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house and we’re so grateful for Crystalyn for showing up, serving so well and closing the show for us!

With all speakers and sessions over, Cat and Allison took the stage and immediately started bawling like babies. It happened! UPP actually came together without a hitch (mostly) and it was pure freaking magic. We both felt an incredible shift inside us and our business after completing the first annual Ultimate Product Party. The gratitude we have for everyone that made the event possible can’t even be described using words.

let’s celebrate!

The champagne toast at the end, the music blaring, and the teary smiles looking over the crowd was the ending moment we’d been waiting for and it was pure perfection.

thats a wrap!

Ultimate Product Party is an experience like no other. We are committed to growing the event every year, making each one better than the last while still keeping the same family like feel. We want every guest to feel like we invited them into our home! UPP is a family and we genuinely care about you and your business and want to do everything in our power to help you grow it to whatever you want to grow it and then some! Skies the limit!

That’s a wrap! Guests left, we took our shoes off (well Allison had hers off pretty much the whole day) and tore down because despite pulling off an insanely successful event, we’re still scrappy AF and needed to clean up ourselves. 🤪

And that brings us to next year! 2023 UPP here we COME!

Mark your calendars for May 17-18 in Nashville, TN at Clementine Hall for the 2nd UPP experience you won’t want to miss! Tickets are on sale and we can’t WAIT to party it up UPP style with you!