802: The Code of Business Building: Marketing, Product Development, and Launches with Tracy Childers

announcer 0:00 a marketer of the Day episode 802 The Code of Business Building, marketing, product development and launches with Tracy Childers.

Robert Plank 0:15 Hey everyone, welcome back to another exciting interview inside Double Agent Marketing. My name is Robert plank. And we're going to talk today to a really smart guy. His name is Tracy Childers. If that name sounds familiar, you might have heard of his dad, John Childers, who teaches people how to speak and sell from the stage. He has a brother JJ Childers, who teaches you how to protect your assets, save money on taxes, but you're gonna be blown away by that even better children's Mr. Tracy shoulders. He is probably one of the smartest marketers I've ever come across in the past 1020, even 30 years or more, he's going to talk to you about how to work a lot smarter with your business and outsource it so that you can still make money but not do as much of the work. Hey, Tracy, what's up?

Speaker 3 1:02 Hey, Robert, thanks for that kind introduction. I don't know if I can live up to all that well,

Robert Plank 1:07 oh, well, you know, you're a humble guy, outspoken guy, but I'm pretty sure you can live up to that and more if you put your mind to it. So I top of what I just told everyone about you. I mean, I mean, if someone asks, what do you do? What would you tell them? I guess?

Speaker 3 1:22 That's kind of a funny question. I mean, all of my friends here in town are like, you know, we've known you for, I don't know how many years, but we still just don't know exactly what it is that you do. Like, we know that you work from home, and we know that you have a nice house and a nice car and everything, but we're kind of questioning it. You know, it really, you know, you said some kind words about being a good marketer. And, you know, if when you're talking to some people, you say, really, that's ultimately what it comes down to? It's, I'd say that I'm an internet marketer. Now it to break things down into what most people would understand in terms of what do I actually do? I'd say that I'm an owner of a small software development company. And so naturally, people immediately think, Oh, so you're a programmer? Well, no, not really a programmer, I don't even know how to write code. And that that really throws people for a loop. So what what I basically explained to people who say, so imagine a contractor on your house, you say, hey, I want to build this house. And the contractor says, Okay, I know all of the steps that it takes, in order to get that done, then we're going to get a different person to do the plumbing, we're going to get somebody else to do the framing, and then we're gonna get somebody else to do the electrical wiring. So it's very much being like a contractor of house, I guess, I'm a contractor in terms of building software, products, and, and then people say, oh, so maybe you do that for a client? No, I don't ever do that for clients for a piece of work. We do that, because we try to find out, what is it that people would want to buy? So ultimately, that leads back to, hey, I'm really an internet marketer at heart.

Robert Plank 3:13 So it's almost like you're like a software contractors for yourself?

Speaker 3 3:17 Yeah, pretty much. I mean, we're building a company, I mean, I've always just kind of been interested in technical things and such. And so I just kind of learned, hey, software is really the stuff that I'm most interested in. So why not try to make cool software that other people like as well, and then make money from selling it to them. And really the thing, when I said I don't really do things for clients, I didn't do that in the past, what I realize is, I really wanted to focus on one thing, and make it as good as possible, and then sell that said, that same thing over and over and over and over and over. So, you know, many of the products that I have, you know, this the exact same product has been sold 1000s of times. So that's, that's kind of a good position to be in.

Robert Plank 4:05 And I mean, that's such a good point. Because, I mean, as a guy who does software myself, I was in the same position, I would make software or do jobs for other people before doing it for myself. And it's like, I mean, you're never gonna care as much doing it for someone else as for yourself. Right, right. Oh, yeah. So and it's like, you do a job for someone and then you get paid, you know, by hourly or for the job. And then it's done. But it's cool. Like you said, this sell 1000s copies to improve it over the course of two or three years of like trial, different features, or even to be the contractor to be the guy in charge and say, We I want to add this feature, or like this feature maybe the competitors have or this sounds cool, but we don't want to go in that direction.

Speaker 3 4:49 Yeah, and you know, you said something like when when you do the work for a client, and then you get paid for the, the work and then it's over. I think Robert Kiyosaki was The one that I first really kind of understood that in his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you know, he calls it, you know, you're really just trading your dollars for hours or your hours for dollars. And, you know, I just want to be able to focus on something, then continuously and consistently make it better and better and better, and then still be able to sell it to multiple people. So that that's really kind of how I got into all that.

Robert Plank 5:25 And then, I mean, it sounds like, um, we'll talk about some of your businesses in a few minutes. But the way that you set things up, once you kind of have it in motion, you don't really have to do too much.

Speaker 3 5:37 Yeah, exactly. And I guess that's kind of really the thing that I always kind of focus on, you know, a lot of the products that I've done in the past, you know, I have done them a little bit differently than the way I'm doing things now, in the sense that, you know, it was really, it was kind of just me and working with outsourcers. But then it's like, I was kind of the brainchild on it. Like I set everything in motion, but but my whole, I guess focus is always kind of how do I remove myself from the picture? And what I mean is, like, once the product is able to sell, I mean, how do I get out of doing all the technical support, because I think when you and I first met, that was something that you were doing a ton of time on. And what I realized is if you set it up the right way, in the beginning, and you're gonna have to realize that the majority of the, the questions for technical support will all come in in the beginning. So you kind of have to answer them. And then ultimately, when you answer them, then somebody else can come in and say, Oh, now I see how it was done. So I can just follow in your footsteps and do that. And then I get somebody else to take over. And now I'm on to, you know, whatever else I'm going to be doing. So really, all of that is the way that I work is I never, ever, ever get paid. For the stuff that I'm actually working on right now. It has to all be finished. And then whenever it's finished, that's when I started getting paid. And see, it's kind of cool because I get paid. And I'm not even working on that I'm completely done. And I just keep generating money. And now I'm focusing on something new, that will kind of move down in that cycle. And whenever it's finished, then I get paid on that. So you can imagine, you start getting these multiple entities out that are past, those are the ones that are generating money. So that's why your income can really, really increase. Because it's not limited to the amount of time that you have.

Robert Plank 7:53 That makes total sense. And it's so cool, right? So to get paid for stuff you did 2345 years ago, and it's still paying you every

Unknown Speaker 8:00 day, every month. It's a great way to wake up.

Robert Plank 8:04 That's for sure. So, you know, before we get to off on a tangent, tell me how you've been how you got or how did you even discover, you know, into marketing and software and that kind of stuff?

Speaker 3 8:14 Well, it is a good question, brother. You know, you had mentioned that my father has done quite a few seminars and also our brothers into up. So when my brother and I were at a very, very young age. I mean, my father just kind of got us, you know, into working in his business. And I mean, basically, he wasn't internet marketing, back then it was information marketing. And the majority of the way that he did all of his was he sold things from seminars. And so you know, he taught people how to invest in real estate and really like when I was 11 years old. It's crazy, because I have a son that's at age. Did you hear that? Oh, yeah, I had lots of hair back then. But I mean, when I was 11 years old, I started duplicating audio tapes and putting them in the binders and packing them up in boxes and shipping them to things. So I just that's the natural way I thought in terms of business is Oh, wow, he created this thing one time, and now we're sending it to you know, 1000s of people. So I always kind of thought that way. And then I also always kind of got into computers as they were coming out and started learning new things about computers. And so naturally, right before the the internet came along, I was really getting into computers and I was doing database work and exactly what I say I don't ever do I used to do, I used to actually go to a client's office, and I would kind of analyze, Hey, what are you doing and how are you doing it with your computers? And how are you tracking everything in terms of your database, and then I would design databases for small businesses, so I kind of got into a little bit of programming, but I was using a program called FileMaker Pro, which was, you know, it was kind of like Microsoft Access. And it had a really nice scripting system. And so I didn't really know how to write code, but I, I could build stuff. And so then the kind of evolution goes, I went in, I started creating databases that were actual products. So I created some products, then my father was selling them at seminars. And so it really started doing that and pretty young age. And then as the internet came along, I just like, Man, this is just a natural fit. So I wanted to learn everything there was about how the Internet work and how you could sell things. And, and that's kind of where just kind of went on from there.

Robert Plank 10:48 Awesome. And I mean, and you have some of the coolest, the coolest sites, and the ones that I know about, I know you have like a video player product, and then you have a character at your site. How did you even stumble across that? Yeah,

Speaker 3 11:02 well, those are both completely different stories. I mean, I'll just mentioned the caricature site real quick. I started traveling to the Philippines. And I started working with programmers over there. And then through the course, we we met a guy that was just an extremely talented artist, and he really specialized in doing caricatures. So we, you know, that's, that's how that caricature site got created. Other thing is actually, I think, kind of a more important lesson. And the product is called f L v, producer FL, V stands for flash video. And the products actually been out for quite a while now, you know, I think I've been selling it for about six years. So you can imagine, back then everybody was fighting, they didn't really know what the ultimate video format was going to be the standard. And you know, Flash video kind of emerged as the the winner at that time, you know, and so people, people wanted to have Oh, playing in a flash video player on their website. And really, there were only a few ways of doing it. And back then, probably the most popular one was a product called Sorenson squeeze. And what I, what I found was that every time I would talk to people, they would say, almost exactly the same thing. And this is really, really key. Because once you understand this thing, this is how I have faced the majority of my products and businesses. They say, yeah, man, that's a great product, but it's just very complicated to use, or complicated to understand, or it just doesn't do this, I wish it would do that. And so I just kept hearing that over and over. And so then it was decided, hey, you know, something needs to be done better. You know. So that's where the FLV producer came along. And it was a better scenario than almost anything that was out there at the time. You know, since then, a lot of people have figured out, you know, video is a hot thing. And now there's, I mean, when I did that, that was even before YouTube, no Vimeo, or anything like that, you know, it's really, really changed quite a bit. So that's the same thing. You know, now, I have other software that's, you know, gotten to be quite popular, and we have a big company behind it. But it was a very similar scenario, in the sense that people were saying, I wish there was a solution that did this.

Robert Plank 13:41 And that's, that's a cool way of going about it. Because, I mean, it always sucks. If you're the first person, I mean, like, say, you were the first person to come up with an FLV, video player, it would kind of suck because you wouldn't have anything to base it on. You've put in all this work into it and wouldn't really know, you know, if you were designing it right, or if it made sense. And then when someone inevitably knocked you off, then you'd feel like, well, I, you know, I was the guinea pig, I did all this work. But on the other hand, if you see that, there already are video players out there, and some do this, some do that and you're like, Well, I'm just kind of, I'm not going to copy what I'm just going to see, you know, they spent a year or two figuring out what, what what was right what was wrong, and then I'll make my own knockoff, but my own version of this, and then if someone else knocks me off, what's it's okay, because it's just, you know, I knock someone else off to begin with, right.

Speaker 3 14:34 Yeah, I mean, I think that you said some pretty key stuff there. Robert. Number one is you say to be the very first person to me, you know, there are people that are the very first and to me, that seems to me like it's the most complicated scenario around where I think the majority of the money is, is being Seeing almost first, you know, you can see what's kind of working. So you don't have to completely create something from scratch, you see what's kind of working? And then you make it really good. You know, I mean, I spent tons of time on FLV producer and tons of things that I didn't know and other people didn't know. And we made it better. But then what happens? After that you said, then there's knock offs. I mean, I, you know, I guess you could take it as a compliment or so. But there were people that were coming out, and they were seeing my success, and they were copying, almost to a tee exactly is basically they were saying, hey, I want to make a clone of this software, I want it to do exactly what that one looks like. And I want it even to look the same. And people were making players that looked almost identical. And you know, you know, then they, they probably made a lot of money. But I just don't think that that's what you want to be. And I think you want to be just after first and kind of be a little bit innovative, but not have to create everything on your

Robert Plank 16:02 one. And what's funny is those people who tried to knock you off, exactly, I bet that I mean, it wasn't an exact copy. And they're probably like, maybe a few little things that you said, Well, you know, maybe they didn't even realize that they made their own improvements. And it's, it's kind of like capitalism, right? Like, yeah, like, they knock you off. And then you can kind of like, absorb the changes and, and, you know, get one step ahead of them again. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I hate always, whenever I talk about software, if you will always end up going back to like, like Apple and iPhone stuff. But I mean, everyone always kinda, you know, talks about whatever, like iPhone versus Android. And it's like, always, like, the Android phones, they always come up with, like, the newest features first, but they're always kinda, you know, they're the guinea pig. And I mean, it's, I didn't take like a year or two, for even an iPhone to come up with copy and paste, because they just wanted to see how everyone else did copy and paste on the phone. And then their way was the simplest, because they said, well, there's five ways to do it. There's only one that makes sense. Yeah.

Speaker 3 17:02 You know, I know, we don't have a lot of time, Robert. Yeah. And you mentioned apple and iPhone and stuff like that. And I do want to say one thing, because a lot of times people, you know, hear about software and stuff like that, and they're like, Oh, well, that's all good for Robert and Tracy, because those guys are technical. And, you know, Robert can write code. And I really, really want to emphasize on the fact that I really do not know how to write any code. And so, you know, people, it's almost like they're using that as a scapegoat. You know, you mentioned Apple iPhone and Steve Jobs, you know, I mean, this is a guy that changed the world with his ideas, you know, and I can guarantee you that Steve Jobs didn't know anything about soldering a motherboard or, you know, these electronical connections, he just knew and was very, very good at saying this is what I want. And let me tell somebody what I want so that they can do it. And that right, there is the exact same way that I go about creating software, you don't have to know how you how to do it, you just have to get really good at explaining what you want. And that's the whole key to the whole thing with outsourcing and really working with somebody in order to create a great product.

Robert Plank 18:31 So So I mean, let's explore that if someone was like you, and they had an idea for a piece of software, I mean, how would they explain their idea? How would they get it developed? And and how would they remove themselves from the equation?

Speaker 3 18:47 Well, I mean, there's a lot of places that you can go to outsource. One of my favorites, you know, back in the day was rent a coder.com. And now I believe it's called V worker for virtual worker.com. But basically, you can go there, and you can post a project. And you can just describe it. I mean, they, you know, you can, you know, you can type things out and tax and say I want it to look like this. And then here are some examples and stuff. But another great thing is a piece of software called Jing. It's made by TechSmith. And you know, you can capture your screen and you can draw arrows, and you can point at things and you can just talk I mean, you can just tell people you say, you know, I want this little thing I want a piece of software that's like example, I want to a countdown timer, you know, and I wanted to have three blocks one is the hours one is the minutes and one is the seconds and then in order to set it I want to be able to click on some buttons and I want these buttons to have up arrow and down arrow. When I click on the up arrow, it makes that number go higher. If I click on the down arrow, it goes lower. You just kind of have to envision it all in your mind and be able to show What you have in your mind, to somebody that's going to actually build it in sometimes that might even be drawing it out on a piece of paper, you know, draw on the piece of paper and say, Hey, I realize that this doesn't look very good. But this is a general idea of what I want. Now I found this other program, it does something totally different. But I really liked the way that it looks. Make this program that you're building for me with this functionality that I just described, look exactly like that. And if they don't do it, right, then hey, you kind of did it right. But here's what I wish you had done and change it. Just be really, really picky and get into as much detail as you possibly can.

Robert Plank 20:43 And it's funny that you mentioned, you know, when you're when you're saying, you know, I want the software to look this way, act this way, it's funny that you mentioned, you know, telling people, well, there's a similar piece of software here, I want it to look like this, because I don't know about you, but I have some Google Alerts on some of my software. So someone mentioned, it's like the name of my product or my website, I'll get an email. And every now and then on one of the sites like you know, V worker, or like oDesk, or something, someone will mentioned when one of my pricing, they'll say, Well, I see this guy's got a pop up software, can you make it look like this? But then like you said, also add this, or also you'll make it behave in this way as well. I mean, do you guys see that? Which says, for example, you see, yeah,

Speaker 3 21:22 you know, and I mean, sometimes I'd see it all the time. And especially back in the day with FLV, producer, I'd see people post projects, and like, I just want a clone of this software, I went to do exactly like that. And yeah, with our WishList Member software, I mean, we have people doing stuff like that all the time. And I mean, we had a competitor, that that surfaced in is like, it was kind of a funny story, because we had a competitor that really didn't have a very good product. And then instead of fixing his product, he created yet another product, which was a competition to his other product, which was basically a knockoff of ours. He didn't get it right the first time. So instead, I'm just going to clone theirs, and have a new prop, which is kind of funny, but you know, and then ultimately, stuff like that is really going to happen. So then that's where you kind of come into the situation where it really takes more to be a success than than just the coding of a product. I mean, there's a lot of other things, you know, how you deal with customers, how you market, how you position your stuff, and you just really have to do it exactly how you want it. And that's really the key.

Robert Plank 22:42 And and, I mean, it kind of ties back to in the beginning you were talking about? Well, you know, I'm a marketer. And I made a lot of these guys. They're just coders and they'll just, you know, copy what you have. But then they don't have the marketing, they don't have the traffic, they don't have the list, they don't have the customer support. So it's like, they feel like they've cloned you, but they've only got like, 10% of it. Right.

Speaker 3 23:04 Yeah. You know, and I mean, you're right, you said a lot of these guys are just coders and stuff. And I mean, some of them don't even have really good English skills. And, you know, a lot of people ask me, like, what does it take to have, you know, a successful website or a successful product that's being sold on the website. And like, you know, it really is not that complicated. You know, there's not like, there's just a magic formula, you know, you hear about the other copywriting formula, you have, you know, a specific headline and testimonials and stuff. Here. Here's really the magic formula. And it all boils down to one very, very simple thing. When somebody finds out about your product, and they come to the website, do they get this feeling of? Wow, this is exactly what I was looking for exactly what I was looking for. And the majority of the time when you go somewhere, you don't say yes to that answer, you know, or that question. You look at it, you're like, Man, I think this is what I'm looking for, but I'm not sure if it does this, you know, I'm not sure some I just they haven't really described this thing properly. Maybe it does this or maybe it does, I'm just not sure you ultimately need to your visitors need to come there and look at what you have, and say this is exactly what I wanted. And if you can get some people saying that you're going to have a home run and an extremely successful product. So how do you do that? Well, I mean, you do it a multiple of ways. And number one is you have to put yourself in the position of a customer and sometimes that's not always easy because, you know, you're thinking, you're thinking, Oh, this is exactly what everybody wants, and then you're not really the end user. So you really need to be an end user of your product, meaning I'm building something that I would use for myself as well. You know, we rebuild WishList Member for membership sites, we also run membership sites. So we have a pretty good pulse. Now, once you once you get to the point where you're selling it, and now you're going to be getting a feedback from your current customers. And you know, I wish you could do that. And you touched on this, Robert, earlier, you can't do everything that every customer asked for. But when people are asking for things, and many people are asking for the same thing, it's a pretty good indication of that's a popular thing. And you really should implement it. Another thing is, when you're early getting started out, get some of your friends or your family members to take a look at it at your website and say, Tell me what you think about this. And sometimes they'll just say, Wow, I totally get it. I understand what you do now. But sometimes they're like, I don't understand this. And the reason why is you you just automatically assumed, like, for example, WishList Member, you know, we might have initially just automatically assumed people were running WordPress on their website, you know, but somebody new, they're like, Oh, I get it, you're doing a membership software. They don't even know what WordPress is. So you got to be very, very specific and explain that. So that's just kind of an example. And there are also some of these other sites that have popped up recently, where you can go and request feedback. I think one of them's like feedback, army.com, or something like that. But you can pay like 100 bucks, and you get people fresh people that are reviewers that don't know anything about your site, and they will go to your website, and they'll just record their first reaction. That's an awesome way to find out what people are thinking when they hit your website.

Robert Plank 27:12 Especially if they're not the crowd, you're used to if there's like, like a mass market coming in off the street type of person. Yeah, for sure. Well, that's cool. No, I mean, I know we're, we're out of time. But in the last couple minutes, I want to talk to you about WishList Member, because it's like, it's too good to pass up. I mean, I mean, you guys, definitely, you know, you guys weren't the first membership software definitely weren't even like the first like 2030, or probably even like 100. But as far as I saw, I mean, before a wish list member came out, if you wanted to have a membership site, you'd have to kind of, you know, install this software, tweak these files, add all these other plugins, I mean, setting up one membership site used to take a whole day pretty much. And you guys were the first, like big, or I guess, like, you know, popular membership software that ran as a WordPress plugin. And, you know, ever since then, there's been a lot of, I guess, copycats, but that's just kind of going back to like we're talking about, people already had membership software. But then, you know, when when you tried to set up member sites, or Sue did, it was such an ordeal. And so you guys really, like filled the hole in the marketplace? So I mean, how did you? How'd you get involved in that one?

Speaker 3 28:29 Well, that is really a great story. I mean, I don't know if you ever knew this or not. But Stu and I have been great friends for a very long time. Probably like, nine years, maybe. And whenever I used to teach at seminars, I would speak at seminars. And I used to sell products from the stage. And I had done a fair amount of speaking of seminars and selling products. But the very first time I was speaking at a seminar and selling my own product, which was, here's how you can create your own information products. I've taught people how to record themselves in the audio and stuff. You know, you're always a little nervous, and you're not sure if anybody's going to buy it. So I made my presentation, then I made my offer. And the first person in the room to stand up and buy my product was Stu McLaren. And so Stu was my very first customer. And we developed a great friendship. And then, over the years, Stu had just become phenomenal marketer. And Stu had never really done any software products or any real products where he was selling products over and over and over like we talked about earlier in this interview. And so I told him kind of where I was at and I was kind of shifting gears and I had assembled a software development team and I said, you know, we can build anything. And I was kind of in the midst of looking for a new project. And he said, Man, I have some great ideas. And so the idea initially was a membership solution. And, you know, exactly like you said, Stu, was very frustrated in trying to set it up. I mean, just very similar to what I said earlier on about the Sorenson squeezed people like, everybody's using this product, but everybody's saying the same thing. It's complicated. And, you know, I won't mention any names of software programs, because it only will mention a member ship software. I won't throw them under the bus. But I will tell you that Stu was trying to set up a member. Right. And so anyways, yeah, he was using a member, and he just couldn't get it. And, you know, Steve's actually a pretty technical guy, you know, he can set up a website and stuff. And I'm, like, if, if I can't do this, there's got to be tons of other people that can't do it. And so you're right. There were maybe a hand a couple of other programs that were actually WordPress plugins. And they actually had kind of a major flaw in them as well. And the big flaw that we saw is, number one, they weren't doing what the customers wanted, because these guys were coders. And they were running membership sites. And, but the other flaw is, what they were doing is they were building kind of a membership solution, and then turning it into a WordPress plugin. Okay, so the difference is, it looked like what they originally built, but then they just made it work for WordPress, afterthought. Yeah. So what we did instead was like, this thing is going to be a WordPress plug in from the beginning. And so the way we built it was like, Man, this is all the functionality that WordPress should have had to run membership sites, it looked like WordPress, it felt like WordPress, it was WordPress. And so people were completely, you know, drawn to just like, Man, this just all makes sense. So that's really kind of how we got into that, and kind of differentiated ourselves. And really, just as we were going, I mean, Suez did a great job with all the marketing and building up the community. And we also really, really focused on listening to the customers and what they wanted. And we just continue to do that.

Robert Plank 32:38 And that's one way that I mean, that last, I'm really like, wish this. And when we tell people about it, we're like, Well, I mean, I'm sure there's lots of other lots of other membership solutions that will give you digital access to a membership site. And, and they'll try to, you know, they'll, they'll do things like they'll match feature by feature. And they'll say, Well, we do we do, you know, 50 extra things? And we'll say, well, that's fine. Except for you're probably not going to use all those 50 things. And it's so complicated to use. I mean, wouldn't you? I don't know, it's like, which is better, a simple membership plugin that does what you want, and you can use it or one that does all kinds of crazy stuff, but you can't even figure out how to how to turn it off.

Speaker 3 33:19 Yeah, and, you know, Robert, some of those other competitors and stuff, you know, yeah, you know, I can't I can't knock them down. You know, I mean, some of them have some pretty good solutions. But one of the things that we hear a lot of times, like, man, the owner of the company actually got on the phone with me and installed this thing for me. And I'm thinking, what's wrong with that picture? You know, I realized that that's a good thing where somebody gave you really good customer, but if the owner of the company has to get on and install the thing for you, is it really that easy to do? You know, okay, that might be the one that you want. But that's not what we want. We want it to be a scenario where we have 1000s of customers that can do it on their own. And we have a support team that backs them up whenever they get into trouble. And I mean, that would just be I just couldn't live my life, dealing with calls all day long, doing customer support, and also trying to run a company just without being back to trading dollars for hours. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Robert Plank 34:30 So I mean, just just to my understand your role in this, so pretty much Sue said, I have an idea for a word, a membership plug in that's actually built in WordPress, he designed it and then and you then you did you like, like improve the designs or your job was like you made it in terms like a programmer to understand or, I mean, what role did you play in that?

Speaker 3 34:52 Well, I really kind of had the role of just sort of piecing the whole team together, you know, and, like, here's what we want to accomplish. Shouldn't here's, you know, some of the some of the sometimes, like, with the technical details, like with databases and stuff that, you know, that kind of falls in, like, I just have to explain what, what it is that a customer is going to use. And there's just a lot of little decisions along the way. But I really do, and I acted very much as a team, continuously working with the programmers and such. And I mean, we're just very fortunate that I found, you know, an excellent programmer that can really take in. You know, and, and that's one of the things that I've learned along the way is, you know, a lot of times people will say, Yeah, well, that's good for you. But the program is I'm working with, he just, he just can't get things done like that. And it's like, Well, you got a major problem, you need to get rid of the person and find somebody else. You know, just because you've liked a person doesn't mean that they're always going to get the job done. So you really do need to have some good talent that can do the things that you're asking for.

Robert Plank 36:03 Makes sense to me. And that's such, I mean, I think that's such a good way just to, you know, wrap this all up, tie this all together is that, I mean, you don't have to do everything yourself. And there's some things that, you know, you'll never be good at. So you know, why even try just, you know, focus on what's fun for you what you're good at. And then if it comes down to, you know, maybe if, if you can put some of your own skills in there with like, you know, designing the database or figuring out like, what's the best way to like structure this, but then when it comes down to things like, you know, coding and things like that, you don't need to know everything, you just have the right person to do it.

Speaker 3 36:39 Yeah, absolutely. Having the right people is always key. And, and it goes back to the example that I said, as being a contractor on a house, you're going to tell me exactly what you want. And I need to take your vision, saying, hey, Roberts really wanting to build this nice house, and he's going to want it done, right. And if I go in there, and I have somebody that's, that's not a really good plumber, is just going to make me look bad. You know, like, I gotta have the right people to do these things. Because my job is to make sure that the end result is what's going to work. And that's really sums it all up. You need to make sure that what gets done was your vision. And that's what the customers wanted that that's really it boils down to that.

Robert Plank 37:33 And it's the funny, especially with software is that. I mean, you really do have to be kind of like a neat freak here. I mean, like, I mean, as someone who doesn't know, software, they'll say, Oh, I mean, they'll have a picture in the head of I wanted to look this way. And they'll explain it, and they'll assume people know. But I mean, if you don't say, I mean, like you said with like the countdown timer, if you don't say separate hours, minutes, seconds, yeah, these up and down arrows, and then see what the comeback was and say, Well chant, you know, you might have to go through several iterations. But it's like, you almost have to be like, overly tedious and just be like, well, even though you don't say like, well, it's got to be a gray button, and have like, the triangular arrow just because I mean, that's the way that the ones look, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. So I mean, we talked about a lot of cool, interesting stuff. Today, I'm really glad I finally heard the story of, you know, how you got into information marketing, how you, you know, went from designing databases for others into making your own products into kind of just saying, what now I'm going to, you know, establish the business and I'm going to establish this, you know, I know this guy who is an artist, I'm gonna get all the system in place, get the order system, the sales letter, all that shopping cart, all this stuff, and make a caricature site. You know, things like every producer, where you have the software made, and then you use it, and you figure it out, you know, how you would want it to behave, what improvements you wanted to make, then got customer feedback, or even saw how people would use it without even knowing about the software and kind of making it more intuitive. And I mean, I don't know, I guess there's, there's always things where someone makes a statement, and it kind of sticks with me, like my entire life and something one thing that that you said to me a couple of years ago was and we've talked about this before, when we're talking about the support desk, you told me that for this fo a producer piece of software that you had not even logged in to the support desk in like two years I think. And even that was like two years ago so I mean now it's been like four years so I mean as soon as he told me that it just blew my mind it changed the way I looked at the entire thing I you know, I realized that I don't have to do everything myself. And it's kind of it kind of is cool to get to the point where no one really knows what you maybe even eat or know what you do you just the guy who you're like the owner, the contractor you do the fun, like high level setting up stuff, maybe First you do a little bit of the work and figure out, you know, how am I going to answer these top five top 10 questions, maybe you're going to figure out well, I'm going to tweak this in the sales letter or changes in the software. But then what's so cool about digital products, information, marketing, software, all that good stuff, is that once it's set up, then it's done. And so I mean, then you have it sell over and over. And so then, and so I really want to thank you for helping everyone who wants to know how to make software because they should just go to V worker, and then maybe describe maybe look at some of the other jobs use this tool, like a gene to kind of record a video and show, you know, I want to look like this, and we base it on this other competitor, or maybe even draw what the design looked like. And I liked the way he broke down. She said, Well, there's like, there's the design part of it, like we use the Countess, and remember, there's the design. And then there's like the functionality, like maybe there's these buttons, but then also there's, they're like, they're pretty much like making like a tutorial like, well, there's the look, and there's the buttons, but if one could actually use it, maybe I would, you know, set this time, then hit the start button, and then it will start counting. And I think a lot of programmers or coders who don't actually use the thing they're making, they really missed that. They just say, Well, you know, it's gonna be a membership plugin. It'll have all these strings. I'm done. But the way that I kind of see, the way that wishes was designed, is you kind of design as well, what's the easiest way for someone to install it? What's the easiest way for someone to now allow someone to purchase access using the soft internet? I mean, like, there's not just the look and design, but there's also like the steps someone goes through. And I hope everyone listening got that website was called feedback army. And I've never heard of that, I'm going to try it out myself where you can have people try out your website and give you feedback on what were their first impressions. And I mean, you just solidified how important it is to, you know, have your own team have your own products, because if it wasn't for all those assets, all that stuff, you had a notion to be in with the system, then you would not have partner with Sue on wishlist. And I would I would say that which is probably would not have been made or wouldn't have been nearly as popular as it was you guys work together, you guys had the vision, you had a design, and then put it out there, got the feedback, saw what other people were doing with membership software stuff the customers need and saw what you guys needed. And you know, just had a way easier time worked way less than if you were still doing work for clients. If you're still going around setting up databases instead, you're like the software contract for yourself, set it up. And and that's all I'll done. So my final question to you is, if someone wanted to see what you're working on what you're doing, where should they go, Tracy?

Speaker 3 43:03 Oh, wow, that's a good question. You know, a lot of lot of people, you know, have their own site. And I think I have a personal site that I haven't updated in like three or four years or so, really the best place to go to find out what I'm currently working on is wishlist products.com. And that's the site for our company. And that will kind of lead you off to the different things about WishList Member and our wish list insider community and different things of that nature. But I really spend the majority of my time now on wishlist products.

Robert Plank 43:36 wishlist products.com. So that's it wish li STP or ODU cts.com. So I mean, what are you going to start using Twitter man, I thought you were finally getting on that.

Speaker 3 43:50 Yeah, I I've done a little bit of it and just just too lazy, I guess.

Robert Plank 43:57 Too busy doing the fun stuff doing the contracting. I don't maybe it's just go to V worker and outsource your tweeting, outsource your blogging that way. You can just be like, well, now everything is outsourced. Right? Yeah. Maybe someday. But until then, I guess everyone should go to wishlist products.com. Go ahead, go there right now find out what new exciting things Chase is working on with software, which WishList Member with their community versus insider and with any other plugins that they are adding. On top of that we're just products.com and thanks, a bunch, Tracy Childers for talking to us in this extra long session about outsourcing products and software.

Unknown Speaker 44:35 Thanks a lot for having me, Robert. I appreciate it.

Robert Plank 44:42 Do you have wine podcast.com forward Slash Free. Go there right now to see what you could be missing in your podcast. Maybe you aren't active enough on social media? Are you writing and broadcasting an email for every episode of your podcast? Do you follow up with your PA Podcast guests do you do things to make your podcast interview and content creation easier go to do flight podcast.com/free to claim your gift right now