https://www.listennotes.com/e/ad67734bf2bc41599724385347798e0f

There's this interesting dilemma that can happen once you've figured out your processes and workflows, finding the right technology to streamline and automate them. Hi, I'm Alicia Butler-Pierre. As small business owners, we don't have the luxury of wasting time and money experimenting with different technologies. We need to get it right the first time. And if we're lucky, we can spare our coffers from the blow of expensive, customized technologies by investing in an off-the-shelf or out-of-the-box solution. you're about to discover the low-cost technology that's changed the game for how one successful entrepreneur and her global team of 90-plus people work. Who knows? If you're really lucky, your team might also be able to use this technology and click up your way to operational success. This is Season 14, Episode 170. Let's start the show.

Welcome to Business Infrastructure.

The podcast about curing backlogs Office Blues of fast-growing businesses.

If you're a business owner or operator looking for practical tips and solutions to scaling your business in a sustainable manner.

You'Re in the right place.

Now here's your hostess, Alicia Butler-Pierre.

Having a tough time trying to explain ideas over a video conference? Try the ThinkSmart Whiteboard. It's the fastest whiteboard software in the world and allows you to upload flowcharts, and write on them while your colleagues are watching remotely. Call us today for a free demo. The number is 1-866-584-6804 or visit us online at getmytablet.com Now that's smart. Think smart. Today's episode is brought to you by Equilibria Incorporated. Scale your fast growing business with less pain by hiring the right people, implementing the right processes and leveraging the right technologies. Learn more at eqbsystems.com that's eqbsystems.com it's season 14 everybody and we're exploring game changing technology and how you can potentially use some of these technologies to revolutionize the way your company operates. Adding to the lexicon is the one and only Tracy Hazard. Tracy is joining us from Foothills Ranch, California. She's the co-founder and CEO of Brandcasters Incorporated, the company behind Podotize. Now check this out, everybody. Podotize is the largest podcast production and alternative monetization company in the world. Tracy's also an Inc. columnist and she's even been featured on Larry King now as an industry expert. Now, although Tracy has quite the podcasting pedigree, we're actually going to focus on one of the technologies that she says has changed the game for how she and her team works. And that technology is ClickUp. Tracy, it's such an honor to have you here today. Welcome to the show. How are you?

Thank you so much for having me, Alicia. I'm so excited to talk business infrastructure, which is just so odd, right? Let's talk about this like techie behind the scenes stuff.

Which, you know, Tracy, actually that's a great segue to what I wanted to mention first to those who are listening. I had the pleasure of being a guest on one of your podcasts, the Bench Factor. And a couple of months ago, I was pleasantly surprised when I received an email from your team saying, Hey, you know, your interview on the Bench Factor was actually cited as in Tracy's top 20 interviews or best interviews, I believe. and mine had the designation of being the most unexpectedly interesting.

I had trouble naming what to give you as a, as, you know, so first off, this is, you know, this is the thing is like we look at our a hundred episodes. So this was a hundred episode celebration. And we looked at them and we said, well, you know, which ones did the best in terms of like got a lot of listeners, you know, really had interesting topics, but then if they didn't stand out in my mind, as being memorable, then I nixed them off the list, even if they were a top show and a top episode in that case. And so yours stood out to me and I was just trying to figure out what to give you because it was that, it was just so different in our conversation about what your show is like, in the way that you run your show. So that's why I had to feature you. So congratulations.

Thank you, thank you. And it is indeed an honor so actually, can you tell us more about potatize and, and brandcasters? So is it correct to just say brandcasters or potatize or both?

Potatize is our front-facing brand. And you know how companies, no matter what their company name is, they become known as their trademark, as their front-facing brand. And that's what we are. So we're really known at as potatize. So we're a combination Mass marketing as a service and SaaS. software as a service. So we're a combination of the two. So for marketing services, we really do just about everything imaginable related to podcasting, video to audio to blog to social share. We handle all of that for our clients. And then on the SaaS side, we have ad mixing and hosting combined in a really unique way. We're driven towards business use of podcasting, not sort of that entertainment use, although we do have entertainment networks that use our podcasting system as well. But that's basically what we are. We're just like the full service podcasting company.

Absolutely. And something that I have read consistently across all of your different websites, as well as your LinkedIn profile, basically anywhere I see you and your information online is that, yes, we always hear about vanity metrics, right, Tracy? So number of downloads being one of them, number of reviews. and I clearly remember having a conversation with you after you interviewed me on your show about, yeah, you know, Apple Podcasts, really? Do you really have to make it so hard for people to leave a review? Really? They all do.

They all really do. It's crazy. Actually, I think the best one out there to leave a review pods. They have one of the simplest, like you're already listening to it and you're like, this is a great episode. So you can rate an episode, not just the whole show. It's one of my favorites. And all you just do is you click your star and type it in. You're immediately sharing that, but there are so few that are that.

Yes. And what was the name of that one again?

Good pods.

Good pods. Okay.

Yeah. It's run by JJ Ramberg and her brother and they do a fabulous job. It's really just starting to take off in the last year.

Very interesting. So yes, and the reason I brought that up is because again, something that I've seen across your materials online, no matter where I happen to land, is that it's not just about those vanity metrics, especially when you're talking about using your podcast as a potential business development tool. So I so appreciate that because you're right. And that's definitely been my experience. Podcasting has definitely, I would say it's breathed new life into my business because things were getting really stale.

And that's so common. Yeah. You know, in a sense, measure the wrong things all over the place. so we measure the wrong things a lot of times on social media. For measuring in followers and friends, we're not really measuring engagement and conversion. So how do we get to the measurements and things? That's something that drives me. I'm always trying to figure out how do I maximize anything that I can do and my clients can do so that we are really looking at measuring the right thing and making sure that it's making a measurable difference in our business because otherwise it's not worth spending my time. I am a busy person. Right.

Right. Speaking of being a busy person, my goodness, Tracy, you have such an interesting background. So I noticed you have a fine arts degree in product design as well as textile design as, and also an advanced degree in writing. But it looks like your journey or your podcasting journey, I should say, started with your first podcast. W. Is it WTF 3D printing? Was that your very first podcast?

It was. It was my very first podcast. It's called WTF F F. Yes.

W C F F. The 3 F.

S stand for fuse filament fabrication, which is the geeky term for 3D printing.

Okay. Ah, that's why. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it.

So it was our first podcast, and we started that in our, our design business. So we'd been designing products for mass market retail, things you buy at Walmart, Target, you can still buy our products today at pretty much anywhere. We have a platinum record office chair that they still sell and probably sold better in the pandemic than ever before. And so yeah, that's our business that we had before. We thought we're going to break out and we're going to move into 3D printing and we want to develop all these extra services and we might do some consumer direct stuff. And so the podcast was simply a test to see if the market wanted what we had to sell. And in the end, we determined the market didn't want it. It's a really good thing we didn't invest all this money into our business in that format and hire all these designers that we were going to hire. And instead they wanted the information we had, and they wanted more of it. So WTFFF was a test to see if people wanted to buy what we had to sell. And in that case, it would have been a bunch of designs and we would have had to hire a lot of designers. And I'm really glad we didn't invest that in our business. because it turns out they didn't want that at all. What they wanted was the information about 3D printing. And so for us to become that resource was extremely valuable. And we ended up creating a whole extra passive income strategy for ourselves within that business. But even more so, other podcasters came to us and said, what are you doing? And can you tell me exactly how to do that for myself? And when we would tell them, they would say, oh, could you just do it for me? And they would shove their credit cards at us. And so that's how we ended up with a whole spinoff business.

That's a nice thing for someone to do is to shove their credit card at you.

Yeah, I think they could sense our hesitancy in trying to decide if it fit our current business, which it didn't. And eventually we had to completely reform a new company. And that's how Rancor's Inc. and Potatize came about.

Got it, got it. And so now you've built this amazing team. And I was looking at some of the stats that are on the homepage of potatize.com you all up to this point have produced over 550 podcasts. Wow.

I think it's a little out of date. I think we're over 600 now and easily. And we have almost 100% team right now. It's like 90 something. It changes all the time.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So we have 90 people working around the clock around the world.

Wow, Tracy. Oh my gosh, that is so impressive. You know, with 90 plus people, I'm sure there's so many moving parts and that you all definitely have to have technologies, especially being that they're in different parts of the world, different with working around different time zones. You have to have good technologies that can bring everyone together, make sure everyone is on the same page, communication and transparency. are so key. I'm wondering, is that what led you all ultimately to selecting ClickUp?

You know, it did in sort of an indirect path. I mean, the reality is, is when we set out to do the business, we didn't want something to become completely templated in cookie cutter, which is why there is no technology on the production side of things. So it's not a Canva drag and drop graphic. Our graphic group actually makes custom graphics, right? It's not a automatic editing for video and audio system, right? We have real live editors who know what they're doing and listening to things and removing things. So we created the system that needed to be bespoke and at the same time, extremely efficient so we could produce podcasts in seven to 10 days. And so that is what really what led us to having to put tight controls over so that we could identify exactly where a podcast was in that seven to 10 day to 10 day process and who was touching it at that moment in time with the large team that we have, right? And so that's where, you know, in order to follow up, in order to make sure everything was in place, we also needed to have really dynamic SOPs, standard operating procedures. We really had to make sure that all of that was the case because every podcast is different. We wanted to allow all podcasters to have their workflow and their style, their brand, be able to shine in whatever we did so that this felt like it was truly their production and not ours. So that's what led us to finding like something really flexible and really trackable at the end of the day.

So for those who are listening who are not familiar with ClickUp, can you explain what exactly is ClickUp?

It, you know, it's kind of an interesting, an interesting mix of things. So it's, it's really a workflow management, right? So tasks, assignments, you can follow them through. There are subtasks. So it's not all that different from other project management style softwares, but it has a little bit more communication through it. So you're almost like you're getting your slack, you know, your slack communication, your chat in there at the same time that you're getting your workflow going. And so they're, they're combined together in a really nice way. But the best part about it is everything's tracked on a time standpoint. So every single, from the moment someone says, I'm taking this assignment to edit the audio of Alicia's podcast, the minute the clock starts ticking and then we know when it's done and it immediately flows into the next person because we have all the automation set in through the process. So it's highly automated. You can template things and save them so each podcast can have its same workflow again and again every time an episode gets submitted. And it integrates perfectly through an API with our portal where people upload their episodes too. So the minute you upload, your episode is in production.

Awesome. So if I were a podcast host who was a customer of Poditise, the minute I record an audio and download that audio, I would then upload it to the Poditise portal and then it somehow communicates to ClickUp and that lets your team on the back end know, Hey, it's time to trigger that 7 to 10 day production.

Process. Is that exactly? Exactly. And if you weren't doing video, then it would skip the video step for you because it's all customized to your show. The same thing for people setting up shows. So if you've never launched a show before, we have complete launching services and we do the same thing. We track everything through that process to make sure your cover art's done, your intro outro music, all the fancy stuff you need to syndicate you everywhere around the world through Apple and Spotify and all those places. so that's all taken care of through its own process as well.

So you mentioned an API integration that works directly with the Podized portal. But I know just from me tinkering around with ClickUp several months ago, I know that it also offers so many other integrations with off-the-shelf solutions like, I believe, monday.com or maybe even Asana Slack. You mentioned Slack earlier. Are there any CRMs or do you and your team leverage a CRM component of ClickUp or do you kind of have it integrate with the CRM that you're using outside of ClickUp?

Yeah, so we use HubSpot and ours integrates directly with HubSpot as well. So the emails trigger through HubSpot. So if we were working on your launch of a show and your cover art was completed, it would trigger an email from our HubSpot system to let somebody know, here's your cover art, here's the link to it, you can review. We use a heavy Dropbox integration because our clients, the files are large. So using them within ClickUp is just not really sustainable. So we use the Dropbox integration as well. And then we use a lot of Zapier for, you know, just random things that you need to do because, you know, you might, we need to zap some numbers over to QuickBooks or, you know, you never know where you might need to send stuff out to. So we do use that a lot. our portal, our productized system, our whole software and everything that we do. I have a development team in-house and so we do all the API integrations and things ourselves for those systems. Not the ones that are standard like HubSpot, that one just works.

Right, because as I'm listening to, especially what you all have going on with the integration with your customized patent-pending productized portal and how that's integrated with ClickUp, I'm thinking, yeah, Tracy, is that something that I, as a layman, could actually do?

Probably not integrate to your own portal. Yeah, that's a little harder. You know, that's a little harder. But if you've got a system, they make the integration fairly simple. I mean, it's not that difficult for your team to understand what to do if you are doing a custom coded website of your own that you want to integrate with. We do also have, you know, some integration. So when somebody purchases and buys, we are also tracking how many episodes, you know, that's within our own portal that doesn't go through ClickUp, but it does let ClickUp know that it, you know, it crosses through to there. And that's where we might use Zapier integration to say, yeah, you have 25 episodes left on your account. You know, it's just letting the system.

Know that this one was, was approved, essentially. You mentioned, you mentioned the importance of measuring the right things earlier. I'm curious, are you all able to produce any types of reports in ClickUp? Or is that maybe also through another type of integration that you're looking at some reports on the back end?

No, we produce reports through ClickUp and through HubSpot. So they might be more sales and customer focused in HubSpot and more episode and employee focused staff focused in ClickUp. So we track our entire staff, we track our departments, we assign bonuses based on their performances. So how efficient are they? How many change requests come through? You know, so is there quality control up there? So we measure all of that through ClickUp and it's all automated reports that we receive every month and we make some determinations on our bonus payouts.

And I know from what I do remember about ClickUp is that one of the very first things that you do when you sign up for an account is you create these workspaces.

So every team has a different one in our company. That's how we do it.

Perfect, perfect, perfect. And so there's again, that level of transparency. The other beautiful thing that to me is such a plus with a tool like ClickUp is the visualization aspect of it all. Being able to color code things and have icons and that's so, so powerful because even with using something like Dropbox, it's just a bunch of folders and it's very easy for information to get assistant, and sometimes it can take maybe someone a little bit longer to find what they're looking for, but having that visual component to click up. Do you find that to be true as well?

I do. If you organize your workspaces really well, like we organize our workspaces that might be, you know, people who are in the launching phase or people who are having their website upgraded, people who are working on a social media asset program. So we have them all segregated and the reality is, is I can see by just auditing it and quickly looking, I can see how many are in that process, what their shows names are, because we, everything is, is an acronym of your show. So, like, the binge factor is TBF, right? Like, so it's, so I can quickly look at them and find them really quickly. And if I can't, I can type in into the search, the binge factor, and I'll be able to find my own show and, and how my episodes are doing if I wanted to look them up. I never look them up. I let the team handle that, but, you know, because I don't need to because I know they're on time and so, but Yeah, it's much simpler to review it and look at it. And then also because you can control who sees what, you can actually work with your outside contractors or with people who are uncomfortable. And I have leaders of certain departments that are just uncomfortable with all the technical. And so we can limit and say, well, you're in charge of all our social media, so you only get to see all the things that are in the marketing workspace. And while you may not use any of the other things, but the social media section where you're being tagged and other things like that as your tasks are going through, it allows you to be able to see what other marketing initiatives are going on in the company. So we usually try to keep them broadly open to a single workspace if, unless they cross multiples.

And I think ClickUp is still relatively new. Have they been out, what, maybe a year or two?

I think we've been using them since they were in beta before. So we've been doing it for about three and a half years now.

Oh, wow.

And so we've been, yeah, we were one of really early adopter. In fact, I think we didn't pay anything for First nine months we used it. So, yeah, I think we paid like 50 bucks just to get in on the beta program or something like that.

Yeah.

And then didn't pay anything. And then all of a sudden they switched, you know, their model and it is based on per users, but by utilizing, you know, only the team approach, sometimes we don't have to expose the ClickUp process to every member of the team because that's not how it gets used. Only the leader of a specific team might use it. and then assignments are laid out. So it has allowed us to keep it really affordable for us as well. I mean, as we've grown.

Yes, and so everyone who's listening, what Tracy's talking about is the fact that you can look at a particular team and you can actually assign access different levels of access rights. So some people may have full access rights, for example, the leader of a particular team, but to your point, Tracy, there may be some who only have view only access, or they may be able to view, but they can't comment, or maybe they can comment, or, you know, it's different levels, access levels. And I think that's really important. And that also determines the pricing per month, if I remember correctly.

It does, yeah. It greatly changes it. And so it's, you know, for us, I think we pay a different amount every month because we are always getting new employees in and it's always adjusting. But for us, it's still extremely affordable. I think it's probably the best price out of any of the software and systems we use. I think HubSpot is extremely expensive and inefficient for what it does compared to ClickUp for us.

That's so interesting. And it's really fascinating to hear from you as the leader of a company that is actively using ClickUp because we We looked at it for a while and we were like, this is really cool, but it might take us forever to set all of this up.

So actually, I am lucky that I have two amazing women at the leading my company in very specific areas. So my head production manager, Marge, is over in the Philippines and she is so tech savvy and she is really programmed in all the automations and systems. But it is my daughter who is my COO and she built this system from the ground up and has made it work. And if it wasn't for her system's brain, we would not be functioning at this peak of efficiency at this stage. We would have had to get a whole bunch of teams in, but it was her brain from the beginning that really saw the potential here and convinced us to from what we had been sort of hacking together ourselves.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it just, she really changed everything for us when she went to the system. And then as they've added things, she's been able to automate more and add more things. And her and Marge working together have just been fantastic.

Well, lucky you. And I, I actually, speaking of, of product updates, I actually received an email from ClickUp earlier today about some new features. So I can definitely attest to the fact that they're constantly improving and making additional or adding new features, I should say, to the product. So again, Tracy, this is all so fascinating. And I, you've already touched on some of the key people on your team that help put ClickUp in place and maintain it on a day-to-day basis. You've also talked about your seven to 10 day production process. But I do have a few more questions about both of those areas. But first, let's take a quick break. so that we can hear from one of our sponsors. Did you know that small business owners spend 25% of their time on HR-related items? This time is better spent taking care of employees, customers, and building your business. Kavyness HR delivers HR solutions to companies with 49 or fewer employees through their HR platform. Specifically, they provide you access to a dedicated HR business partner this is important because every year small businesses lose a collective 27 billion US dollars or roughly ten thousand dollars per employee. Their platform can revolutionize your HR operations and you're in luck because as a listener of the business infrastructure podcast, Cavness HR is offering you an opportunity to be a part of their beta testing. just click the Cavness HR link in this episode's description or go directly to cavnesshr.co to sign up. As a bonus, you'll also receive three months of free HR services. Take it from me, I had to learn the hard and costly way. It's better to spend your time working on your business than in it. Visit Cavness HR.co to sign up today. Okay, so Tracy, before the break, you were telling us all of the amazing things that you and your team are able to do with ClickUp and the beauty of it being that it serves as a hub for so many other applications that you all are using. I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit more about the people and the processes behind ClickUp, you know, for Podatize. So for those who are listening to this show for the first time, let's officially define what business infrastructure actually is. It's a system for how you link your people, your processes, and your tools and technologies to ensure that growth happens in a profitable and sustainable way. I must say, shout out to your daughter. I did see her headshot on the podatize.com website. Forgive me, I don't remember her name.

It's Alexandra.

Alexandra.

She's married, but she kept her last name and took ours. So we're absolutely happy to have Alexandra. Yeah, she's still part of the company.

Yes, yes. And when I was going to ask you about her anyway, because when I saw that her title is Chief Operating Officer, I was like, Ooh, okay. So she likely introduced ClickUp and you just confirmed that. So some of the other people that you mentioned, Tracy that you have as integral members of the team are live editors, live graphic designers. You also talked about these in-house developers that you have who can make some of these custom integrations possible with ClickUp. We talked about Alexandra, Marge. Who are some of the other key people? Do you have project managers who are also kind of overseeing these? I'm just envisioning these different timelines that are, I'm envisioning these Kanban boards. Is that how you all are looking at, you know, at what stage a particular podcast might be in within that seven to 10 day window?

So we really don't have to look at it that way.

Okay.

All set in terms of automations in the system. We have each department, you know, and they all work under Marge Morada, who's our production manager over there. And so each team has a team lead. So our graphics team has a lead, web team has a lead, our audio and our video, it's all like that. So they each have a blog. We have transcriptionists and we also have a, what we call a audit team. So they're the ones that might do a final QC, a final quality control check. And so we have all of that and each one has their own team that they manage. So when it when a task moves from, so a client submits an episode, it goes to immediately into ClickUp, there might be a quick review and that might be an assistant of the team, the very first team lead. So in other words, if the person had video in their package, it would go to the video assistant first and the assistant would just check and make sure was there. If their files missing or anything missing, they just double check that and then would reach out to the to our customer service team and say, hey, can you get with this client, their files corrupt, or it's just not where they said it was? And so we can go from there. And so that's how, once that happens, then the team assigns them to whoever is allocated so that we have allocation levels. Only you can work on so many. We have measurements that we expect you to do, you know, X many episodes per week or execute so many videos per week. And it's all balanced based on the number of minutes and the workload that you particularly have, because we have people who work, who job share and do other things. So everybody has a different workload. And so, but that's all actually in there. So the team lead couldn't actually assign someone, something that was over allocating them. It would alarm us, ClickUp would let us know. So there really isn't much for us to manage. Assigned, everything flows through. If the team leads only have to check every single day and say basically, did all my people turn in things overnight or, you know, in the last 24 hours? Why didn't they follow up with them and really kind of check on things that don't seem right? Like that's it. They check on the things that are red flags. And that's all their job has to do in addition to having their oversight, you know, to help train people, make sure that the work is at the quality that it needs to identifying problems. that's how it works. It's super simple.

Yeah, but you say that, Tracy. You say that, but we both know usually when things look simple, that means there's, I don't want to say necessarily complexity, but there's a lot of thought, foundational thought and work that's gone into putting together that final automation. Right.

And that's it. That's the thing. It's like we didn't have it automated from day one. What we typically do is we will test the workflow manually for a period of time. And when we feel that we've got it optimized, then we turn it into an automation. So for us, there's always that sort of manual test process. And very typically, I'm the guinea pig. So I start a brand new podcast every single year. and every time I'm starting one, I'm testing something new we might include in the next six months. So I'm, in this case, I'm about to start a new podcast that is a review style podcast. So I'm reviewing products. Of course, as you mentioned, I'm an expert in product, right? So Tom Hazard, my partner and husband, we're both gonna this review show where we talk about products. We're not going to actually earn any money from them. That's not the point. The point is to test out a process by which we can build affiliate links and build review programs within the website for our clients. So we're testing out this model of what would that look like and what does the workflow look like behind the scenes. And that way I can see the results as if I were the customer. And when I look at that, I can see, you know, is this really doing something valuable for my business, for my website, for the traffic going to it, or is this really not doing much for me at all? So in that to streamline all of this. And then how hard is it? Do I have to provide a lot of data to the team, to our podetized team, to make them successful or make this get accomplished? Because if my clients have to do a lot of work, they're not going to be happy. Yeah. And so that's, so I have to streamline it. So I'm streamlining it from training my clients and teaching them what the best workflow is and getting the team able to build a process in place that they feel comfortable with. that they can then automate and replicate.

Another thing that's coming to mind as I'm listening to you again, you have, there's all of these moving parts, all of these different people around the world, different time zones. Are there alerts in the form of, let's say, maybe an email communication, or even if you download the ClickUp app to your phone, can you receive notifications to remind you when a certain task is due.

So I love that the notifications part is my, my personal favorite because I don't have time to be in there all day. Right. That's, I'm sort of on oversight. So they can create and place me as a watcher of something so I can see how something's going. Like, we have about a dozen different things being through the graphic process right now through the graphic team that are for a upcoming trade show. so kind of outside the normal system of things. And they can just create a watcher. So I can just, if I want to check it out and see how it turned out, how a banner or sales sheet turned out, I can just peek in and take a look at it because I'm watching that tab. So it alerts me for things I'm watching and it alerts me for things I'm tagged in. I love the phone app because, because my team is over, there's a lot of my team overseas. I get a lot of evening pings, right? So it means that I don't have to, you know, have my computer handy. I can look at it. For the most part, sometimes it just doesn't appear right and I will have to jump on my computer and check out whatever document they want me to review. But for the most part, I can just quickly look in there. If I need to chime in, I can. If I just need to approve it, I can approve it as well. And so it keeps the process flowing and moving that the notification system are so dynamic. I stopped adding it to my email only because I get thousands of emails.

I know.

It's too much.

Yeah, it's too much. It's way too much. And you're right. That's the beauty of being able to download the app directly to your phone, is that you don't have to, you can just get the notification on your phone, but not necessarily a notification in the form of an email because it, it would just be way too much, especially with over 600 shows. My goodness.

Yeah, I don't, I definitely don't watch the production side of things unless it's, unless it's a really like, you know, if we have a really, high profile customer or something that's just getting set up in our process and I'm hand holding a little. I might watch for a little while and just, you know, just to make sure things are going smoothly. But for the most part, I really hardly interfere there. So it's really all these extra things, all the things in the marketing department I'm watching at any given time because we don't really fully have a CMO yet. Like we're transitioning to that happening in the next six months. We're just trying to hire the right person. So the person who's really handling our marketing is a little bit lower level. and so I need to kind of keep a bigger vision on that.

Sure, sure. I knew this was going to happen. We're getting, just as we're getting really into the thick of things, we're gonna have to start wrapping it up. But before we do, you've been so great about sharing the, the details of how you all set things up on the back end, just to even be able to, to fully utilize ClickUp and all that it has to offer. But I'm also wondering Tracy, are there any other resources that you can share with our listeners that you've found helpful in improving back office operations? So you were very good about mentioning Zapier. You mentioned GoodPods for, you know, a place where it's actually easy to leave a podcast review. But I'm also wondering, I'd love for you to talk about your ink column as well, because I'm sure you cover different technologies there as well.

So, I don't actually write for Ink Magazine anymore. I stopped writing for them about a year ago.

Oh, okay.

Because of a difference of editorial opinion. Reality is, you know, there's a lot of Publications out there where their Direction just isn't where I think value is for the reader. Yeah. You know, they're following that sort of clickbait model, or they're following a model where they're just, it's all about how many eyes they can get on it, not how How useful is this information for those eyes? And so just a difference of opinion and I just felt like it wasn't worth it. And I'd written well over 480 articles. So I was like, you know, I'm kind of done. I did this, right? Oh my gosh. But I do write for a lot, I know. I do write for lots of other publications on occasion. Authority Magazine, I write for Grit Daily. I think there's a new one coming up on innovation that hasn't actually launched as a publication yet. So all of these things there, I actually have a workflow in ClickUp that was built for me to basically have these edited, produced, like so that I have a, my can run them for me into the, you know, so I write them, but you got to have somebody who like will load it into the, into the portal for me because when you work with all these publications, you have all these different portals. And so it can get overwhelming. I have to say that the hardest part about writing what isn't the writing part, it's the running and working with the editors because every one of their backend systems is completely customized and different. And they're glitchy. They are always upgrading them and changing them just when you think you got it, they change them again. And so I can imagine for most, it's really frustrating. Lucky for me, I just passed that onto my team.

Now, I know you have other podcasts as well. So there's the binge factor, feed your brand, the new trust economy.

I know, I'm sure that one's on blockchain. Yeah. And the newest one that's coming out is the next little thing.

What's that about?

So that's the review one. We're going over products.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's not like products, not like big things. These are like little apps and things that, you know, you might give us gifts again and again and again because they're so good. So they have to really be something I would personally recommend or they don't make the list.

Got it. Got it. Tracy, there's so much to learn from you. And I mean, do you ever sleep? And if so, how many hours a day?

So I actually do. I sleep really well. And, you know, I do take melatonin, which has helped in the last in later years, so. you know, there's a stage of business where you get to where, you know, your team's really running and your job is only on the Visionary side of things. You have the people you can talk to who will Implement and do for you as a CEO. When you get to that stage, it's fantastic. It's a really great place. But, you know, I, I'm always on to the next thing, onto the next division we're going to be working on right now. My big headache is a couple of new programs we're going to be launching. And so those are, you know, those are keeping me pretty busy. My, my to do list is long every day. You know, I have a couple of younger kids too. So my, I have a seven and a 12 year old daughter, daughters as well.

Yeah.

And, you know, they make me quiet. They make me give them time, right?

Yeah.

So that's always helpful to kind of keep you grounded.

Absolutely. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you, Tracy, or to connect with you in general?

Link is really the best way, because, you know, my email is like slammed with things and everything else, but if you want to get my attention I do go on LinkedIn at least twice a day, usually in the morning and in the evening because we're running programs through there. So we're running systems through there. So I'm always checking my messages and accepting friend requests and things through there. So that's the best way.

Well, this has been so eye-opening. You've taught me even more about all of the capabilities and the possibilities with ClickUp because again, it's something that my team and I, we looked at and we were like, Huh, it looks really cool and I'm sure it can do some great things. And we had some great conversations with some of their sales reps, but we just never moved forward. So thank you. Thank you for sharing exactly how you all are using it and how robust of a tool it actually can be and relatively inexpensive to your point compared to some of the other platforms that are out there supposedly for small businesses. What I'd like to do now, Tracy, is just kind of quickly recap some of the things that you shared with us. Thank you for explaining what Pottetize is. You described it as a combination of a marketing as a service. Did I say that correctly? Marketing as a service? Okay, MAS as well as SaaS, software as a service. So it's taking the best of both of those worlds and combining them. I really appreciated the fact, especially because I'm a process and systems person, I appreciated you talking about the importance of measuring engagement and conversion when it comes to marketing and making sure you're measuring the right things. You talk to us about this very large team that you have, you know, at least 90 people, and it can fluctuate anywhere from 90 to 100 on a day-to-day basis. But it sounds like what I, what I got from this conversation, Tracy, is the importance of first understanding your workflow. Don't get into a tool like ClickUp and just think you're going to just start building things because you can very easily create a chaotic mess and that defeats the purpose. But really be thoughtful and intentional. It sounds like Alexandra is the person who really made sure that you all knew all of the different workflows. You test those manually first, work out the kinks, and then you figure out how to automate it. And in this case, ClickUp happened to be the platform in which you all were able to automate so many of those workflows. Thank you for sharing just some of the different types of people that are working on your team. You mentioned live editors, live graphic designers. You have your own in-house developers to again make sure that those custom integrations can take place seamlessly. And here's the other important thing. because things will break, especially if there's an upgrade on either side of an integration. Things, you're gonna need someone on your team who can manage that and maintain it. So I also appreciate the fact that you have this, there's this automated workflow on the back end of Podatize and how that once a team lead actually assigns different tasks or activities to certain people on the team, Everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing thanks to notifications and thanks to some of the other integration tools with communication apps like Slack, for example. So, Tracy, this has been absolutely phenomenal. We didn't even get to talk about the SOPs. I know you referenced some dynamic SOPs.

Yeah, we didn't get to mention that, but we have a whole exact portal that we created internally for that, and then it integrates. So it actually is like the little details will integrate, but we have a portal over where our clients can review their SOP and update it.

Oh, wow. Wow. That is fantastic. So I'm definitely curious. I don't know about you all that are listening right now, but I'm definitely curious to learn more about potatize. I've watched the video on the website, but if you want more details about Tracy potatize and she and her team at brandcasters can manage your podcast back office operations. Then make sure you connect with her on LinkedIn. That's Tracy Hazard, T-R-A-C-Y, last name spelled H-A-Z-Z-A-R-D. And it's podatize.com, that's the website where you can find out more about the service, this amazing marketing as a service as well as software as a service platform that they have created. That's P-O-D-E-T-I-Z-E.com Tracy, thank you so much. This has been amazing.

Thank you, Alicia. I enjoy getting to talk to you all the time. We need to have a more regular phone call. I know.

Don't forget everybody to make sure you check out businessinfrastructure.tv because when you get there, you'll be able to access links to all of these resources that Tracy was kind enough to share with us. Or you can always just click the link in this episode's description wherever you're listening. You'll also find more information about our sponsors. Make sure you support them because when you do, it helps us keep this show free for you. Thank you so much for tuning in and for being a loyal subscriber. Remember, stay focused, be encouraged. This entrepreneurial journey is a marathon and not a sprint. And keep operating as good on the inside as you look on the outside. Until the next time.

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