Unraveling Podcasting Success: Insights And Strategies With Tracy Hazzard From Catalytic Leadership With Dr. William Attaway

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host, author and leadership and executive coach, Dr. William Attaway. Hey, it's William. And welcome to today's episode of the Catalytic Leadership Podcast. Each week we tackle a topic related to the field of leadership. My goal is to ensure that you have actionable steps you can take from each episode to grow in your own leadership. Growth doesn't just happen. My goal is to help you become intentional about it. Each week we spotlight leaders from a variety of fields, organizations and locations, and my goal is for you to see that leaders can be catalytic no matter where they are or what they lead. I draw inspiration from the stories and journeys of these leaders, and I hear from many of you that you do too. Let's jump into today's interview. I am thrilled today to have Tracy Hazard on the show. Tracy is a seasoned media expert with over 2,600 interviews from articles in Authority Magazine, Buzzfeed and Her Inc. Magazine column, and from her multiple top ranked video casts and podcasts like the Binge Factor and feed you'd brand one of CIO's top 26 entrepreneur podcast. As CEO and co founder of Potitas, Tracy brings diverse views from what works and what doesn't work in marketing and media, from thought leaders and industry icons redefining success around the globe. Tracy's unique gift to the podcasting, marketing and branding world is being able to identify that unique bingeable factor, the thing that makes people come back again and again, listen, actively share as raving fans, and buy everything you have to sell. Tracy, I'm so excited for this conversation. Thank you for being here.

Oh, I'm so excited to be here and get to chat back with you again because you were on my show already.

Absolutely. I would love for you to share some of your story, Tracy, with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

You know, I think sometimes leaders are born and this is really how I feel about it. It was one of those aha moments somewhere in college where I realized I was making choices and decisions for the group. I was already a leader. Right.

That happens. And you're just like, how did I become the default leader here? And interestingly enough, my husband, my now husband, we met our first day of college was in the same place. It would be the two of us making decisions for like, hey, let's go here this weekend or let's all of us go buy tickets to this or whatever it would be. And we were Realized, like, how did we end up like the mom and dad of the group? Right. Like, what is this maturity happening here? Right. And so we both fell into that natural place, and it was just really comfortable for us. And that has just been a cascade of how everything has gone. I just always feel really comfortable in that leadership role. And I. I think a lot of.

I don't want to overuse the term confidence, but it is a confidence, but it is not a confidence born of, like, Bravada, like, to use the female term. It's not me saying, oh, I'm just great, and that's okay. It comes from actually knowing that we. We can accomplish this together if we all band together and we do this. So it is a confident level of leadership that I feel like I'm competent enough to be the one to do this. Or if not, I'm going to tell which, whoever it is, I want them to be the leader, and I'm going to get behind them. Yeah. They're going to feel the confidence that I have in them to lead.

You know, I love that latter part because that's not something a lot of people think about, that you can show confidence in someone else, back them up, encourage them, support their leadership as an act of your leadership.

It's so important because, look, we can't be everything in our company at once.

Yeah.

And a lot of times I find that my staff, my team, it's not a matter of them not having the skills. It's a matter of them not believing that they can do it. And by giving them that confidence, but giving them my trust, my belief in them, it goes a long way to getting actually it done. Right. It's not always about empowerment. We think we need to empower our team, but sometimes our team just doesn't have the confidence. They don't believe they can do it. So they don't take the reins of empowerment that you've provided for them.

Yes. You know, something I often tell my team is. And they could probably say it with me. I've said it so many times. I tell them, I'm like, you know, they come to me with a question, and I'm like, here, That's. That's your decision, and your decision is the right one. I trust you. That's why you're here. I have confidence your decision is the right one. I'm gonna back your play. I love that. I love that. That's fantastic. You are one of the industry experts, I think, on podcasting.

Well, I like to think that that's the case?

I think it is, yeah.

The expertise earned from a lot of experience. Right. A lot of doing it myself and a lot of helping others do it. So I do, I, I, you know, I'm really not a fan of people who call themselves experts who've been there, done it once. Right. And so I think you have to create repeatable success for yourself and for others to count yourself an expert. And I, I, I embody that. I, I take that as yes, I believe I'm an expert in it because I've done this. Does that mean I'm perfect at it? No, it means it's, I'm practicing it every day and keeping that expertise up. That's also the definition to me of an expert is someone who's keeping to hone their expertise. If you don't keep up on it, you just been there, done it. Now I teach it. And it's an old model, outdated model that is not an expert you want in your corner.

I think that is so true. And too many people are listening to voices from people who have done something once.

I can't tell you on the binge factor. I just looked at my statistics. So we have about a thousand podcasts we've launched on our platform over time, and not everybody's super active, meaning that they're not posting us every single week like we recommend that they do. But they're at least doing it enough in the course of a year that they're considered still active podcasters. And we have less than 10% failure rate, so we call it pod fade in the industry. So people who quit their podcasts, typically they fade out and forget to tell you they stop podcasting. So the listeners don't know. But that's how it works in the industry. So we have less than 10% pod fade rate. The industry standard is about 73% pod fade rate. So it's super high. People who quit their show, and most of those people quit before they ever get to 25 episodes.

Oh, my gosh.

So they quit in the beginning before they ever really got a return. Right. That, that's, you don't see a return till after 25. And so I only interview on the binge factor, people who have done 50 episodes or more. Occasionally I'll interview someone who's done 25 or more, but that's only because they have, like, something really interesting, a story to tell or something like that. But the majority are 50, and probably most of them are 100 or more. And I just did the numbers because we evergreen social media post about them. So we constantly are re promoting them. And so once a quarter we go through and we scrub anyone who quit their show, who stop podcasting because if they're not active, I don't want to give them advice. And in the last year, we've had over 50 of my interviews and I've done 150 shows. So a third of them, and these are supposed to be people who claim to be experts in podcasting.

Oh, my goodness.

A third of them have quit podcasting. And a lot of them, a lot of those 50 have businesses in the podcasting industry or adjacent to it, and they quit podcasting. So here you've got someone who's like too busy to podcast, but that's what they're selling you.

Yikes.

All kinds of wrong.

That's. I agree. Why, why, why did they fail? Like, why are people fading?

Well, it's a busy thing, right? It's. I've. You hear this all the time, right? It's like I get too many clients and I get too busy and I can't even, I can't support my own show anymore. But that's a problem because that's how you got those clients to begin with. And so now you're going to put yourself on that marketing roller coaster of you're going to hit the bottom and go, oh my gosh, I got to revive my show. I don't have enough leads coming in and. Or I'm not getting closure rate at the same rate because I am not showing and demonstrating that I have value, that I'm doing this, that I'm living what I'm selling to you.

That feels short sighted to me that the thing that got you the success, you would say that's the first thing to go, right?

It is crazy. But that happens more often than you think.

So what is. As you're looking across the industry, I mean, you, you have, you have insight into so many different shows through potatoes. What is going on in podcasting today? Where do you see it going? What's next?

So right now I think there's just this sort of disenchantment. You know, they're like, they like, podcasting isn't what I think it is. I just got an email from a client today who says, hey, I've been on your platform for nine months and I can't figure out where I get connected to my pod, to my podcast listeners. And I'm like, you should have been listening from the beginning because we never promised you'd get connected to your podcast listeners. Apple and Spotify don't let you. Right. This is, it's, it's actually not in this podcasting model. And I think that's what happens to a lot of people is that once they hit that world that realizes that they don't have direct connection through some kind of email or some way to remarket to them or follow them around, they get disenfranchised with the podcasting model. But the problem is, is that you do have it. You just don't understand. You do. Because every week I'm sitting here talking to hundreds of people. Yeah. Or 50 people or 30 people.

Yeah.

That just means that you should double down and make sure you're doing two episodes a week or you know, do more. Because if I could talk to 30 people a week.

Yes.

That's way more than I can do one on one in my business.

So true.

So why wouldn't I talk to them again?

Why would you stop. Why would you stop that off? Like, come on.

It's a lack of understanding that it. They think it doesn't match what I can do in social media. It doesn't match this, but it does. It's just your idea of how this works is backwards and it's because you expect an email address. Yeah. But how much does your email opens happen today? How much do you connect to email open rate? So our email open rate has. It was always really great. It was always really high. We used to have like over 50% open rate.

Wow.

Which was really good. And we would have a click through rate that would be in the double digits. So it'd be, you know, over 10% which is still really good. When you're talking about cold or slightly warm email. Right. It's still really good. It's not in the single digits.

Right.

But over the last two years it has dropped continually. We haven't done anything different. We make really funny custom emails and like everything sounds like we have the same things. We don't do a lot of sales through our emails. It's always a tip. A video, it's. You can consume it in writing and video in audio. Like you can consume it in any method you want anyway. And it's free. So why wouldn't you keep consuming that? Well, because you get inundated and you have too much junk email. Right. You have too much junk nowadays. So we're ending up in unfocused. The algorithms change in the way Apple allows you to get email on your phone and you don't even notice that things that you used to like you're not getting anymore and because. Right. So you don't notice it, but the email servers are still counting it as a delivered and an open and so you don't realize that. So your open rate may not be changing depending on how they're counting it. How we look at it is if our click through rate is dropping, then something's not happening. It's not actually getting delivered because we know that this worked for quite a long time and we always keep it fresh and updated and all of those. So we see that on our end. And so when, if I look at it today, I see that we're probably around the single digits of open rate. Real true open reading, click through.

Wow.

That we're. We're down in the single digits and we. So we've dropped at least 2/3 from where it used to be two years ago. So if we are dropping and we do a really good job at this. Yeah, you are dropping. I'm pretty sure.

Absolutely.

You're dropping an email. Then why are you so desperate to get somebody's email address? Right. Why wouldn't I rather just have their ear?

It's true. That's so well said.

Right. So we get a lot of connection and click through conversion from our audio, but we get it because we make them an offer on air. We use our ad mixing system, which is unique to potatoes. We use it to drop in something relevant or current so that they're always hearing something that's like, if you really enjoyed this podcast episode and you got a lot out of it, then you might want to check this episode out next. So we might make a shout out to another episode or we have this masterclass. We have this free video series. We have something to offer you that's something next that builds off of this. And by making that truly customized and a B testing it and rotating it into the audio, we can get greater conversion. And we see about 37% conversion rate on our audio promotions. We don't call them ads because they're not random advertisements for Kindle books or you know, something, something passive. Right. It's something active. If they've gotten information from this show, they're going to want to check this out. And when we do that, and here's another tip, we put it in the end. We don't. We put it in the last third or so. If you were doing what we call mid roll ads. Right somewhere in the middle of it. We try to put it in the last third third of the audio or we put it at the end because if someone crashed out and didn't really listen all the way through, conventional wisdom is like, well, you want to make them your pitch right away, but they're not receptive to the pitch yet.

Right.

You didn't earn it. They didn't listen in far enough for you to earn the right to get them to click through and do something. So if you want something that's going to convert, that's not passive, right. You can put all the megaphone ads and the audios that are just general information at the beginning, but at the end you want to give them something valuable that is going to get them to consume more of you.

That is so absolutely intentional, Tracy. I love that. It reminds me of an old quote from Ed Deming. You know, your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you're currently getting.

Yes, that's so true. Right. We talk about, right, Your catalytic, catalytic leadership. Right. You have to do something to get a different result.

Yes, yes. And too many people are trying to keep doing the same things over and over again, but expect different results or.

Doing a model, this is the other thing that we're doing, a model that work for someone else of which we don't have the system in place, the team in place, the capability in place. Too many of those funnel experts out there have hundreds of thousands of emails in their email lists. So if they get single digit conversion, they're still getting enough conversion to make a difference. You've got 5,000, you've got 500. You don't have enough to make that worth the time and effort. You do it, you don't have that in place. So the advice isn't going to work for you.

And this is why I think so many people follow the advice of the gurus, follow the advice of the experts and they do that thing, they take that course, they follow that pattern and they still fail.

Right. And they do. And this is the difference. Like I, we have so much information, right. It's really hard because everything is customized. If you're in the health and fitness information, I'm going to give you different advice than I'm going to give somebody who's in the entrepreneurial leadership space. The reason being health and fitness supplements are blocked from social media ads. You've got to do something different to counteract the barriers you're going to run into. Yeah, Right. So we, you've got to understand that. And most coaches and experts don't have enough categorical expertise or data to understand what's working in one place versus another. So I'M a big fan of. If you're gonna. If you need a coach for something, go hire the coach that has. It, has niche expertise.

Yes.

They're gonna understand it. They're gonna be farther along in it. They will have more data and more expertise for that. But too often we go for the. Yeah, yeah, right. And the big guy, he's like layering on his next thing and he probably already quit. Podcasting, is on to the next thing anyway. He's not really doing it, he's just teaching it.

Yeah.

And that's the problem, is that we need people who are really down in the trenches with you, who are five steps ahead of you, or who have enough clients that are five steps ahead of you so that you can really see what's right in front of you. Because also things are moving so quickly that if we get too far out with our expertise, we aren't not. We are not helping with how it's going today.

You know that. That brings up another question. You have got to constantly stay on your game these days, right? I mean, things change so rapidly so quickly. There is so much turmoil and pivoting even beyond just the last three and a half years, which has created a whole different system. How do you. How does Tracy stay on top of her game?

Well, first off, most people think I'm absolutely crazy to do this and it. But it is the key to my success and the key to how I create success for others. So every single year, I start a brand new podcast so that I'm starting one and I'm at that place, not just growing it, and I'm still continuing at least two of my other shows. So I've started seven podcasts over the last seven years. And, well, the last nine years, because the first one I started and then there was a gap before I decided I was going to be in the podcasting business. So. So, yeah, so that one. But. And then we do different things with them. Sometimes we quit them, sometimes we. We sell them to somebody else, sometimes we do something different with them to test out what. What happens with them after you've quit a show, what can you do with it afterwards? So we are always testing some model for something, but I'm starting a new show every single year. I'm about to start our new show this fall, and it is a compilation show. It's a promo show for all these other podcasters who want to get discovered. It's simple purpose. It is a complex show. It has taken me almost the full nine months to set it up.

Wow.

And get it ready to go, because I needed it to be in an engine in order to support enough people. But our goal is to promote a minimum of a hundred podcasters a week. I. I pretty sure I'm going to get it up to 300. If I'm. If I. If I can build it up on the marketing side so enough people are applying into it, then I can get it up to 300. That's my goal with the show. Totally different model going to be monetized in a completely different way. Everyone's going to get promotion in a completely different way. There's a whole bunch of things that have gone into doing this totally different show than the show that I normally do, which is potatoes, is feed your brand, which is our coaching call each week. And so our coaching call each week is built in so that I can provide and answer questions for my community. And that means that I'm up on what they need. It's my way of staying current. They have a question, I've got to get an answer for them, right? So I'm staying current. I'm also building my resource library, my tip library, which is going to be AI driven, so that they can use it to find things, so that it can also inform my help team to support our clients. Like, so it's filling all these things at once, from one thing that I do each week, one hour that I spend, and it's doing it in a beautiful way, the binge factor. I keep doing it because it's a connection point, because I meet great people like you and you offer me to be on your show. So there's promotion on that side of it. But it's also a great way for me to understand what other podcasters that are not in my community struggling with, where are they in their journey? What. What else can. What's next for them? So those are the things that I do. The next thing that I do, though, is for two and a half years, we have been testing AI, and now I'm running a lab because we're about ready to roll out some of our AI features starting at the third or the fourth quarter of this year. And so when we roll out our AI features, my concern is that people aren't ready to use them. And so by running a lab, which I run every single week, we run a topic and I teach someone how to, like, title podcast episodes or create an article from your episode. Like, how do you do create a presentation to create a webinar, like, what would you want to do from it? It's always starting from a piece of content like that, because that's kind of my AI. My AI edge is to work out with content. But what are you going to struggle with in being able to do this? And what are. What's the missing thing that you don't have so that you can use it properly, so that it's easy for you to use, so that we can create methods that we either actually embed it and do it for you, or we create customizations for you to be able to do the next thing that you want to do with it, export it out so that you can do your webinar presentation, make, create a partnership with a PowerPoint company so you can do that or whatever it might be. We want to create that flow through. So the way that I do it is to just have a class. So I'm doing a live class and I really don't care how many people show up because the people that are showing up are actively interested. So if there are five people there, we are going to spend an intensive time helping five amazing people and I'm going to learn what I need to know to take it to the next step. And so we've had comments out of our lab is like, you just saved me three hours of work in the 30 minute call that we had today because I don't have to go test out these different AIs. I can go straight to the one that I know is going to work because you've already done that for me. You did that research for me. And so that's kind of the goal for how can we make this work and make it really a part of someone's workflow so that they don't have to think about this. Because I don't want to have AI that is just like plug and play and gives you the same results so that your podcast looks like everybody else's. That's terrible results that doesn't use AI to its best abilities. And so we want to make sure that we're not only helping you learn that, but we're creating the right output for it too.

Tracy, one of the things I love hearing you describe that is the passion that is so evident in your voice, your body language, your facial expression, if you're not watching this on video like that is. That is so amazing because I can see it bleeding out of you. You're so excited about this.

I am. It's like, you know, there's a lot of people who are on the AI wagon to be on the AI wagon, right? Like, they're like. And they're going to cash out really quickly before the finance burns out on it. But then there are going to be those of us, just like with podcasting, it's the same model for me, those of us who have built great businesses on top of it, great systems, saving us time, energy, money. That's where I look for something. When I see a technology and an innovation, I don't look at it as a flash in the pan. How much money can I make from this fast? It's like, how much can I integrate with this and change the outcome for the better, for everyone? That's what I want. If it's not worth doing that, I will can it like that. It will be gone. And I have to say that a year and a half, two year and a half years ago, when we first started with AI, we thought the only thing we're ever going to be able to use this for, because it's not there yet, is going to be transcripts like, that's it. And even that wasn't working well. We had to build an entire system that we're now, it's now going to be a new large language model in a way that no one ever anticipated. We built on top of the transcription system, but it took us two and a half years to build it, to get it right.

That type of commitment is what brings excellence.

You know, I talk to leaders and I tell them that you never drift into excellence. I love that you drift into mediocrity. Mediocrity does not inspire people. Excellence inspires people. Mediocrity inspires no one. And what you're describing, a two and a half year journey to build something that does not exist, but that you saw and you knew could be. And you saw the potential of what it could be because you.

I think the real key, William, is that most people.

Who are in that kind of innovative creative mindset, and there are people out there like that.

Oh yeah.

Problem is, is that they wait too long to bring something forward.

Yes.

Or too afraid to reveal their innovation to the world. Now, I've always found ways to like, we use it behind the scenes. We're using it as the engine underneath everything that we're doing. And you're actually getting the benefit of AI, but you don't have to learn how to use it. So we don't make a broken front end that then just gets everybody discouraged. We don't, don't do that. So we are always using it, integrating it, testing it, brute force, testing it in whatever way we can. Right. And then finding a way by teaching it here to make sure that I understand what it's going to take to make sure that there's success when it comes out. And that way we're always actually testing it, bringing it forward, talking about it. Because when you don't do that and you build something completely closed behind the scenes and then you're like, reveal, it's always a dud because the world's not ready. Right. They're not ready. You didn't build a bridge to get there.

Yes, yes. The pre work is as important as the work, 100%. So as you're, as you're thinking forward with potatoes, you've already, you've already laid out what fourth quarter is going to look like. What do you see four years from.

Now for my show itself?

For you?

For me? Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is, is that I want to just be able to keep doing what I'm doing in like, you know, connecting with people, bringing out great information, bringing it forward, being it extremely relevant. So everything that I do is trying to create a much more and deeper relevance model. No one wants to listen to outdated ads. No one wants to listen to things that aren't important to them. We believe this world should be customized to us. Right. How many times have we gotten it? Like the other day, you know, my, my Alexa device popped up some kind of video for something and I, I looked at her and I said, I think you know our family better than this. This is not keeping up with your, you know, that's what I wanted to say to her. I'm like, I don't know where you got the idea that we would in any way shape or form like this, right. And you didn't mark it as ad, so it's not a push through. Like what, you've missed the mark. Somehow your algorithm has gone wild. Like that's how I thought of it. Because, you know, we like this kind of music in this household or we like this kind of stuff. So when things are not coming and being relevant, we get frustrated with our devices. Now we get frustrated with our technology and podcasting is one of them. Right? The podcasting search engine sucks. Like, I don't know how to say it any nicer.

Like, so true. Yes.

It's like, I swear it's written on, you know, like old school school. I, I can't even think of like the old search engines or something. Like, you know, I would have said it was Bing, but Bing has improved because they got AI right. Like so it. But that's how it feels, right? It's that outdated. But today we expect more. And I always want to be in that place of bringing forth the most relevant things. So when I can eliminate things that I don't need to do anymore that are not serving and are not creating relevance, or I can create a deeper relevance, that's what I want to do. And if that changes the way my show runs, then it's going to change the way my show runs. So today, I think, because there are so many Jitson franchise podcasters, because pod fading is at a, like, epidemic rate. Right. Because of that, I think I have to find a way to help you understand the value of what you created. So part of that is everything that we're building in, it's already starting to come out. It's like we have. We have appraisals and potatoes scores. So you can score your podcast. So it doesn't matter if your podcast was, you know, 2 years old. You can find out, is there any value left in this? Is there anything worth reviving in this? And then we're working towards, like, deep AI modeling and indexing of every single word that's said on a podcast. So we can understand if there's value to advertisers, if there's value to promotions, if there's value to somebody buying your show. Imagine if somebody bought your old content and repurposed it because you didn't take the time to do it. So they could, because they're in that business now and you've moved on to something completely different. Wouldn't that be great? Now you recoup your value of the time and energy you spent two years ago or a year ago.

I love talking to visionary leaders like you, Tracy, because you see so many things that could be.

Well, it's too easy for us to say, my industry is shifting.

Yes.

I'm just going to jump onto the next thing. Yeah, yeah, then it is. There's still value in this industry. How do I uncover it and make it available to more people? That's the question that I always want to ask. And because I didn't come into this industry with the idea that it had no value, I knew it had value. I personally received the value before I got started. And then I created value for a dozen people. And then they said, I have a hundred more people I want to refer you to, so please make this into a business. And we did. So we know we've been creating value all along the way. And if they're finding value Then why are there so many who are not getting it? How do I get to them and understand what's driving them, why they're not seeing that value?

That's brilliant. What do you wish you had known 10 years ago?

Oh, there's so much I wish I had known. But you know what? There's. There's no point in looking back. That's how I feel. I feel like there should be no regrets in life. And if I looked back, if I wouldn't be here, if I didn't make those mistakes. Right.

Oh, that's good.

Right. And so there. There's a way of being that I have now, and I. Look, I feel like, as I mentioned before, that I always had this kind of confidence level, that I was confident in what I could do and the fact that if I didn't know it, I'd figure it out. I had great ability to do things, to accomplish things, to learn things. I was really confident in my ability to do that. But today I have a different level of being that I am very confident that the flow of life is. Ha. I don't have to control everything. I think in my younger days, I. Everything I did was to try to control things. Instead, I have a better ability to flex, to adjust, to stay with the flow, to keep it moving, to plug that into my vision and just. And make sure we're not completely diverted off path, but that we just go with the flow and we're going to make it. But that, that flow doesn't take me over. It's not taking me down the waterfall. It's not taking me over. I still am. I still have control of the rudder of my boat. You.

I see a number of books behind you. There. Is there. Is there a book. I always ask. I always ask guests. Is there a book that has been a part of your journey that you would say, hey, if you're in leadership, an entrepreneur, an agency, or any of these spaces, this is a book you need to read.

Yeah, there's so many. Look, I am a prolific reader. I read about 300 books a year. And that's partially because I'm a speed reader. Like, I can read really quickly and partially because books are not as good as they used to be. So they don't take you. Like, they're not these, like, you know, massive tomes that you're going to take you, you know, a month to read. They're short. So. So that's, you know, that's helpful. Right. But, you know, I think it probably. It's a little Bit of an older book and probably the last. You know, I think it's maybe 12 years old or something like that. But one of my favorite books and one of my favorite authors is Shane Snow. And Smart Cuts is one of my absolute favorite books. And a lot of people missed it because they weren't in the tech industry. And he was kind of a popular tech writer. He's still a popular tech writer. He has a book dream team and I think something about storytelling now. Like, he's got a couple of other books as well, and they're both just as good. But I'm a big fan of Smart Cuts because what it is is this idea that there is a smarter path to getting from A to B and there are smarter choices that you can make for your company. And when we are entrepreneurs, we need to make those smart choices. Yeah, we need to make those cuts. And the things that we can't do that we don't have time for and we need to be thinking about is this still going to get us where we're going to going, or is the fact that I cut this out like a fatal flaw and that means that I'm not going to succeed? And so thinking those things through are really critically important. And I love the way he words that. He tells these great stories. And he's a magazine writer, so, you know, wrote for. Writes for great magazines and newspapers. So one of the people I follow, I'm always reading his articles and. And that I think, has that changed the way I looked at innovation? Yeah, in a different way, because there was so much of it that I could see. Inventors. So I have patents and my partner and husband and I, we have 40 patents between the two of us.

My goodness.

And yeah, and the key about it is, like, anyone can get a patent at the end of the day. Like, you can get a patent for something really narrow and you know, that will never be of any value. But I'm proud of the fact that 86% of our patents, and this is a statistic because we cite it a lot when we give, like, lectures, but that became something that somebody made money off of. Our clients made money or our businesses made money, somebody made money. They commercialized those patents and used them. They didn't just sit on a shelf and we're like pretty little pieces of paper you got from the Patent and Trademark Office. Yeah. And that happens when you can put your innovation into application and too often we lose the application. So I would talk to these inventors and I would give these lectures and they would come forward and they'd be like, I'm so proud of this and this. And I'd be like, okay, are you selling it yet? Where is it? Have you been testing it? That their path to success, they're not following.

That their whole end goal was to get the invention patented. And that innovation for innovation's sake, yes. Is not useful to the world.

And so. But they think, oh, but I can't sell it. I don't have the money to start marketing it. I don't have the money to do this, so I just need my piece of paper to sell it to somebody else. But you haven't demonstrated the value to anybody else. So sometimes, and this is the advice that I give, don't spend money on the patent. Spend money on doing a provisional, because that's cheap. Do a provisional, start marketing it. Do a provisional, start making the thing. Start figuring out whether or not you should make it. And in that time, maybe you'll find the right buyer for it because you've proven enough along the way to show them where the value lies, that you don't have enough capital for it, that they could bring in the capital for and take what you've done and take it to the next level, and you've got your provisional. So you're still covered. And now you spend the money on patenting, but instead, if you spend $15,000 on patenting, you've cut out your whole ability to market, maybe even prototype. You've taken away all the money from being able to do that. Wow.

You have shared so much wisdom and insight today, Tracy. This has been so incredibly helpful. When people leave an episode like this, often, they'll. They'll remember one or two things. If you wanted to say, this is the one thing I want you to remember, what would that one thing be?

You have to be out there saying it. You have to be out there experiencing it. Being out there doing is the best way to get to being right. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you got to be doing things right. The activity, the action that you take matters. Now, I'm not saying you should be busy doing everything. I'm saying do the smart things right.

Yes.

Do things. Because if we're not in that, we're only in this part of. I'm going to manifest this. It's never gonna happen.

Well said.

Right.

I know folks are gonna want to stay connected with you. What is the best way for people to continue learning from you?

So the best way is to follow me on LinkedIn. It is the one place that I participate in. So follow me on LinkedIn. We always go live on LinkedIn every single week when we do our coaching call for our podcasts for our clients. We go live on LinkedIn for the first portion of it. So you'll get the latest tip. The thing that my clients are struggling with, you're gonna hear the tip for. And so that's the best place to do it. And then, you know, feel free to reach out. You listen to my podcast, the Binge Factor and feed your brand and you've gotta. There isn't a place that you can't find me. That means that I'm out there, right? I'm putting myself out there everywhere. When you go and Google me, you're going to find hundreds of articles, hundreds of reasons that I dominate that first page of Google. And it's not just because you figured out my name. It's because my content is there. Right? It's because my advice is there.

Well said. I've got to tell you, just personally, I have been learning so much from the Bench Factor, so thank you for that and for sharing so freely today. This has been such a fantastic conversation. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, William. I love your show and I'm so glad you were on the Bench Factor and we got to meet.

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, Catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbook.com, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out. My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space in business, government, nonprofits, education, and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadership.net to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr. William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadership. Net.