You are techY podcast

Ellen (00:00):

You are listening to the You are techY podcast, episode number 165.

Voiceover (00:11):

Welcome to the, You are techY podcast where it’s all about growing in your techy-ness. So you can find the tech job of your dreams. And now your host technology learning coach Ellen Twomey.

Ellen (00:27):

Hey moms, are you trying to break into tech? Are you wondering what skills you really need to get hired and how those skills can be worth $45 an hour? Not that $25 an hour you thought when you first started thinking about going back to work? If so, then the You are techY membership is for you. Our combination of courses, coaching and community, come with a mentor support. You need to keep moving forward into your tech career. It’s like no other membership available. We have the exact skills employers are looking for. You learn how to maximize your income with portfolio ready skills that hiring managers are seeking, not to mention the steps you can skip. So you don’t find yourself down that endless tech learning rabbit hole. Join me as we walk you step-by-step through the getting hired process in tech. Sign up at youaretechy.com. That’s Y O U A R E T E C H Y.com. I can’t wait to see you in our membership.

Ellen (01:16):

Tracy Davis was the founder and CEO of Trax Analytics, a facility management analytics platform in the IOT space. With 10 years of experience delivery, industry leading technology, Tracy took a bold idea in the entrance airport industry and ran pit. She saw a need to improve restroom facilities. In large event arenas like airports taking cleanliness to a whole new level. If you’ve ever been in the airport bathroom, then you understand the significant value proposition of track taking bathrooms cleaner. New advanced analytics in IOT integration. Seymour Tracy, the dog leader in analytics, Iott in techo. She graduated ever university with a degree in anthropology and a minor in global health when not on a plane, which is rare. She lives in Italy with her staffing dog Milo.

Ellen (02:14):

Tracy, welcome to the podcast. 

Tracy:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really happy to be here. 

Ellen:

I’m excited to dive in. I told you Oline, I have kind of a lot of questions for you. I just shot off a bunch. So let’s dive in. Starting off with why did you become a founder and what drove you to start Treks? And I’m looking for the long version here. 

Tracy:

The long version. That’s it. Several years of a process. <laugh>. Yeah, still let me tone it down a bit for you. But so to give you a quick background, I come from multi-generations of entrepreneurs. So my father, my grandfather, I’m sure his grandfather. And so at the time I was working with their family business, which turned 53 years old this year. So shout out to Infax and wow, I know. So candidly, airports were a big focus and my network was really rooted in aviation, right? And I was sitting down with a few airport directors at the time and they kept giving me the same exact problem statement no matter what size of the airport they were. And it was, we don’t know when to clean our restrooms because as you mentioned, you know, you’ve flown into an airport, you know that hey, sometimes things change. You might get delayed canceled, your gate might switch, but at the time they were still scheduling all of their labor statically. It was you show up at six, you work till 12, you go clean these restrooms. Even though that planes were changing, it could get slammed or not used at all. And that problem statement really just stuck with me and that entrepreneurial spirit in my blood, it was, you know, causing me to just lose sleep thinking about restrooms, which is a weird thing to say. And at the time my brother who runs inbox now, he’s a software engineer, he developed the platform from the vision that I have, the beta version and it sold. So it was a really unique solution that we created this into one business and all of a sudden we created this solution that New York Times picked up Wall Street Journal picked up. And so I spun it out and my family was very supportive, but I saw the demand needing it to do something a little bit different and create a dedicated team. Spun out 2019 and have been going separate parallel to the family business, but it has been running independently of that and we hit the ground running and have it come up for air since. 

Ellen: (04:25):

Okay, now we all know how easy is to start a business, but what obstacles did you face when starting and growing tracks? Just that highlight some of your favorite nuggets. 

Tracy: 

Yeah, wow. What did I not face? I think one of the biggest pieces was that we created a software platform and a solution that was not really there in the market. So when you create something that people don’t even know exists, you run through the challenge of how do you educate people that this solution to their problem is there now. And then also how do you quantify that value with a dollar, right? People don’t have anything to compare it to. When I’m buying a computer I can say great, I want this computer and I know it’s competition. Is this so am I getting a good deal or not? We w walked into the market with no comparison. So it was really a challenge of getting that word out, Hey, we’re saving the day of restrooms, now restroom cleanliness and also it’s gonna cost you X, Y, z. Trust me, it’s worth it. So it was an obstacle to make sure that people believed in it enough to, you know, invest into this and purchase this and use it. I think the other big obstacle was because of our unique founding story, you know, it wasn’t a startup create, you know, go through seed money series A, create something, sell it. We had a product, I had to build a team, redevelop the product for scale while servicing existing clients. While, you know, creating this brand it would kind of maintaining the existing while creating the new at the same time. So it was a lot of balls in the air really from the ground up. 

Ellen:

But you mentioned you’ve heard this problem statement, but with any of kind of your initial sales discussions, does anyone need to be convinced was a real problem or did everyone understand the problem?

Tracy:

So I think everybody understood the problem. The, some of the challenges that we saw in the initial was if they weren’t a really busy area, right? If they weren’t a busy airport or if they weren’t a busy facility, some of the questions got asked, well you know what, you know we’re cleaning okay, people aren’t complaining about it so we’re fine. So it was definitely trying to educate them, yes, that’s okay, but also by utilizing technology, utilizing mobile applications, you can really create a more efficient operation so that you can use that same person to do five other things now because you’re servicing at the right time and really educating them on the operational side. It’s not just, you know, silly technology. It actually is solving a lot of problems that you see in me not see at the time. 

Ellen:

Cool. Got it. Okay. So what has been your biggest personal challenge in building steel tracks?

Tracy (06:44):

I think people don’t tell you, and I’ll be really transparent, people don’t tell you how isolating aggy when you’re building a business because you know, I think you have to surround yourself with people who understand those challenges. But it’s sometimes hard. It’s not that you can find a founder or a business owner just walking down the street and say, great, can we be friends? So I personally, it was really digesting that I’m growing this, it i s fast paced, high growth while maintaining a happy face and a solid base for my team. You know, I, my family put a lot of trust in me to separate this and run independently so I carry that weight. And so really just ma managing all of that and finding ways to properly and healthily cope with that stress I think was a challenge. And I feel that I succeeded at <laugh>.

Ellen (07:25):

Awesome. Yeah, I think that is, so I’ve asked that question how we’re grounded before and that’s probably the number one. That’s definitely my number one is that it’s hards, you really explain cuz you’re out there and you’re talking to people and you’re like, look at how great this idea and that’s what they see and they don’t understand that it, everything is about thinking about the success of the business. And that doesn’t always allow you, and most people, like most friends don’t understand like that’s, they’re not going to understand. So like how do you navigate that? That is for sure spot on for me. So thanks for sharing that. 

Tracy: No, absolutely. 

Ellen:

So let’s put into the technology specifically because I think it, I mean it’s not easy. I don’t know for most women, we’re all listening. We did. I only, yeah, please make those the operational great. So, but we definitely like obvious we want clean bathrooms, you know, with the five kids I just definitely wanna take them bathroom, I’ll head to the bathroom horror story so for sure. So can you tell us a little bit more specifically about what does TRAX do specifically? Who are your customers? Maybe even more specifically than the larger events, like who are the people that you talk to and then how does it van that your customers there? Any more specific or nuances on the operational and cost? 

Tracy:

Yeah, sure. So tracks really has evolved into a janitorial management platform and a mobile app. So it started off as just focusing on restrooms, but it really has expanded into a facility-wide cleaning tool. And you know, what we focus on is providing a mobile application that lets janitors know when to clean what to clean, how to clean. It also provides supervisors with the ability to do quality control, inspect the situations, inspect the building, and then we also can grow it into pulling in sensor data. So alerting the janitor instead of a schedule, but alerting them that hey, this restroom needs to be cleaned because the toilet paper’s low in this stall, it’s seen 200 people since it’s last clean. We actually have, you know, 50 negative complaints coming in from guests. And so we take all of that data and then send it to the right person at the right time. So it really is automating the entire janitorial process and creating this, you know, data-driven response versus a static, you know, scheduled based cleaning tool and, and we consume all that data from a data analytics standpoint and provide it so that they can analyze it, make it actionable, you know, predict how they’re gonna need to operate in the future, benchmark how they’ve, you know, you know, manage in the past. And so they can go through and from a business intelligence standpoint, really review their operation through data. So that’s what Trax does in a nutshell. Great customer client bases. Anywhere that there’s a bathroom, anywhere that’s a public space that needs to be cleaned is where we focus on. It started off with high traffic facilities because that was the biggest pain point. Airports specifically, of course you go to Atlanta airport or Houston airport, you wanna make sure that you’re going into a clean bathroom, like you said, you’ve got five kids, you have a lot to juggle. You wanna make sure that the whole experience is, you know, has a cleanliness factors so you’re not taking the drums with you. But it has expanded into other facilities like stadiums, arenas, universities, healthcare, even manufacturing plants because it’s really not just a restroom cleaning tool, it’s an overall facility cleaning tool.

Tracy (10:41):

And a lot of facility management janitorial companies will standardize on this so that as they work in Mercedes-Benz or a Volvo or Ford, they can use the same tool no matter what staff they have out there and they can standardize their entire operation as a corporation versus having different buildings. So yeah, what’d we focused on? 

Ellen:

Great. And so for the customers, are you worked a lot of janitorial companies within the buildings or do you work with facilities management with smell in the arenas or what, you know, how do you get it come at it or resolve it? 

Tracy:

All of the above. Yeah, so it started off selling directly to the building owner because some buildings, you know, I’ll use stadiums sometimes they have their own employees to clean the building. So we’ll sell to the building owner with the problem statement that hey, you have staff, let’s figure out how to use that staff more efficiently.

Tracy (11:30):

Let’s figure out how to clean, you know, at the right time. But then we also have expanded to working with the contracted companies that clean those buildings. You sell it to them and they say, great, I’m gonna buy this and I’m gonna use it for Atlanta airport, I’m gonna use it for my other client bases. And it’s really focused on either the cleaning company or the building owner with their employees. But together it’s a, yeah, powerhouse <laugh>. 

Ellen:

Got it. Awesome. Okay, cool. So let’s talk tech a little bit. So what technical skills do you feel have helped you the most in your career? And then I’ll tack on like maybe you can just answer the like the art or like you are techy platinum question of do you consider yourself techy wire right now? This is to give you a minute to prep, this is outta my heart because this is like the most in demand that I keep hearing is like what, how does, how do you, what if you wanna start a tech company in your non-technical and like what is non-technical and how tech, right?

Ellen (12:27):

And so like of course this being your dear to my heart. Kind of talk us through like how do you view yourself and then, you know, what technical skills do you feel like have helped you? 

Tracy:

Absolutely. It’s a great question. You know, I am not a programmer so I don’t write code, but I know enough of the technical aspects of how to design, how to speak to the development teams, how to make something that’s a business, you know, product vision and talk technical enough to get the development teams to do what they do best, which is put the requirements, the code, you know, put it into a format that can be developed. And so I wanna give, you know, encouragement to people out there that you can run a technology business or be a part of a technology business without having that specific skill of coding because there are a lot of other aspects to being techy.

Tracy (13:10):

There’s a lot of other aspects to, you know, having technology background and you know, I tell a funny story to people all the time, but as I mentioned, my brother is a programmer, brilliant software engineer and he used to hack into my home computer when we were little kids. And I would sit in my bedroom as a little, you know, little kid typing, doing my, you know, paint or whatever it was. And all of a sudden my disc drive would open and close or my mouse would start moving around and I’d hear him giggling in the background. And, but it showed that, well I didn’t know how to do all of that, but I was surrounded by it my entire life that I learned right languages, I learned how to speak to developers because oftentimes salespeople and developers, but heads a little bit <laugh> were promising something that can’t be developed.

Tracy (13:55):

So I think that my experience in being, you know, growing up in technology and understanding how to communicate it, it makes me techy, it makes me liaison. 

Ellen:

I love it. That’s a great answer. So you touched on this a little bit, but I’m gonna ask it in maybe a little bit different way because I think that sometimes, like you, you started your company, you saw a problem, you went with it, and that’s just your life, you know, you don’t really see it as anything different. People listening, first of all, they probably think you’re a little bit crazy, which you start a company question is like what factors do you feel impacted your decision to start a company the most? And then what it look like to take the leap both from like a personal and professional standpoint, a little bit like what was the path and was it really fast or was it a little bit slow?

Ellen (14:43):

And just walk us through that a little bit.

Tracy:

Yeah, so from a personal standpoint, you know, I have that like inner nagging, independent, gotta do it myself, I gotta do it my way, it’s my vision, which is a, it’s a pro in a con at times. So I’m not, I understand that. Yes. See, I’m aware of that pro con, you know, it’s great thing for entrepreneurs at the same time a lot of people are not gonna enjoy that, you know, personality trait. But one of the things that impacted the decision was, you know, I saw this open market, I saw this demand for something and I saw ability for me to do it my way and it was just this gut feeling, this inner nagging that I know I can do it. I know I can make this something big, something great, I’ve got this incredible vision and I couldn’t sleep.

Tracy (15:27):

You know, it wasn’t something that was, oh this would pull thing to do, it was something that my whole days were consumed. How do I solve this problem? How do I do it? How do I do it? And so the decision it started was when I finally got that reassurance when the first airport bought it and they actually went to bat, started speaking to other airports about it and when the New York Times picked it up I, I said, you know what, we’re onto something and I have to do it <laugh>, it’s no longer an option. It’s no longer for me to sit kinda of wait. It’s like that inner drive have to sleep at some point. So I’m just gonna do it finally sleep, sleep, oh god, in the process. I mean it wasn’t an overnight thing because remember I came from family business, so I had to sit down with a family and ask for their trust that hey, I wanna do this separate and in parallel with the company.

Tracy (16:15):

I need you to trust me that this is the right decision. Those are hard conversations to have because I was young at the time and this was a wild idea. You’re putting sensors into bathrooms, you know, people at the time it wasn’t a normal conversation. So not only did I look crazy, I was young on top of that and trying to, you know, separate myself from a 50 plus old company that was also relying on me. So it was not an overnight thing, but once I did take that leap and I started to prove myself, I started to show, hey, I’m gonna do this different, this is why, and this is for success that comes from being different. It got a lot easier and we started to gain more and more momentum. But it was definitely a challenge to go from one point to the next and to have that trust, you know, and make sure that I carried through with that.

Ellen (17:01):

I’m just curious about the, the parent company and the vision of technology. Like was your vision of technology growing up and there that you grew up? Was it vastly different? And did you have to explain that differential when you said sensors and bathrooms, that made me think, I mean you were still used to like, oh mobile apps and phone in the hand and that’s what’s different. But did you have to really kind of explain not just your vision but like kind of the way the technology world was moving? Was that part of the conversation at all? 

Tracy:

It was, you know, when you come from a company that has been successful for that long, doing something consistently, right? It wasn’t that our family firm, you know, was not doing well, it was successfully growing and has been successful for 53 years. So they understood the technology, but how do I put this?

Tracy (17:48):

I had had to explain why I wanted to do it differently, right? That I know their way was successful for what they were doing. But the way that I saw this winning, the way that I saw trax growing, the types of clientele that we were selling to, the speed, how quickly this side of the technology world was moving, I had to explain that this is why I needed to be separate versus still keeping it within the family firm. And fortunately, I, they’re amazing people so supportive that, you know, they trusted in me, they’ve supported me to go through that. But it was a conversation of your way is not wrong. Your way is right for what you’re doing. My way is gonna be right for what I want this to do. And both ways are right just in different formats. So it was ongoing conversations that were, we made it through <laugh>.

Ellen (18:31):

Yeah, that sounds, no, that sounds super hard. I mean that is near and dear to my heart because you know, I peer, I was raised by two teachers and you’re like, ah, well you don’t do anything like that. But yeah, I teach, I’m lying and that’s foreign concept and like for wild is just crazy. And then eventually like I don’t think I did as I didn’t, maybe I didn’t need to, but I didn’t do as well explaining, right? It’s just oh you cheat online. Oh now completely. 

Tracy:

And when I was, I mean I was young, I’m gonna say younger, I’m gonna make myself feel better. I was younger at the time when I was starting these conversations and so I, I did not properly communicate. I was very much bullheaded on I have to do this as my way. I see the vision versus really properly communicating it in a calmer way of not being offensive or not, you know, trying to almost didn’t want it to come off threatening by any means.

Tracy (19:17):

But when you’re young and passionate, sometimes that’s how it comes outta your mouth when now that you can look back as you’re older and say, you know what could have handled that probably with a little bit more grace. But you learned a lot in the conversations and I grew a lot throughout that process. 

Ellen:

So the hard stuff between being bold and then being graceful, I love that word. That’s an inspirational value for me is to be graceful. And so, and I laugh at my oldest, she’s a pretty bo I living around the last night I was just like, and looking at the book she’s reading and I’m like, women are all really graceful. I feel like she’s trying to inject that into her life. That’s smart. Because still a much more graceful person than I am would as 50. That’s like, mom, please don’t like you, you don’t have a graceful mom.

Ellen(19:57):

But it’s, it’s really challenging because you have to be bold, you have to be on the edge of crazy and to be graceful while you’re doing that, it’s just this really amazing dance that I don’t know any other way other than experience. It’s like merge through in it. 

Tracy:

It’s hard. I mean you can’t, it’s sadly, it’s not something that you can teach or train. It is something that you have to experience cause everybody handles it differently and they handle the stress of it differently. And so to your point, when you’re juggling all of these things and you are on the verge of being crazy by starting a new business, you know, trying to really create something, it’s groundbreaking while handling it with poise at the same time, being so strong and bold to make people believe in you, you know, you have to make sure that you’re confident enough that people are gonna buy your product.

Tracy (20:37):

You also don’t wanna come across as so over the top or so cocky that people are turned off by it. So it is a middle ground for sure. 

Ellen:

Right, right. And communicating that vision. I wanna spend a a little bit of time on this and I know that this is like a personal passion of yours and something that you’re kind of boards of working towards. So you know, this is one of our like standard questions that I love to ask Mike. Yes. Feel free to take a little bit of time to kind of explain your own personal take on this and your own personal brand. So questions, what advice would you give to a woman who’s considering, sorry. 

Tracy:

Oh yeah, yeah. I have a long list of advice. So I think resilience, you’ve gotta be resilient. I’ll speak from a woman’s perspective here and if you’re a young woman going through this, everyone, every man wants to tell you the right way to do it, which is always the way that they did it, right?

Tracy (21:21):

And when you’re starting out, sometimes that can be really confusing because you might have a vision of something that you wanna do and you believe the way, but then you’ve got all this background noise saying your way is not right. Follow my way, I was successful. Look at what I did, you should be doing it this way. And my advice to women starting a tech company is you’ve gotta find a way to cut out that noise. You’ve gotta trust your gut. It’s really important to listen. It doesn’t mean you always have to take the feedback as truth. And it’s finding that balance between respectfully hearing, taking what sits and resonates with you, but then leaving everything else behind and just not even giving it a second thought. Because at the end of the day, you’re the one that knows your product, you’re the one that knows your vision more than anybody.

Tracy (22:03):

And I always tell young women that are trying to start companies is that you don’t have to follow a playbook that you know you can break those roles. You can, you know, challenge the way people have been doing things for, you know, 50 or a hundred years just because they have an MBA or just because they know how to code right? Doesn’t mean that you can’t do something and do it differently and be successful. I just encourage women to step into their own and just to, you know, to really follow your gut with it and to be resilient when sometimes it gets overwhelming with all of that noise. The other piece from a business perspective, and I talk about this a lot on my own channel, is it really hiring people that compliment your weaknesses? And I learned this, you know, as any founder does the hard way, um, when you’re starting out, you’re selling, you’re installing, I was on ladders in heels, sorry for OSHA regulations, breaking the rolls, but on ladders, in heels, hanging cameras and hanging sensors and on the phone and configuring it and on the like I was doing it all supporting it.

Tracy (23:03):

And when you’re starting off and you really have your hands in every little thing, sometimes it’s in your head, you think you’re really great at it, all right, I did it all. I got it off the ground. Look at where we are now. Realistically you are not great at everything. And so I really encourage people to get honest with themselves, to figure out what are their strengths as they’re starting a business to really analyze that hey, maybe you’re a really great people person, you’re not really great at details. Or maybe you’re really great at visioning and product but you’re not great at operations and it’s okay. And it’s important just to hire those people that compliment that because you run way faster when you’ve got two people doing their strengths than one person doing their strengths and their weaknesses and getting bogged down, down and getting tired.

Tracy (23:46):

I just think it’s important to surround yourself with people that, that really compliment you and being comfortable enough to admit that hey, I’m not great at this. I need some help <laugh>, 

Ellen:

I love it. So resilience and put people, hire people and put people around you compliment your strengths. So those are her. Fantastic. So you’ve diving into that a little bit. So one of the concepts that I talk about, because I love what you said about like people give you advice and you have to listen. Like I do believe that it will be great up for you have to listen, but what you don’t have to do is do everything that they say. And this concept that I talk about is voices I’m listening to. It’s really like psych siphon out. So when we’re focused on, you know, getting hired in tech, it’s really, you have to be really careful because if you talk to someone who’s been in tech for 20 years, they’re gonna tell you how they did.

Ellen (24:33):

Just like you said, you’ll be like, well this is how I did it. And the other thing that they do that’s just awful for my audience is that they’re like, well I know all these things so that’s what you need to know. And it’s like 20 years now. That’s not what you need to know. Let me start up. And it’s really hard when you’re new to kind of figure that out. So we, we talk about this concept voices I’m listening to and then it’s also hard if somebody has no idea what you’re doing, which many of our parents, maybe your parents are younger, but like that generation, all the jobs are so different, even with my kids talking about what jobs are gonna be. So it’s have to really be careful who you’re listening to and like I’m sure you listen to your customers and three mentors.

Ellen (25:11):

How do you listen and what advice has been great for you to listen to and who has it come from? 

Tracy:

Yeah, I, one piece that I’ll start before I go into that is I think when you’re getting all of that info, it gets really overwhelming and the one thing that’s really helped me is to take a step back and to look through their lens. So they’re giving you feedback based on their background, based on the lens that they see. And once I started to realize that, hey, just because it worked for them, wonderful, but I also started to put myself in their shoes, okay, this is my background as X, Y, z, A computer programmer, this is why I think it’s the right advice. Then I can start to come at it again with more grace, right? I’m not as offended because I’m like, okay, they’re giving advice based on their experience versus based on something that I’m doing wrong or it’s based on what works for them.

Tracy (25:57):

And so the people that I’ve learned to really rely on, as you said, clients and customers first and foremost, I think this has been in my family business saying for ages and we carried it on to my business, but your customers are your best developers. We believe that as you’re growing something you have to listen to what’s working and what’s not working and you can’t get offended when something’s not working. You’ve gotta listen to that and continue to grow and they’re gonna give you the best feedback from a product specific. Don’t ever change your vision of it, keep following your north star. But it’s okay to take that feedback and grow. And then in terms of, you know, feedback from the business standpoint, I think you have to have a multitude of advisors and support in every different realm. I think if you can surround yourself and diversify the amount of data that’s coming at you.

Tracy (26:42):

So I, you know, have a C F O who gives me really amazing financial advice, really great detailed advice, operational advice, historical advice. Then I’ve got someone who has really great operations, facility management advice. Then I’ve got someone who has really great technology growth scale advice. But you know, if you can surround yourself with all of that versus taking feedback from one or two people, I think it’s helpful for you to then consume all that data into your point, siphon out what works and what doesn’t work and now you’ve got a source from different perspectives that you can take in versus a single perspective telling you based on their own experience. Long windedly <laugh>. 

Ellen:

No, I think that’s good. Okay, lemme go there. So I actually have another question for you. Have you ever had feedback that was dismissive because you were cute, bubbly, or adorable?

Ellen (27:30):

Those are my three words that I am not a huge fan of. So, ha have you ever felt that was like, that happened to you in that speed? And I’m just curious your perspective on it.

Tracy:

Yeah, so, uh, well yeah, so from an aviation specific market, I’ll start there. When I started out I was in young twenties, young twenties. And the industry itself was primarily male. Think about pilots, airport directors, you rarely see a woman airport director. Now it’s changed, gone a lot better. But I would go to conferences and I’d have to hold my own and as a young 20 something, I’ll call miss myself cute and adorable or whatever it was. But as a young 20 something then in a sea of people and I’m there to sell, right? I’m there to create something. And then as I was creating the business, I, again, I’m selling to a sea of older men.

Tracy (28:15):

And yeah, sometimes it does get dismissive. Sometimes people are like, oh you know, we’ll give you a try, you know, oh it’s a cute idea, we’ll try it out because you know, it almost patronizing in a sense, not a yeah. But if we see this, you are so smart, you guys have created something brilliant, it’s, oh we just love you, you’re precious, you know, we’ll put it in, we’ll try it out. And sometimes, I hate to say it, but you just have to bite the bullet and say, you know what? Great for the opportunity and I’m gonna show you why this is, you know, you’ve gotta sometimes take the opportunities that are given to you versus fight it. But yeah, it, it does get to you at times because you wanna sit in that room and be able to sit at the table and be taken seriously.

Tracy (28:53):

And sometimes it’s not always the case. And especially with age, I have to tell you, growing up, I never told anybody my age. I still, to this day and the aviation industry, I don’t think maybe three people know how old I am, believe it or not, grew up in that industry. Because that was always the number one question I’d get asked in the meeting. Even at my family business. Even as a business owner, they would ask you your needs. Oh yeah, they, I would sit there and I would present and I would be eloquent and strong and confident and it was almost like, wow, what’s coming out of your mouth doesn’t match what we see. So how old are you? You know? And that was the question I get. So I always was like, I’m 69 years old, how are, how are you? And they would sit there like, what <laugh> and I was like, don’t see matters much.

Tracy (29:37):

I know what I’m talking about. It sounds like you want to buy what I’m selling, so let’s just carry on through. And it’s just shocking. And the moment that you put a number to it, sometimes people are like, oh you don’t have as much experience. You know, you sound like you do, but you don’t have it on your resume. So now I’m gonna question what I’m doing. And so I just learned early on, you know what, I’m gonna show up. I’m gonna be confident. And you don’t need the data behind it. You need to see what’s in front of you and what we’re selling and we’re gonna prove to you that it’s amazing, not that right, you don’t have 35 years of aviation experience and you know, can develop in all of the things. So it’s, it can be overwhelming, but you gotta hold your curve.

Ellen (30:14):

Yeah, you’re welcome for that curveball. Sorry I funny talking to you like, cause I did this, which is funny because you know you’ve got this in Spain but, and I’m not that young but I, apparently I look young, I don’t know. So we’ll see. But I think young, you show up with high energy and you’re right, I’m young, I always talk about, so I tell everybody my ages, I don’t care. But I, but that the thing is like mean you show up with high energy and you’re passionate and I guess we’re cute. We’re really adorable. You’re adorable. <laugh>. We’re adorable. You know the interesting thing is like the dynamic in, in like all industries really is that there’s something like that lessened your intelligence factor in some way. And so it’s like, I’m sorry. No, and the funny thing about you being young, it’s like yeah but you grew up in this industry so that’s a difference maker.

Ellen (31:01):

Like it’s not that you, even if you were young by industry standards, that’s where you grew up. That’s where you spent time and even growing up in your household, I think that’s a factor too. Knowing, hearing those stories, those impacts, you know, from people, from your parents knowing that what was going on in the industry. So I appreciate you going there cause like I think it is important that, you know, it’s not always perfect and pretty. 

Tracy:

It’s true. If you’re given an opportunity, you know whether their intentions are just like, oh you’re cute, I’ll just give you a shot to help you out. Great, appreciate that open door. I’m gonna open up all the other doors now and I’m gonna close them. You’re never gonna use any other software cuz we’re gonna be the best, you know, you just have to, you’ve gotta take it and you’ve gotta let it kind of roll off your skin and you’ve gotta develop tough skin on this.

Tracy (31:44):

And I always laugh because my C F O, who is probably one of my best business advisors and my, you know, he’s my watchdog, my bodyguard, but he made me grow some really tough skin growing up because even to get detail oriented, you know, I would do a spreadsheet, right? And if I’d have something off, he would then pull me into his office and give me, you know, three hour long explanation about why this is off and the what’s gonna happen to the business if this can, you know, you would definitely go into it. And as a young person I was like, oh I messed up. You think I learned to really create tough skin to take that feedback to not let it eat at you. And then that’s kind of carried on into those boardrooms when people patronizing or people are questioning your background, it’s, you gotta toughen up sometimes and take the opportunities and then just show them that they’re wrong at the end of the day.

Ellen (32:30):

Yeah, that’s fantastic. And what great experience for him to come in and show you how that impacts the business will be helping your, you know, business management skills and things. So that’s Oh, 

Tracy:

absolutely. No, I’ve got a really great support team around me, so I’m very blessed. Really grateful <laugh>. 

Ellen:

Well we are blessed to have you and I can’t thank you enough because this tough skin and understanding the challenges that are gonna come up if we don’t share these experiences that actually it is tough actually. It is challenging, but there are people who are going through it and going through it with you and you can that you know, we’re going first and you can see it. It’s just so important. So we’re so grateful that you came on the podcast today. 

Tracy:

Thank you so much for being here. No, thank you so much for having me.

Tracy (33:08):

This has been so much fun. I really do appreciate it. Okay, before you go tell us, we can find you, we’re gonna combine track, we can find you personally really follow, we link to everything, Mr. Sure. So my personal website is it’s, I think it’s tracy m davis.com. Had to think about that for a second. And Instagram is the same. It’s Tracy m Davis. And then please correct me if I’m wrong, I need my marketing team. No, you’re right. I have in my notes since marketing team is rolling over in their great. And then our business is tracks insights.com but we are very active on social media, Instagram, we show a lot of behind the scenes of installing smart restrooms of people on site and construction at airports. So it’s a lot of fun. Follow us there and then follow me personally, cause I go through the ins and outs of growing a business, the messy parts and the fun parts. So do appreciate the time. 

Ellen:

Thank you so much, Tracy.

Ellen (33:54):

Hey if you enjoyed listening to this podcast you have to sign up for the You are techY email list. Imagine being in the tech job of your dreams. Join me to get the strategies training and never ending support to get hired. Sign up at youaretechy.com. That’s Y O U A R E T E C H Y.com. I’ll see you next time.