The Underpinnings of Customer Lifetime Value With Reggie Black

Reggie Black is the Co-owner of Better Way Health, an e-commerce company specializing in premium supplements like Beta Glucan. He also leads the company’s Cancer Data Foundation. As a seasoned entrepreneur, Reggie has over 20 years of experience in various sectors of wellness and technology. He shares his insights on health and wellness across multiple platforms, including natural health summits and executive seminars.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Reggie Black talks about Better Way Health’s wild beginnings and how he became the CEO
What is Beta Glucan?
How Better Way Health carved out a niche in the supplement space
Tips and tricks for fostering customer lifetime value
Acquiring customers in an FDA-regulated industry
Better Way Health’s data analytics process
Reggie’s early interest in IT — and his stress mitigation tactics
William Harris and Reggie get personal with each other

In this episode…

Although the e-commerce space shifts seemingly by the day, one crucial aspect remains the same: the customer experience. Marketing, technology, and other business investments are fruitless without exceptional customer service that promotes lifetime value. Learn how you can prioritize the consumer — even in heavily regulated industries.

Committed to providing valuable products to consumers, Reggie Black leads a supplement company with a customer-first mindset. Despite strict FDA regulations, he markets products to target audiences’ specific needs. With so much cost, competition, and industry standards surrounding customer acquisition, Reggie says to cultivate lifetime value by building a culture around consumer demands. Brands have the power to capture audiences’ undivided attention, so answering questions and resolving issues promptly is critical in sustaining a loyal customer base.

Join William Harris in this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as he chats with Reggie Black, the Co-owner and CEO of Better Way Health, about driving sales through unparalleled customer experiences. Reggie explains Beta Glucan, how his company carved out a niche in the supplement space, and the business’ data analytics process.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now, let's get started with the Show.

William Harris 0:15

Hey everybody, it's William Harris here. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt. In the host of this podcast where I feature experts in the DTC industry, sharing strategies on how to scale your business and achieve your goals. I'm excited about the guests that I have today, Reggie Black, Reggie is the CEO of Better Way Health, the number one supplement company on Trustpilot. He loves his wife, his six kids and trying to figure out how to sell more Beta Glucan at work. And I believe you were sent over to me by Sean Larkin. over@fueled.io, another tool that I love and actually just invested in their community around. But Reggie, excited to have you here. Yeah,

Reggie Black 0:47

thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Yeah,

William Harris 0:50

so we're gonna get into some really good stuff about customer service in the E commerce space. Before we do I want to at least announce our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired with the largest one selling for nearly 800 million. We actually just had one that IPO and we were ranked as the 12th fastest growing agency in the world by Adweek. You can learn more on our website at Elumynt, which is elumynt.com. That said, let's move on to the good stuff. You've had an interesting background getting into better way health. Tell me about the beginning of this company and how you ended up coming to be the CEO.

Reggie Black 1:33

Oh, yeah, this is a fun story. We could take up the whole podcast with us for sure. There's some treason and espionage and all kinds of things that we can we can dive into. But I started off in the IT world, I've always been into computers, you know, since I was a kid wanted to build my own computer. And you know, some of my dad's friends started like hiring me as you know, 1314 years old to come in and like their businesses and fix fix stuff. And I remember what was fun was I, my first like real job was at a waterpark, a small waterpark here and in our town, and I was the garbage guy. So I was making like $5.15 an hour, going around like the waterpark picking up garbage and everything. And then they found out that I could also work on computers. So I was like doing all of their network and computers install and everything for $5.15 an hour when I wasn't picking up the garbage, so always just geeked out over that stuff. And so I went to work for IBM for a little while right after high school. And then I ended up going to school for it as well started my own IT consulting business. And I did you know, I had like a lot of small businesses in the area, HVAC, plumbers, things like that, that were my clients, and I do everything from crawl under their desk and hook up printers, you know, to networks and backups and servers, and there was no cloud back then. So it was a it was a different environment, different world. And I got a call one day one of my clients referred me to another customer from Better Way Health. And I got a call from the owners of the business and they're like, Hey, can you can you come out here and, and help us with this business? And I hadn't, you know, I was like, yeah, absolutely no idea was going to actually remember I was playing basketball that night. It was like nine o'clock at night and somebody and so my phone was like over on the side. And so I just kept calling it like over and over again. And you know, by the time I got done, it was like 10 o'clock at night or something. And they like called me on the way home again. And I was like Hello. And they're like, We really need your help. Like, you know, who is this. So ended up going out there the next day and kind of walking into a situation that I had no idea what was going on. But essentially, the company was founded in 1999 by a guy named Dave Perkins. And he built Better Way Health, great, you know, great mission, great environment through his own personal health journey. And he left the business to his two kids when he passed. And so they had somebody that was running the business for them, they weren't involved at all. And that person that was running the business, just like took off, started their own competitive company, after you know a few years, took inventory to product took the computer's like took everything to this and started their own business right down the street. And so I walked in, like on day one not knowing any of this backstory, and they're like, We don't know how to process an order. We don't know where our systems are. We don't know how to log on our website. We don't know like the phone's ringing. There's like 1000 voicemails or emails, and they didn't know how to get into anything, you know, they had never been involved in business. And so I was like, really confused. I was like, What is going on? Like, is this not your company? So that's how it started. And we just like jumped in and worked, you know, all day, all night for a while just to get things like back to normal. And I just stuck around since then as the IT guy, you know, and a couple years later, had some more opportunities to move up and manage and then they wanted me to He made me an offer to come on board at that time, like full time and gave me a percentage of the business. If I would do that, with some path to more equity if we could hit some growth numbers. And so that's, that's how I got to Better Way Health.

William Harris 5:12

That's a wild story. Like you said, there had to be a moment where you're thinking, Am I helping somebody just like hack into somebody else's business and steal it out from under somebody else, right? You're like, it's like, like going to the card or something. You just like, hit tie yourself. So many breaking in this car? Like, I don't know, like, they said that they lost their keys in their car. But

Reggie Black 5:34

yeah, yeah, for sure. That thought did cross my mind. And it was, you know, it was crazy. I mean, everything you'd find out something new every day and a new problem every day, I used to do a lot of data recovery stuff to like, on hard drives and everything. And I remember like, the day that they're like, alright, you know, like, let's get all the data and the emails and everything off of these like computers. And I was like, Cool. So I started going through all of the computers, and there was like, nothing on the drives. And what I had realized was the the person that took off and left and started their own company, they had actually just gone to the store and bought new computers, and put them there. And taking the old ones. With them for the all the data on it. Yeah. Oh,

William Harris 6:15

my goodness. Yeah, that's wild. So okay, so we fast forward now. And you're, you know, moved from the IT at Better Way Health, and now you are helping as a CEO. And first of all, I want to clarify this for anybody else listening, beta glucan, I don't know much about it, at least give me like some kind of a glimpse into what Better Way Health is in beta glucan. For context,

Reggie Black 6:41

yeah, that nobody I've ever talked to has ever heard of beta glucan. So don't, don't feel bad unless they're like an immunologist, or a doctor or somebody you know, that study is that like, it's very rare. Everybody's like, what is what is that. So it's an medical can is basically like a natural fiber molecule. And you can find it inside the cell walls of any kind of fungus. So like think mushrooms, yeast, oats, barley, there's something inside the cell walls of those things that you can extract or pull out. That's called Beta Glucan. So it's a complex carbohydrate, and they'll take it out, and then they'll purify it. And what they discovered about 60 years ago, at the University of Tulane is where it was discovered by a guy named Dr. Nicholas to luzio is that, when they purify it, it actually can go inside of your immune system and activate a bunch of your immune system cells. And so this discovery has led to tons and tons of research since then, it's actually the the number one most studied immune system supplement or immune modulator in the world, there's like over 200,000 published studies on it online now. So if you go and PubMed, which is a huge government database, for all the research studies and typing glue, can we just pass the 200,000 mark. And so there's an enormous amount of research from Harvard, and Tulane and Louisville, and teaching hospitals and universities all over the world about it, but it's still something that's really technical. And so not a lot of people, you know, understand or know about it, but we believe it's going to be you know, in the next five years or so become a household name.

William Harris 8:14

You know, one of the things that I love about even just that study of these things that are inside the cell walls of plants and fungus and stuff like that, where we're just now starting to even come up with names for some of these compounds. Many of them we haven't even you know, named and I remember seeing something to the effect of an apple, there's an I could be completely way off on this, but like 10,000 different compounds or chemicals that are in there, and it's like, maybe only 1% of them even have names, but there's all these things that do things for us that activate certain genetic sequences within us or or at least genetic expressions and stuff. And, and I think that we're just now starting to understand that it's much more than simply supplementing your milk or cereal, your sugary cereal, your Froot Loops or whatever with vitamins A and D or something like that. But there's so many other things that we're missing when we're not eating foods like this or looking at, you know, taking intentional supplements like beta glucan, and all these things that we're missing. Yeah,

Reggie Black 9:18

absolutely. And it is cool. Like as we start to discover some of those things, you know, it's like these secrets that we're unpacking the. There's a guy that was at the University of Louisville. His name is Dr. Voss Lovett Vika, but he was the leading researcher in the world on beta glucan. He had like over 200 published studies and the name of his book, he called it nature's secret, Beta Glucan: Nature's Secret. And so he was like, hey there, here's this thing that we're finding in nature that has like these incredible benefits for you and for your immune system, but we're really just starting to discover the benefits. So he breaks all that stuff down in his book. It's a very technical book, though. You would think by the title it was like so he had some Russell Brunson copywriting hacks in there with nature seeker, right, but like you start reading that and Most people, unless you're a PhD are going to go to sleep. Read your written that book.

William Harris 10:04

Oh, that sounds good. Well, okay, so now fast forward, you guys have become the number one supplement on trust, according to Trustpilot, right, which is for anybody who's listening, you know, a reviews platform, and I believe, you know, one of the biggest reviews platforms, if not the biggest reviews platform. And so this is a big deal. That means that you have a lot of verified buyers who are leaving really good positive reviews on the product, how, you know, aside from the product being good, and I think that that's just a given. But what's the other big key that you have found has allowed you guys to be exceptional, in a market full of so many supplements that are out there today? Yeah,

Reggie Black 10:49

it's hard to stand out in the supplement space, for sure. So the key to it that we found is really lifetime value, you know, because everybody's out there trying to spin and outspend each other to acquire that customer. But if you can't keep that customer, it's really hard financially, you know, to to make those those numbers work. And so you've got to keep the customer and you've got to have a great product that they're going to want to stay on. So that's the number one thing is like, Hey, we've got to, we've got an evidence based awesome product that works. And that's the only way a supplement company is going to be around for, you know, 24 years, like we have is you gotta you gotta have that that base. And then what we try to what we say is like, hey, we pair evidence based supplements with amazing customer experiences. And so we're really passionate about taking a great product, and then giving you an amazing customer experience. On top of that, everything from phone calls and emails and the way we communicate. And you know, we just try to make everything as as as great as possible, we want the customers to say Wow, and so we do all of our own customer service in house, we've got an amazing team, we actually call them aces, AC II, like for amazing customer experience specialist. So we call them aces, it's really baked into our culture, it's rewarded, you know, we've got reviews up on the wall in the office, every single one of our ACES is going to have like, a review that a customer wrote about them with their name in it, that we have, like custom printed and everything stuck on their wall behind them or in their office at home, wherever they're working from. So we really bake those and celebrate those into into our culture, because that's something that we can control. And we're super passionate about that, which I think shows in our I think we're somewhere around 6000 Plus now verified five star reviews on Trustpilot. Yeah,

William Harris 12:34

that's amazing. I remember talking to somebody and I wish I remember who this was. Or maybe I read it, but about how customer service is it? Oh, I think I remember it was Ted Rubin. And he talked about how, during customer service, when somebody actually comes to you for customer service, that is the one moment where you have their undivided attention. They are fully locked onto you. And so how you present yourself during those moments can speak volumes about like you said to a lifetime value. Have you turned them into a lifetime customer? Have you turned them into someone who's ready to turn immediately? Have you turned them into somebody who wants to shout from the rooftops how great you're doing and how everybody needs to be part of this? Are you turning them into somebody who's going to tweet about how this is the most miserable experience I've ever had, but you have their undivided attention at that moment. And so doing a good job there is is paramount to long term success for a company. What are some tricks that you have done to make this a reality in an E commerce business where you're maybe not face to face with people?

Reggie Black 13:40

Great question. Yeah, and you're absolutely right. I mean, you've got a chance, you know, when somebody reaches out to you whether they want an explanation on the product in the beginning, you know, or if there's a problem with their order, you know, they got one bottle instead of two or you know, shipping has been delayed or anything, it's like, you probably just have like one chance in the beginning to either wow them. Give them a very mediocre experience that is forgettable, or give them a not forgettable experience on the on the bad side, right? Where they're gonna tweet about you like, like you said, and so we've done a lot of, you know, a lot of things from our side to train that. I mean, one of the one of the things we've invested in, which has been great, it's like we've we've, we took our whole team to the Ritz Carlton at one point. And then we actually got the Ritz Carlton leadership executive leadership team to come in and train our team. And so that was a great experience of like, we were at the hotel. We were learning from their executive team on how Ritz Carlton does customer service was like one of the best, you know, best obviously, in the world. They've written books on customer service about Ritz Carlton. And so we're learning how they did it. And while we were just learning the theory of it, we were actually seeing it played out in front of us with their team and staff at the hotel. And so that was one of those things that was like really transformational for us. I think because we came back we already had good customer service. Probably great In today's standards, it's not hard to have good customer service now, but I think we had great customer service, but it like, really excelled us after that to another level. And one of the things that we picked up from them was the concept of WoW stories like making the customer say, Wow, this was an exceptional experience. We share those everyday in our daily standup of like, what are the well, stories. And another big one was just empowerment, you know, giving our all of our customer service reps, empowerment for a certain dollar amount of like, hey, if there's an issue that happens, like you just you have full control to take care of this for the customer, and treat them just like, you know, if you ordered that product from somebody else, like the way that you would want to be treated as a customer, and just handle it and take care, no questions asked, we're not like, you know, send me a photo of the bottle, you know, it's just like, hey, no problem like, you guys, if there's any reason that you're unhappy, we're gonna take care of that we're gonna go above and beyond for you and like, because that we have a very, very low refund rate, you know, one and a half percent if refund rate and like our chargebacks are nothing I mean, we probably have 10 chargebacks a year, it's, you know, it's nothing. So very low chargebacks, very low refunds. So it actually ends up, I think I could argue that it actually ends up saving you money in the long run,

William Harris 16:13

which is interesting, because a lot of times people would think that it's like, well, if you have this no questions as policy, then it's going to be abused, and you're going to end up, it's going to cost you a whole lot of money. And you're finding that it's been the exact opposite it because it's created so much trust in the brand and the company that people are, are not abusing that, but they're actually just even more so like, hey, you've showed me a favor and grace and trust, I'll show the same to you kind of thing. Is that kind of what's happening? Yeah,

Reggie Black 16:40

I think there are a certain amount of people, you know, there's some low percentage of people that are going to take advantage of it. But to me, that kind of comes back to like a scarcity versus abundance mentality is like, if I'm going to make a decision based off of like that those 2% of people that are gonna take advantage of this, rather than 98% of people. And a lot of those are going to become like trusting and raving fans. I want to make the decision based off of the majority of those people, and, and put a policy in place for them. And then the other ones, you just, you know, bless them on the way out the door and say, Hey, no problem. We'll take care of it. And we certainly have had those, you know, over the years, and but the vast majority of people just really appreciate it, then they end up writing your review, which then ends up leading to higher conversions, and then you know, ends up leading to referrals, and you know, from them and their customers. So you end up it just is kind of a compounding snowball effect there that we get from from doing things what the way I think it's the right way. Yeah.

William Harris 17:36

Well, and it's obviously it's resonating with people. So it's maybe in beyond just what you think is right way. And it seems to be the right way. Is something else you mentioned was that I think you either at least in the early days, or maybe still do cold, all of the orders or something to that effect, right. Is that something that you guys are still doing?

Reggie Black 17:56

Yeah, absolutely. So the the business when I when I walked into the business, it was funny because all of our orders were coming in over the phone. So the product, there was a guy that wrote a really popular book, and he was referencing Beta Glucan. And he like, put the company's phone number in the book and said, Hey, call this number and order the products of most of her business. And I thought this was what ecommerce was, it was like my first experience in E commerce was like, oh, e commerce is where you walk in, and you answer the phone, because people call in. And then you just go on your website and like your website is for, you know, placing phone orders. So it was like, I just kind of walked into it backwards. And but we've kept that. Because of that, like we just kept that over the years. And we love talking to our customers, we do a big majority of our sales still over the phone, because we do have a technical product. So we encourage people to call us we love when people call us. So we can really explain to them. And we found that we have, you know, like our ARV is like two and a half times the order value hmm when we're on the phone with them versus if they come in, you know, and they purchase online. So there's, there's something that is measurable, you know, for those phones, and then after somebody gets on a subscription with us, you know, and signs up, we've got a system that goes in, you know, and puts in there a follow up for all of our aces and 30 days to call them make sure they're on the right dosage, make sure everything is going well with their product if they did have any questions. And so yeah, we're calling every single new subscriber of our product and just making sure that they feel appreciated and taken care of and that if they did have anything we can, you know, we can solve it right then form so we're outreaching with phone calls and texts and email as well if you know if we can't get on the phone.

William Harris 19:37

Sure, because that everybody wants to answer the phone, but you're just simply saying, Well, I want to be able to reach you in whatever way is best for you. And I think that that's the key word not not everybody. Email is the best way and I would say even for me, and you may be similar. I easily get over 1000 emails a day between work emails, personal emails, emails from school. And so it's it sometimes become just, you know, a chaotic mess of emails and just saying, that's not the best way to really get a hold of me and get my attention if you needed to. And so maybe it's text or call or whatever that might be. And I think that that's key is thinking about, like from your customers perspective. And you know, who else does this very well that I appreciate would be Sweetwater the music store, I order a lot of audio gear, right, you know, obviously, with the podcast, but I'm also a musician as well. And so you know, this expensive stuff, and you want to make sure that it's going to work with everything else you've got. But you know, one of the things that they do their that I really appreciate is, if I've got a question I can I can get on the phone and talk to somebody and walk me through this, just like that. But even after I place my order, I get a text usually from like my guy there. And it's the same guy that I've continued to work with now for years. They text me he's like, Hey, just wanted to let you know, I've got this all packaged up ready to go for you. Do you need any help setting anything up? All right, like you have questions with how this works with your gear, and you just like, and I've taken them up on it a couple of times, he's like, Darn, I'm, I'm struggling a little bit on this one here Can Can, can jump on and help me out and like set up a thing with you know, the technical team and walk me through it. But it just feels much more like, I don't know, I didn't live back in the 50s. But it feels like like walking into like the hardware store in the 50s where you're just like, I don't know if this is the thing that I need to do the job. But can you help me? And it's like, yeah, no problem. I gotcha covered here. And that feels really good. And I want to make sure that I spend more money with them. Because I know that I'm just set. And it sounds like that's something that you guys have really taken to heart for supplements, which is, which is another level of that. Yeah,

Reggie Black 21:38

absolutely. I mean, that's a that's a great example Sweetwater like I hear those are that's one of the companies you hear about a lot that really goes above and beyond those companies, those companies stand out. And that's certainly what we, you know, we strive for. I mean, so one is what instrument you play. And then second question for you. I want to know, so how much money do you estimate you spent with Sweetwater now?

William Harris 21:57

Oh, my goodness, that's okay. Let's see. So the first question first, I play a lot of instruments. So my mom was a band director and my dad was in professional country band. So I play the acoustic guitar is probably my favorite instrument that I play, but otherwise played the bass for eight years bass guitar, I've got a drum set back there that play a little bit. In in band, I played the trumpet. That was my main instrument, but I played most other brass instruments as well. Played a little bit of the saxophone. I probably couldn't play that anymore if I tried. But, yeah, I play a lot of instruments. Why? How about, you know,

Reggie Black 22:31

I don't play any instruments. Okay. My kids, you know, I've got them all all learning piano right now, but I'm not, I don't have any musical talents. So but you play all those instruments. And so the waters got all this, you know, all these products and everything. So I'd love to know, just like, and I guess more My question is aimed at like, so you spend all this money? 1000s. Right. Let's just say 1000s? Over over 10,000? Yeah. Okay, so over 10,000 Would you have if you didn't have that customer experience? Would you have been purchasing other places?

William Harris 23:03

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's exactly part of the key there is that, you know, even sometimes they might not be the best price. But I know that if I had an issue, I can return it very easily without any problems. And if I have any trouble, they'll help me set it up. So yeah, that tends to be where I default go to. Yeah, I

Reggie Black 23:21

think that's a great point is like, when you have a great product, and you have great customer service price, price kind of becomes irrelevant, you know, for for the right customer, the right customers, just like listen, I just, I want to deal with you, you're my guy, I already know there's a there's an unknown, of going somewhere else and getting it. And so I want to I want to deal with you, I'll just buy from you, even if it's you know, 50 bucks or 100 bucks more for this this instrument, but you experience there's value in the experience.

William Harris 23:51

Yeah, and to your point, what's interesting is when price becomes irrelevant, or not irrelevant, but less relevant, then you maybe even have less customer service demands and needs now to and so you're providing proactive customer service of how do we make sure that you are in love with our brand as far as instead of like damage control customer service, as far as you know, how do we just make this right now?

Reggie Black 24:14

Yeah. Great, great example.

William Harris 24:18

Okay, so I like this. The other thing though, that we talked about are what are some of the brands you mentioned, Ritz Carlton is one but what are some of the other brands that you really admire and look up to when you think about just overall like CX O type stuff?

Reggie Black 24:35

I gotta go with Chick fil A, you know, I'm here in Atlanta. And so I think that they they've done that at a you can do it I mean, they've they've proved you can do it even at a lower price point. You know, you don't have to be like this luxury Gucci you know, style style brand to provide that they've done that and so, I'm a huge fan Chick fil A you know, the first ever Chick Fil A's is here in Atlanta by our airport so I frequent there. I love that's right, man, little Kanye reference there. I'm glad you caught it. Yeah. So I think they're, they're a brand that I look at their experience and the way that they do things, everything with excellence, very generous, generous company as well. So I admire them. And I look at you know, I look at Ritz so so Ritz is also it's fun because like they're the ones that do the My pleasure thing. And they actually train Chick fil A they train Mercedes Benz like a lot of these other companies go to the Ritz for training. And so that's where Chick fil A that's like famous for the My pleasure thing. But they got that from from Ritz Carlton did not know that. Yeah, yeah, that's that's kind of their their thing, you know, you'll see. But yeah, those are two big brands that I really like to model after what they're doing.

William Harris 25:56

Sure. Something else that you and I talked about before, that I think is interesting for some ecommerce merchants that might be listening as well is FDA regulation. Now in the supplement space, there are a lot of things that you can and can't say that there's a lot more regulation to the advertising that you can do and where you can advertise and how you can advertise. And so actually going out and getting new customers is harder, which I think is a big part of why the focus has been even significantly on retention. But how have you gotten around that? What other tactics have you used to acquire new customers in a more heavily regulated space?

Reggie Black 26:41

Great question. Yeah, we are in a regulated, you know, highly regulated space, although the FDA does not approve supplements. And that fact, there's obviously so many dietary supplements that they can't go through all of them like they would a drug, with that kind of a critique on all of them. And the requirements are not as high as hundreds of millions of dollars of research to, you know, to roll anything out so that they don't say this one's approved, this one's denied, it kind of be impossible to pick up with. But all supplements are held to a standard where we're not allowed to make a claim, you know, we're not allowed to say this helps with X disease, or this helps with why symptom of disease. And so a lot of the marketing tactics that work, if you were selling, you know, a different type of product, or widget or something we can't really use, we can't go with like, Hey, here's your pain point. And I understand, you know, because you're sick. And so I'm going to just like talk about that thing, and how our product helps with it. We always joke because like the FDA rules and regulations are really strict, it's like we have to have a don't add to cart button on our website, that's what the FDA would prefer us to have. It's just like, hey, this product doesn't work. You don't need it. Just don't add it to cart, they won't do anything for you. But if that's that's how the FDA would prefer that we run,

William Harris 27:58

you know, we run the business, if you still want to give us money, here's the opportunity, here's

Reggie Black 28:02

here's an opportunity, it works, you know, the at least the website works, but the product doesn't. So we we have to get creative, you know, and ways I mean, because we can we can make what are called some approved structure function claims about our product, we can say like beta glucan, helps to support and maintain a healthy immune system, because that's really what it does is it helps boost your immune system. And so we can say those things because they have been approved by the FDA, the FDA has been has given beta glucan, the grass rating, what gra is generally recognized as safe, meaning that they're saying like, even at a high dose, or at any doses, there's been no known adverse or side effects. So that's a pretty high standard for the product. So it is kind of regulated in that way. It's like, hey, at least this product is safe, it's been given the grass rating, and we can tell people that it helps maintain and support a healthy immune response. But we kind of have to say that like 50 different ways. That's, that's our copy on the site. Like we can't really go above and beyond that. And so, you know, we, we try to get as as creative but we're very, the reason we've been around 24 years is because we play a very safe, you know, the FDA thing is really is a risk reward. If you're driving down the highway, you can choose to drive the speed limit, you can you know, and you probably won't get pulled over you can choose to go 10 miles an hour over probably won't get pulled over but the people that are driving, you know 90 120 miles an hour down the road there they might be able to do that for a while, you know some of these supplement companies are able to drive that fast for a while but eventually they're gonna get popped and they're gonna get FDA warning letters and they're probably gonna get shut down if they're gonna if they're going to continue to make you know claims like this so we just choose to play it very safe we're trying to play the you know the long game and say those things and so you know, the the products so good and the the experience everything so we have a lot of people that just naturally you know influencers that find out about the product or

William Harris 30:02

agitators as influencers, yeah, yeah.

Reggie Black 30:07

You know, in certain ways that find out about the product and tell them like we're not allowed to pay them, you know, for, for saying certain things like, you can't just get around it and go like, Oh, well, I'm just gonna get this guy to say something and you know, I'll just I'll pay him. And like, FDA smarter that too, right? But on the FTC

William Harris 30:23

is now two, because they've said that if you share that whatever somebody else said, you're still on the hook for whatever they said in that as well.

Reggie Black 30:30

Absolutely. So that's, you know, any, anytime we have a marketing agency or person or company come in, they're like, well, we'll just use the reviews and let the customer say, I can't do that either. You know, if the customer is making a claim, you can't put that on your website. You know, you can't make it through an influencer or an affiliate or you know, somebody else, even if they really did say the thing, you know, the product works. So, yeah, FTC is cracking down on that man. And there's an all they're really cracking down on fake reviews, big time. Now, Amazon's cleaning house while these fake reviews and so it's affecting the supplement business in a big way. Because there are so many reviews out there that are violating these terms, or leading people to think that this product could do this. Or they're paying people to write reviews, like all that stuff is is coming under scrutiny right now. In a big way.

William Harris 31:18

Yeah, yeah. And it's something people need to be aware of. And it sounds like, like you said, the best way to get around that is to not get around it just follow the speed limit. And now you have like compounding growth year after year after year for what he said 24 years or something. Yeah. So I think that

Reggie Black 31:35

is we just been doing it longer than everybody else. And that's why we're in the position where we're at is like, you know, we've we've been doing it safe in the right way for many, many years. And so eventually, that that works when you do the right thing for a long period of time. Yeah.

William Harris 31:54

Something else that you and I are talking about, too, is data in at least in some small capacity, I'd love to talk about how are you using Fueled. So Sean Larkin, owner over at Fueled, which I do want to give a quick shout out for him because he's, you know, by the time this goes live, the community raise will probably be done. But they have a community raise going on right now. And I put some money into it, because I do like what he's doing. That's awesome, right? Because, you know, he's talking about like democratizing your data. And this is something that I feel like a lot of brands have been stuck, where it's a great you leaving this platform, and you don't get to take your data with you. It's your data, why shouldn't you have it? But how are you using Fueled? And why do you like Fueled?

Reggie Black 32:35

Yeah, great. I want to shout out Sean as well. He has been an incredible partner and asset and help for for us he's he's amazing and Fueled, what they're doing is amazing. And so I think we were probably one of the first customers, you know, that got on there. And Sean just has really helped us with custom setups and gone above and beyond with that platform. And now I, I believe in it so much. I also invested in the you know, in the community round that's on we funder now. So it's great what we're on a headless Shopify platform. So I did that, because I really liked doing things the hard way, and making my life really difficult. So I mentioned like the IT and technical thing like sometimes that, you know, I just want to do things because they're cool. And this like this new things come out, and it's great. But sometimes I wish I'm like, oh, man, why did we do this, because it makes everything harder with tracking. And because we've got now this next.js app, that's a front end that's not run by Shopify, that connects to our Shopify back end. And so now it's not as easy as just putting a script in in Shopify, and trying to track all of your front end stuff, because Shopify doesn't control that. So you've got to have some custom, you know, solution to track all of this stuff on your on your actual website, and then pass that with the product and everything into your analytics platform, which is kind of where fuel came in. So like, fuel, this helped us because I don't know of any other solutions out there. And we've been looking from a headless website standpoint, a headless Shopify site that really is like okay, I can take and fuel really is like the pipes and the plumbing right there just like passing all this data from clay, VO and recharge, and Shopify. They've essentially built all that plumbing, to take data from Shopify to take data from our, you know, front end, and push all that into our own data warehouse. Because there's not there's, there's no one app that really is going to give you everything that you're looking for. And for us, our business is so heavy on subscriptions. You know, we're at the point now, where we're doing, like 70% of our revenue on subscriptions. And so it's a massive part of our business. And there's an we're using Shopify, we're using recharge for subscriptions, and we've been on recharged since 2017. And so there's just not a Good tracking solution for that. And so if we really want good data around, like, what are, you know, our subscribers converting at how long are they sticking around? And then like, how, you know, subscribers that come in from a Google Ad versus a Facebook ad versus, you know, an affiliate versus this, like, how do those compare over a 12 month, you know, cohort, you know, kind of thing. That, you know, I, we kind of live in, like, we're living at the, in the wild, wild west a little bit, because all this stuff is brand new. So we're, you know, us, I'm just saying like, you know, you and businesses and Shopify, and all this stuff is like, brand new, and it's changing so much that we're just trying to keep up with things. And then, you know, they're they're trying to take away all of our tracking and all of our data, Apple and you only those guys, right? Yeah. So it's Fueled really is like the only solution I know, out there right now that can help you get all of your data into something that you own into your own data warehouse, and then give you analytics on like, what's really going on in all these places? Because there's nothing good out there that talks to everything.

William Harris 36:08

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, like you said, like, that's kind of the key. And I like that you call it out, the E commerce is still really young. And like, all the stuff that we're doing is still very young. I like to think that it's entered school, like it's a toddler that's entered school, you know, the last couple decades, were the infancy of E commerce. And that's where you could throw up an ad on Facebook without any thought whatsoever about almost what you were doing, and it would work. And we've we've at least turned 16, you're exactly right. Like it was you didn't even like you're just $30,000 a day instantly. We've we've moved past that now. And we're at a point where it's like e Commerce has matured as an industry. But to make sure that we put this in perspective for people it's like, but it's only like in like kindergarten or first grade. And so it's like, it's maybe getting some like math homework that it has to start doing. But it's not it's it's still far from being as mature as a lot of other industries. And when you look at the overall percentage, that retail of E commerce that takes up of retail sales, it's only about 15%. It's still very small, in the grand scheme of things. And so I agree with you, and I'm glad you called that out.

Reggie Black 37:20

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's just beginning. And so you're what we're getting right now is the growing pains of that, figuring all those things out and being like, Okay, we're going to try this thing. Well, that didn't really work, we're going to try this thing, okay. Well, you know, apples updated this policy, or Microsoft or somebody is like, no, no, none of that stuff that we did work. So now like, let's try this, you know, this, this new thing. And so, Sean solution is, why don't we just take all of your data on your website, and you own it forever, in your own data warehouse, and that way, you can do whatever you want with it now, or retroactively. And five years, you may be able to go back and be like, Hey, let me look at how this thing did. And you know, this, rather than just relying on everybody else's solutions, yeah.

William Harris 38:09

Or let's say that you gave a really amazing AI model that comes out five years from now and you say, Okay, I want to retroactively understand how this model would have worked back in those environments. Back during the pandemic, what would this AI model have done in those situations? Oh, that's interesting. But you need the data at that point in time to be able to have in use and so owning your data from a great example, which were right around the corner from that. I want to dig into also a little bit about who is Reggie Black, it's something that I do on all the podcasts. I like to get into the the human side of everybody. Tell me about your childhood and what made you who you are today. What made you the person that wanted to do it for 515 an hour that made you want to do a headless Shopify e commerce Store that made you the person who says customer service matters so much, you know, is there anything that you know in your childhood that kind of brought you to who you are or not, and there's just fun stories, too.

Reggie Black 39:09

So I grew up, I was born in Atlanta. I lived here till I was about eight. My parents got divorced when I was eight. And so my dad stayed here. This is where he's from my mom's Cuban. And so she was born and raised in Cuba. Her family moved to Miami when she was a little kid. And so my sister and I went back to Miami with my mom when I was eight, and so I really kind of grew up in South Florida like Miami, Fort Lauderdale, that area and it was, you know, bounced around to a lot of different schools. We moved around the area a lot. And so I ended up moving back here basically, like after high school back to Atlanta, and got married, but that's that was kind of my childhood. I like sports. You know, I grew up playing soccer when I was little and then I'm moved into basketball and played football. All and you know, but I, as I mentioned, you know before, like I've just always, always liked computers, you know, and really kind of a nerd and geek in that sense. Got into him. I remember my grandfather bought me, our first computer, which was a 486. When I was probably in like, second grade, maybe first or second grade, my dad taught me my dad had a computer even before that, which was a 286, I think, and he like taught me some like dos commands, and taught me how to play chess. So we had like a chess game on there. So my dad showed me how to play that on the computer. And I was like, just kind of, like hooked on it after that, because there was, you know, the video games weren't as prevalent you know, as they are now for the kids. So that like that wasn't Yeah, yeah, this was even before like Minesweeper and sure tic tac toe and everything on Windows three, one. So it was like, I got I got kind of hooked into the same way kids are like, you know, on the screens now, like that was my screen back then it was like I learned on the computers like, oh, I can play chess on here. Like this is a big video game. And then when I got the computer, my grandfather bought me. It was like, oh, man, this opened up a whole new world like I remember we had I think it was like Encarta encyclopedia. I don't know if you remember that. But yeah, I remember Encarta. Yeah. So there was like games and exploration and everything inside the computer. So yeah, I think that's just what got me into it. Like hooked, it was like my, you know, learning education and, and games all in all in one and so

William Harris 41:37

got hooked, I can relate. That's so funny, because I can remember even when I was on, you know, Windows 95, and stuff to which, you know, maybe even a little bit beyond that. But it was still so primitive, what you could do there, and it was easy to get bored on there. There weren't as many things to do. And so I can remember using that as an opportunity to like start learning like hex code, right? And like, learning, like, even just like exploring every single little thing that existed on that computer. And so I learned about what was like houndstooth patterns. And it's like, all the different patterns that exists. You're like, Oh, what's this pattern? Oh, what's this patterns? All these different things that you learned about? Because you're just bored and just trying to explore and figure out everything that was on the computer?

Reggie Black 42:17

Yeah, that's exactly. That's exactly how it happened. Yeah,

William Harris 42:22

curiosity. Yeah. And so Okay, so, chess, you talked about that being a big thing that is that still something you play now?

Reggie Black 42:31

Yeah, I got out of it. And then now I'm kind of hooked back into it. So just.com, I play my son, my eight year old son's like getting into it. So it's just something fun that we can we can do together. And he's like doing his little chess training lessons on there every day on chess.com. And then I've got the app. So I've found that that's just like a really good, like, mental break for me, because you can play like a quick five minute game with somebody. So yeah, I've gotten back into it recently, in the last year, and I love it.

William Harris 42:59

I love it. buddy of mine from high school, Scott Garber, I'll give him a shout out. He's the one who got me on chess.com as well. And using the app and just just the puzzles and like you said, a quick game with somebody or you're just trying to pass the time. It's like I could do something mindless you could scroll tick tock, which I do, too, is every once awhile as well, but just being able to just go on there and solve a couple puzzles, keep your brain sharp, which I appreciate. Yeah. What do you fear?

Reggie Black 43:27

The FDA?

William Harris 43:30

That's fair. Yeah, I mean, I

Reggie Black 43:34

would say probably there's some, there's some truth in that, right. Like, was a business thing. With our business, I mean, that's the main thing that we try to just protect against. Because if something did happen, and I make sure like, because I'm obviously responsible for everybody who works for the business, or any marketing or anything that goes out, that can make something can can turn into a big deal with that. And so, if that happens, kind of the whole, the whole house of cards can come tumbling down pretty quickly with with somebody like that. And so I do. That's definitely something I fear,

William Harris 44:09

like you said, you're going the speed limit, you're using your tingles, like, you're just doing what you can to make sure you're following the rules. And I think that's good.

Reggie Black 44:15

Yeah. And we try.

William Harris 44:18

How do you deal with the stress of running a business in any kind of a market, but just especially with all the things that we've had to go through lately in the E commerce space, like you mentioned, you know, Apple removing, tracking, and now, you know, in pandemics and then, you know, moving into now like whatever we call the recession or whatever that we've been in, there's so many things that are just going and moving in fear of the FDA, how do you manage the stress of being an entrepreneur? That's

Reggie Black 44:48

a great question. I'll tell you mine, but I want to hear yours as well after Sure. One, I think is I have a business partner and he is Uh, he's built, sold, scaled, exited, you know, at this point and so he's, he's more of like a friend, advisor, therapist mentor for me as well. So I think that's a huge thing for me is like being able to call Kevin and be like, hey, like, let's just talk through this. He he'll usually sit down and whiteboard out draw some stuff and like, just us working through those things typically helps me like, you know, calm down a lot. Another one is basketball. I love Yeah, so I play, try to play a couple times a week with a group of guys here in the morning at like 6am. Before before work, and I just I noticed a huge difference in my attitude, stress level, happiness, with and without basketball. So like, if I can get a lot of those things just go out there because when you're on the court, it's like you kind of forget about everything else, there's no conversion rates, there's no CPAs there's no broken, nobody cares that your your tracking is broken, you know, on the court, so you kind of forget about all that stuff. And you know, able, it's like a therapy thing, you know, for sure. So basketball, I would say is is a big one for me.

William Harris 46:11

So I think with basketball, one of the things that I appreciate that I love basketball as well, that's my favorite sport of all the sports that I played. And I talked about this a lot and I don't know that there's there's probably research to back this up right now. It's just my my, you know, hypothesis is that we need almost a little dose of sweat and pheromones from other people that are fighting a war a little bit of the of sorts, right, where it's like you're battling it out, you're duking it out, whether it's on the court, or it's, you know, in the gym or something, you know, working out or whatever. But you need to be surrounded by that almost to continue to like, trick your brain and motivate you to say that it's like you got this go out conquered Do you can win. I think that sometimes, you know, even just doing a workout at home, it's fun, and I do a lot of my workouts at home, but it's like, there's just something about getting in a game with some people and just being like, Okay, you will run so much harder than you would if you were just doing it on your on your own.

Reggie Black 47:11

Yeah, absolutely. So your answer is what work? Well, how else do you do besides workouts at home? The stress of?

William Harris 47:19

My, my answer? That's a good question. There's a lot of things that I would say that I do. For me, a big part of this is I'm a Christian. And so a lot of this comes down to prayer. And so for me, a big part of this is recognizing that, you know, I don't know if you ever feel this way, I consider myself to be fairly intelligent. And I hope that doesn't come across as like a bad thing. But it's like, I consider myself to be able to figure out most of the problems that come up in my life. It's like, if you give me even difficult math problems, I have solved this right. So I like solving problems. And I think a lot of us like to think that about ourselves, right? For the most part, like that's a good thing to think about yourself, whether it's true or not as different. But I like to think that right? But one of the problems that I've run into is as an entrepreneur, sometimes those problems can really feel insurmountable or they're, they're constantly barraging, you as soon as you've solved one, there's 10 More waiting for you. And so for me, I think one of the things that's helped me a lot is recognizing that, and I love science. Let's imagine that we're on a plane of a timeline. And unfortunately, in our timeline, we really only can move in one direction on our timeline. And so I can't see what's on the other side of that timeline on the other side of this problem that exists for me. But as someone who believes in God, I believe that God is outside of time, so he can see all the way around time, he can see what's on the other side of this problem that I'm facing. And so while I might look at this problem, and I can be absolutely logically correct, saying, If I don't reply to this email at three o'clock in the morning, then I'm going to lose this client. And if I lose this client, then I'm not gonna have the money to pay for this person. And if I lose this, that then I have to, you know, lose this person who if I lose that team member, then now I can't satisfy the clients that I currently have. And so it's very easy to walk down this logical process of what could happen. But what I don't know is, well, maybe that is true. Maybe if I don't reply to this email at three o'clock in the morning, maybe I do lose that client. What I don't know is maybe it was for the best that we lost that client because the next day we're getting another client that's better client even more suited to what we're doing. And so sometimes it's recognizing and reminding myself that I have a limited vision of the future. And so even if I have a logically understandable explanation to what's about to happen, that's not the entirety of truth that exists. And so I need to put that back into my perspective. And just for me, though, that's where prayer comes in is saying, it's like, Okay, God, I put this in your hands. Even if I were to lose the entire company, even if I were to lose everything, even if I lose the house, that it's like, that's not Everything that is not my entire worth or anything along those lines. So for me, that's the thing that I think comforts and calms me the most throughout the chaos. And I've struggled with that over the years as well though, too. Yeah,

Reggie Black 50:13

understandably, right. We're still human. Yeah. So as an as a constant battle of faith and fear. Yeah. And they're opposites. Yes,

William Harris 50:23

yeah. All right. Well, and that's, I think, why the Bible says Do not fear so much. And I think many other religious texts would say that as well, that it's like fear is not something that sets you down the path of what you really want in life either in anything, right? Um,

Reggie Black 50:41

great answer. Thanks

William Harris 50:43

for you asking me nobody ever asks me on this podcast. So that was really cool. Have you ever met anyone inspirational or famous? And like, is there a good story behind that?

Reggie Black 50:54

I remember as a kid, when I was living in Miami, we were walking on South Beach. My uncle was like running a hotel in South Beach at one time, and we ran into Gloria Stephane remember her? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I remember

William Harris 51:06

one of her songs though, right now. What's, what's one of her songs like? I definitely remember like 90 singer,

Reggie Black 51:11

man she had she had a bunch of of bangers turn the beat around, but okay, so she was, I remember, like, I didn't, I didn't know who she was. But I remember like meeting her. Then we took a picture with her. And that photograph, like being up in our, you know, house for years and years and years and on my family talking about like, oh, yeah, we met Gloria stuff on you know, like, cuz she was living in Miami to probably the most famous Well, I don't know, I've I've met RFK Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Several times. Who's presidential candidate now, you know, I've been, I've got a mutual friend. And so I've been in like some events and then he's been in my mutual friend's house several times I've met him. And my, one of my best friends now is running like all of his social media and all of his campaigns for him as well. So I would say he's probably the most famous person I've met.

William Harris 52:15

But I still like the glorious the fun one though. I still like like you said, since you brought up the turn the beat around like, I mean, I this is the music that I grew up on, right. Like my mom was listening to in the car when I was a kid. So I was a kid in the 90s. She was listening to Gloria Estefan. Right, and Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. And so I'm like, oh, man, you just took me back to childhood. I'm just picturing us like rolling down the windows. We got a hand crank the windows and Gloria Estefan blur and through the car.

Reggie Black 52:39

She was huge back down and huge. What about you? What about you? Who's the most famous person you've ever met?

William Harris 52:46

Oh, man, that is a good question that I might have to defer on. Yes, Sean Larkin, most famous person I've ever met. Me and I feel like you know, I met a lot of famous people I used to caddy at Glenmore Country Club back in Ohio. It was a Jack Nicklaus golf club. And there was a lot of people that would come in for the Firestone tournament there in Akron, and they oftentimes stay in England more and so made a lot of people there meant a lot of professional athletes, a lot of professional athletes at the Hall of Fame can help them the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And so I feel like I've met a lot there. I'd say the one that I had the best interaction with though that would be like, Oh, I met this person and I interacted with them would actually be probably Toby Mac. I don't know how famous he is outside of certain circles. But I remember sneaking backstage at one of his concerts when I was younger. Well, you know, who would actually probably be height? Well, yeah, that's probably the most famous person just when I was maybe in high school, college snuck backstage and hung out with him for a little bit. He told me that I looked like Oh, the other guy from DC talk. Kevin Max. He was like, Hey, you look a lot like Kevin max. And I was like, dude, take me on tour. I'm ready to go. Let's go. That didn't happen.

Reggie Black 54:06

Did you have the pipes like Kevin Maxwell? Like I can sing. So

William Harris 54:10

probably not like him. But I love that you know who he is. I can sing singing is is one of my other instruments, I guess if you're going to call it so. I love singing but he's got an angelic voice, man. Yeah, I can't sing quite like him. Okay, um, all right. Last question here. Because you brought up basketball. And it's fun to have a little controversy on here. Who are your top five basketball players, if you are going to pick this could be from any, any decade, any generation you're like, these are the ones that I would assemble my team if you're going to pick your top five.

Reggie Black 54:46

So top five are like positions. What do you want to know? Like if we're assembling a team that has got to be like, you know, that's

William Harris 54:52

somebody in this position, any position that's fair, you don't have to pick a position you just like these are your top five

Reggie Black 54:59

and you We're gonna do like Stephen A Smith right and just like yell at me. You're crazy.

William Harris 55:06

I'm already I've already prepared it for students doesn't matter who you pick right now.

Reggie Black 55:11

Number one Oh, I'm just kidding Michael Jordan was brutal. For sure it's not number one man. So,

William Harris 55:23

I mean, I'm raising with you, the person that you're about to that you threw some shade at though I have to call out. I grew up with Lebron James. So I don't know him that like personally or anything like that. But he's the same age as me. We grew up in Canton, Akron area. I remember when Michael Jordan and Shaq are coming to watch him play games here in high school. So I still have some love for LeBron, but go ahead. I'm really, I can't blame you for Michael Jordan,

Reggie Black 55:51

right there. Yeah. Number two, I'd have to say Kobe.

William Harris 55:55

Yeah, the black mamba man. I mean, nobody had more grit than this guy, right? Yeah, watch some of his stuff. Like when he when he tore his Achilles what he said after tearing his Achilles when he's like, this is you know, pointless and like, what is this but he's, I forget exactly his his words. Now I'm drawing a blank on it. But basically, it was like if you see me coming up against the bear, you know, like pray for the bear basically, or something like that. He's like, I'm coming back from this.

Reggie Black 56:18

Yeah, he was a killer. I don't know. I mean, obviously, just like what I've seen about Cody, but like, I don't know that there's ever been a smarter basketball player than than Kobe. I think he was just, and he was obsessed with it. Right. Like you hear about him, like, studying the referee rulebook so he knew exactly where they had to stand on the court. So he knew like Okay, in this play in this position, this guy's gonna be over here. So I can get away with this file. And this grab and this hook over here. Like he was just very strategic. Yeah, he was like, super strategic, so I have to go with him to man who am I gonna go with three? Obviously, it's gonna depend on who you're you know, you count championships. Are you counting like towel? And Wilt Chamberlain I think is probably like, you know, the best athlete of all of them. You know, like seen the stuff that you come out with? Who's probably you know, the best, the best athlete. You got Bill Russell, who's got like, 11 rings or something I never see I never like watch these guys. Hopefully. So I don't know. I'm going to tell you that step three.

William Harris 57:25

Yeah, it's fair if you don't put them in yours, because you're like that you didn't grow up with them, right?

Reggie Black 57:30

I don't know how good they are. I'm just going to tell you that, you know, Steph Curry's in there because he's my favorite player to watch for sure. He

William Harris 57:38

changed basketball, right? Like he like now you see this even you go to high school games. And it's run down to three. Now the team runs down, shoots to three and runs down shoots to three like he literally changed the game of basketball. I feel like

Reggie Black 57:49

Yeah, I think he's like because a guy that broke the four minute mile, Bannister whatever his name is is like nobody could break that. And then once he broke it, everybody was breaking it and exactly that is like, now that Steph is like, Oh, you can just shoot from out here. Like all of a sudden now everybody can shoot from out there. Because if one man can then so can I Right? Like that whole mentality of like, this guy's doing it. I'm going to do it too. And so now the whole game has changed. You know? So huge, huge impact. I think on the on the game. He's just he's just like, super fun to to watch man. Yep, I agree. Shaq I put Shaq in there because I love Shaq. I just love everything that's

William Harris 58:33

happening you're gonna see that because like this doesn't always have to be just like the absolute best people although I'd say like checked up there but he was fun to watch right?

Reggie Black 58:42

Yeah, and I like watching him more now. Yeah, watch him you know buying businesses and being generous out there man and just being a goofball and like, you know his commentary him and Barkley on the on that show like he's just he's just one so I put check in my my face. This is more of my favorite five more than that's good. And then the top five. Allen Iverson ma'am. I'm gonna put Allen Iverson my favorite frog too because he's so over was brutal. He was just fun to watch like an athlete and for him to be able to do that, at his height to all of these guys was just incredibly Yeah,

William Harris 59:19

because he was only I think what six one or something right? Like yeah, barely over six foot well, and his crossover was so brutal that it was just called the Allen Iverson. You know what I mean? Was like is a crossover. This is it was so good. You could know it. He could be like I'm about to crossover on you right now. And you couldn't do anything about it. You're like, Okay, well, here's the hoop. Just go and take it on in.

Reggie Black 59:41

Yeah. Yeah. And I've heard I play basketball with this guy that was drafted by Philly. And so he played with Iverson ended up getting hurt, but he's like told me some crazy stories like Iverson shows up to practice like, completely wasted, throws up in the trash. can, like, walks on the court and just destroys everybody. And then it's like, it was just all natural talent. You know, like, imagine if that guy had, you know, a work ethic or something like, you know, like Kobe would have been Kobe always says Shaq like if he had his work ethic, he'd be the greatest player of all time, no questions asked. All right, who so who you pulling out of mind who you keep and who? You? All

William Harris 1:00:23

right. I mean, I actually really like you're talking about a lot of the people that I grew up with as well. Right. So like, these are my fans and Hearos I don't know if I would change or replace anybody there. If I was just gonna throw out a couple of other names of people that I just absolutely appreciate what I'm gonna throw in there for just other reasons. Eric snow, I remember he was the assist King the one year, but one of the biggest reasons is because I actually got to hang out with him. He was from my hometown back in Canton, Ohio. And so he would always put on a camp there every summer at the Canton Urban League that I would go to. And so it was just fun. We actually played basketball with him a lot. And he again also wasn't that tall. I think he was only like six one. But I love the idea of the assist King kind of thing. I was gonna throw somebody else in there. That's fun that you didn't mention that. I really appreciate it. And again, we're going back old school. Neither one of us are picking a lot of like real like today players. I think there's just something about the nostalgia of like who you grew up watching, right? Yeah,

Reggie Black 1:01:17

we all are bias. And we grew up with the greatest basketball player ever. Yes, like right. Your Instagram. Yeah. Yep.

William Harris 1:01:23

I almost would want to throw Dennis Rodman in there. Again, going back to it's like he was fun to watch when he decided that he was like, okay, my job is to like, get rebounds. And me he was unstoppable for that. Right. So it's like, that was fun. My Player though, my favorite player when I was growing up during that time was a cumulative one. So it came the dream he had that that fadeaway that was yeah, it's just unpossible to impossible. Stop. So I don't know if I'd replace it. But you have right at least gotta give some shout. One of the people I like, all right, Reggie. This has been fun. If people want to work with you, follow you, you know, buy from you. What are the best ways for them to get in touch stay in touch?

Reggie Black 1:02:08

Yeah, great. I don't have any social media man. So my social media is chess on my phone. Nice.

William Harris 1:02:17

Well, I'm on chess.com Yeah,

Reggie Black 1:02:19

Better Way Health. You know, I got a Better Way Health, check out our products. If you want a better immune system, which I think everybody should be, should be going after you want to be healthier. Get get on that beta glucan. And check us out a betterwayhealth.com

William Harris 1:02:35

Let's cool. Hey, I really appreciate you coming out sharing your knowledge wisdom success stories here with us today.

Reggie Black 1:02:40

I appreciate you having me on. This was fun. Thanks and

William Harris 1:02:43

everybody else. Thanks for joining in. Hope you have a great rest your day.

Outro 1:02:47

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.