Once in a while, in a webinar, a predictable question comes up.

“If it’s so great, why are you guys selling it?…You should be millionaires by now”.

It’s a valid question, at first glance. But 3 years of webinars later, I’ve learned a few things. First, what the question is behind that question…and secondly, how to express what I want to say internally without sounding slimy.

I will often times use the imagery of a tool at a tool store to convey what I am trying to say – the idea that in every other industry on the surface of the planet, someone who builds a tool that has value is esteemed. They will sometimes be called a “craftsman”…a term of respect for their contribution. Their tools, make other people’s jobs easier.

When you open your NinjaTrader or Tradestation or Metatrader indicator list, you’ll find anywhere from 50 to 100 indicators.

RSI. CCI. ADX. VOL. STOCH. BOLLINGER. KELTNER. WILLIAMSR.

These are all indicators built by men, like Welles Wilder. Tools.

I have yet to meet the trader that before using an RSI said, “Wait…let me see if Welles Wilder was a good trader…man, he should have made millions using this thing for himself. I better check before I hit, “apply”.

No, they don’t say that. It sounds ridiculous when I write it.

They apply it to a chart. They measure internally as they observe how effective the tool was to them. Did it catch turns – did it lower risk or increase reward for them? How did it help them with an overall market edge?  Is this useful, or not, to me.

Every trader does this. And what I’ve found is that it’s a very important process. Understanding what type of a trader you are. What type of a market you trade. What type of a time frame you’re comfortable working in. Your risk tolerance. Your reward expectations. Your trail stops ….these are all very, very personal things. It takes time to arrive at the point where you finally say – this works for me. This feels comfortable to me. I am going to use this.

I trained under a man for 6 months, who took live trades every day, on my screen, from Florida (I was in NC).  Every day I watched him make money, using his “system”. In his mind, he was following a set of rules. In my mind, it was like watching a herd of cats. Every day it seemed like a new technique…a new strategy was being employed. And he made money. And I didn’t.

I couldn’t follow his rules. I couldn’t average in where he doubled down….and double down again. None of it made any sense to me. None of it felt right, or comfortable. But I stuck at it for 6 months, until I finally realized – it was never going to work, and I had to start from scratch and admit I’d wasted 6 months of my life.

When people ask the question, “if it’s so good why are you selling it?” the real question they are asking sounds like this,

“Is anyone actually making money as a trader?”.

It’s a valid question. And it usually comes from a place in that “just before 6 months wasted” or “just after 6 months wasted” reference point. The time before everything clicks and falls into place. That moment that you realize how personal trading is, and that most of the problems you’ve had, have nothing to do with the tools you used so much as your ability to use the tools – to knuckle down and apply them to your trading time frame…your market….your personality.

My trading friend, showed me his track record.

He showed me every broker’s statement in his desk drawer, through his webcam.

I watched him place live trades, with his Dorman account number on the screen. Not a sim account.

I watched him take live trades and make thousands, and thousands of dollars. With 4 contracts most days. 6 on a rare few.

And in the end, it didn’t mean a thing. None of those things contributed an ounce to my success.

If anything, they actually disgusted me. I felt ashamed. I felt stupid…how could I not figure this out?

So, back to the original question.  If it’s so good, why do you sell it?

First half of that question ….”if it’s so good….”. That’s the real question, in my mind. Can we effectively demonstrate that the tool does what we’ve engineered it to do. My degree is in Engineering. I was born, raised,and trained, to build things. To understand how something works internally and externally. Trading indicators aren’t much different than other “built” things. They have a function. They have an expectation of performance. Something you can point to and say without much thought, “yes, this does what you say it should do”.

Press the drill button in….the drill spins….the bit turns. Yes, the drill is working.

Turn the Flux on….the dots appear….the market stops and turns the majority of the time. Yes, the Flux is working.

The second half of the question, “…why do you sell it?”, is better translated, “is anyone making money as a trader?”

The answer to the real question is , “Yes.” The one privilege of being a vendor is that you get to meet people that actually trade for a living. Or trade successfully and profitably. After about a year in business online, those people started coming to the webinars once they realized we weren’t a joke. They watched. They listened. And then they started buying and integrating the software. They started showing us what they do every day with the tools they use. They shared their stories and their struggles and their breakthroughs. It’s actually one of the, if not the, best part of doing what we do. To meet these people and say, “Yes, there are people doing this. It can be done”.

Those people tell us something else, though. Over and over they say, “I can count on one hand the number of legitimate vendors, that actually care about the people they work with…whose tools actually do what they say they will do”. Think about that for a minute. Out of the hundreds of vendors and systems online…the massive marketing machines that they wield, only a handful meet these criteria:

a. they actually care about their customers and their customer’s success.

b. their tools actually do what they said they would do, at the sales presentation.

Why do we sell it? Because it works. And because the people that use it, and go through the program, leave the program better traders than when they entered. They commit to us, and we commit to them.

Will everyone be a successful, profitable trader that buys our tools. Unfortunately, no. Not everyone that walks into a home improvement store and leaves with a bag of items will go back to their homes and create a mansion worthy of Architectural Digest.

“Are you guys successful traders and making money?”.

My answer is, and always will be, “that’s the wrong question to ask”.

Not because it’s a bad question.

But because you will end up at the end of your own personal “6 months”, more frustrated and more ashamed, and more broke than when you started. There is no correlation between my success, and your success. If anything, there is an inverse relationship. The more focused you are on another trader’s style and account size, the longer it will take to develop your own – and the smaller your balance will become.

I love what I do. So does Ron, and Ben.

We’ve withstood the crucible of online forums and YouTube posts now for 3 years. Other vendors have come to us…guys with solid reputations and said, “we’ve heard good things about you from our customers. Tell me more”. Guys we used to idolize and talk about in chat rooms. It’s bizarre.

But ultimately, when someone comes back to us and says, “that tool you developed…that training you gave me….that helped me become who I am today as a trader”….that’s why we sell it. We are insanely proud of what we’ve built, and even more so of our clients when they knuckle down and start asking the correct questions.

It’s a cheesy answer, but it’s an honest one.