Craig Petronella of Petronella Cybersecurity interviews Greg Sloan of Go Beyond. Greg and the Go Beyond Team helps advisors and coaches uncover their clients' purpose.

Speaker 0 - 00:00:01
What's better in terms of a background I'm in a coworking space this
morning. So that's what it looks like. Yeah. I mean, that's up to you.
That's fine. Whatever, whatever works for you. Okay. Is my speaking
matching my audio. It's not delayed. Okay, man. Windows 11.
Speaker 1 - 00:00:26
It's messed up. My, my sink.
Speaker 0 - 00:00:29
Is mine. It is. Yeah. It looks like it is.
Speaker 1 - 00:00:40
You look like a movie. Let me change my microphones. Hold one second.
Let's see if that helps.
Speaker 0 - 00:01:04
Yeah, I think it's still, is it still lacking ? Is it any better? Is it worse? It's a
little better. A little better. Yeah. I don't know if that blue. Lighting's not
very good in here.
Speaker 1 - 00:01:41
Yeah. Your, your face is a little shadow. Do you have a light behind you?
Speaker 0 - 00:01:49
I'm trying to go here. I mean, I can go here, but then you got that thing.
Yeah. That's worse. That's worse. The other side, switch my internet. I'm
going to briefly disconnect. How's that? Is that any better? Hello? Hello?
Hello? Testing 1, 2, 3. Yeah. That's almost there. I think that's pretty good.
I mean, I guess that's probably still pretty bad shadows. Isn't it? That's all
right.
Speaker 1 - 00:03:07
I mean, you don't have a light that you could put like behind your screen
or anything, right? Like a ring light or anything like that.
Speaker 0 - 00:03:14
At home? I do, but I'm not the Cobra. Yeah. That's all right. Basic creates
a prettier. Yeah. I wonder if you turn, are you on a laptop.
Speaker 1 - 00:03:39
What have you turned to like your right or your left? Like reposition.
Speaker 0 - 00:03:45
Yeah, I see. That's a little better. Cause I can see you better. Yeah.
Speaker 1 - 00:03:51
I mean, that's fine. Yeah. See, now you are lit up right there. Better.
Speaker 0 - 00:03:56
Don't know the only thing is we got that blue thing, but yeah, I think that's
fine. I don't, I wouldn't worry too much about it. There you go. Right
there. Cool. All right. I'm going to hit the record button. Okay.
Speaker 1 - 00:04:18
All right. Welcome to another podcast episode. Today is August 18th
already. Oh my gosh. It's a month is fine by ready. And welcome Greg
Sloan. Please introduce.
Speaker 0 - 00:04:29
Yourself. Hey Greg Sloan go beyond, good to have the most to be on your
podcast this morning. Absolutely pleasure to have you. So tell folks.
Speaker 1 - 00:04:42
A little bit about GOBA, go beyond. What, what is your specialty? What is
what's your ideal client?
Speaker 0 - 00:04:50
Yeah, so go beyond is a well tech platform that we launched, starting with
a wealth tech product, primarily serving financial advisors to help advisors
and their clients prosper on purpose together. I spent 25 years in the
financial services industry and the first 15 years I serve my clients as most
financial advisors, very math oriented. Think about the frontal portion of
your brain. Rational thinking. I figured that if I can just help clients
understand the spreadsheets, they would make better financial decisions.
And, and it worked for the most part, but every so often clients would
make rational decisions. And I couldn't understand why. In 2007, after two
years in the industry I left the firm I was with, which was a subsidiary of
Goldman Sachs, because I wasn't fulfilled. I just didn't feel I was pursuing
the purpose that I was designed for and why it was on this planet and,
launched my own firm.
Speaker 0 - 00:06:06
In 2007, I made a horrible financial decisions, a near fatal financially. I
sold 50% of my firm to the wrong partner. What I learned through that
process and unwinding that partnership over the next two years was I did
the same thing that many of my clients were doing was I was making a
financial decision, not with the frontal portion of my brain, but with the
emotional and even the primal, what some would call the lizard brain.
Right? So when you think about stress, our bodies are designed to get to
this point of fight or flight. And, if you all remember what 2008 and 2009
was like in the market, sadly, not a great time to launch a financial
planning firm. I took on a business partner who I thought was the right
partner. It turns out, in retrospect it was a very emotional decision. It was
a, it was a, candidly, one of the worst decisions of my life and financial
decisions.
Speaker 0 - 00:07:20
In 2010, after I unwound the partnership, I realized that I wasn't the only
one that was, suspect, to these types of decisions. In fact, many of my
clients were doing the same thing. I started incorporating psychology
specifically as it relates to behavioral finance, as well as a new way of
psychology called emotional intelligence. Most of us are trained and
skilled educated, for intellect. I was a finance major MBA in finance, so it
was very math oriented. What I learned through that process was you
have to incorporate the other two parts of your brain. You have the two
sciences, what I call the sister sciences of psychology and neuroscience,
which is what we've done in go beyond. Every financial advisor says they
can help clients reach their goals, these financial goals that we set. If
that's what you're pitching as an advisor, you're not unique, that's not
special, most claimed out clients chase their dreams, but only a select few
can help clients to pursue their purpose.
Speaker 0 - 00:08:37
Let's go beyond portfolio management, let's go beyond the planning. Let's
integrate purpose into your financial decision making. So that's what we
do at Columbia. Awesome.
Speaker 1 - 00:08:51
Speaker 1 - 00:08:51
Well, congratulations for going out on your own and, making a new path
for yourself. I think that's awesome. So I commend you for that. Sorry
about the bad experience with the partner. I've heard, that finding a
financial or business partners, harder than finding a, a marriage partner.
So,
Speaker 0 - 00:09:12
Yeah, so actually what I would say is it's very similar and what you've
heard that expression opposites attract, in marriage. I would say there's
similarities in business, but what the, what I learned was, because my
former partner and I, were in fact exact opposites on the behavioral
profile spectrum. What was wrong was when stress rose in our lives. We
went in the, went in directions that were actually, a recipe for disaster. We
were in a healthy place, right, things were going well, it was a great
partnership, but when stress rose and things started to, market started to
correct. And, the way we responded to each other under stress was,
explosive. In, about 18 months into the relationship, I asked for a divorce,
it's interesting you use that term because I, I went to him and I said, I
think we need to get divorced and we need to go ahead and split our
company up.
Speaker 0 - 00:10:38
Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1 - 00:10:40
At least you learned a lot from that, and you're carving a new path for
yourself and things seem to be looking up. So that's good.
Speaker 0 - 00:10:48
Yeah. And that was in 2009. In, 2010, when I started to incorporate what I
Yeah. And that was in 2009. In, 2010, when I started to incorporate what I
learned with my experience with my former partner, into my existing client
relationships, my financial planning clinic relationships changed. Within
about five years, I doubled my revenue three years, actually probably three
or four years. I doubled my revenue. I had to bring on another partner in
2015. This time I brought on a partner who actually had a very similar
behavioral profile to my previous partner difference was during stress. We
actually, complimented each other under stress. Whereas the previous
partner, we had conflict under stress. Awesome.
Speaker 1 - 00:11:39
Your ideal audience, your ideal client is a financial advisor. Does it matter
if they are working for somebody like Edward Jones or fidelity or do they
need to be on their own? Or can.
Speaker 0 - 00:11:50
You tell more about that? Yeah, so of course we'd love to work with the
entire firm. Edward Jones is a large national brand that we're currently
working with some of their individual advisors. At some point I'd love to
have Edward Jones sponsor us for all their advisors, but no, the software
is designed to exist outside the regulatory compliance wall. What I mean
by that is our process is to build, help, build a relationship with the advisor
and the client, but it doesn't get into the regulated discussions such as
portfolio management or, cashflow management. It does not have any
math inside of the software, other than the algorithms behind the city, but
it doesn't support the clients, discussions of modifying the portfolio or
retiring at a certain age. It doesn't have any of that. Okay. Okay. Gotcha.
So.
Speaker 1 - 00:13:00
When, w what's the timing like what's a good time? Is it the early stages,
just starting out for a new financial advisor? Is it a season? Does it not.
Speaker 0 - 00:13:09
Matter? Yeah, no. Great question. What we found is that the high demand
or what we call a, a booking scenario. Advisors that are under five years
in the industry are looking to create themselves in a unique way to define
their profile in a very unique way. Our software helps them to really create
a, a market niche for themselves that they enjoy that they're pursuing their
purpose because they're serving a very small segment of the market. We
have high interest in advisors that are less than five years. On the other
side of the spectrum. We have interests with advisors that are over 15
years, maybe even 20 years in the industry, because what they have in
many cases, unfortunately built is a practice based on revenue, not
necessarily based on impact or relationship. I, I was in this place, after 15
years, I looked at the client portfolios that I was serving, the individual
households that I was serving.
Speaker 0 - 00:14:25
Really, there were certain clients I just didn't enjoy working with. So, I
brought in a, another advisor and ends up transitioning those clients over
to that advisor because my personality, well, we call it a behavioral profile
as opposed to personality profile. My behavioral profile works with a
certain behavior in the client and, seasoned advisors, mature advisors can
use our software to help them understand what is their ideal client that
they want to continue serving for the next 10, 15, 20 years. If you've been
in the industry for 15, 20 years, you don't have 30 years ahead of you. You
have 10 or 15, maybe 20 on the outside, and you want to spend the next
10, 15, 20 years fulfilled serving people that you really feel called to serve.
The bookend strategy is what we found to be most, intriguing or most in
demand. It's under the age of 30 and over the age of 45.
Speaker 0 - 00:15:42
Okay, interesting. So.
Speaker 1 - 00:15:44
What you were just talking about, reminds me a lot of the parades
principle, the 80 20 rule. Absolutely. Looking at your business, with focus,
finding the top 20% and how do you find more of them? How do you find
the similarity? So is it accurate or true to say your software helps maybe
leverage AI or some technology that will better, put the financial advisor in
their strength zone?
Speaker 0 - 00:16:14
Yeah. Great question. We are not leveraging AI yet. That is the future. And
that's where we're headed today. The exercises are manual. We will ask
questions that the advisor will answer and that those answers will create
the parameters or create the profile. For instance, for myself, I serve third
quarter executives and entrepreneurs typically married with children or
children, or their children have children. In other words, they're
grandparents, right. They've already found success in their life, but they're
looking to find significance and make an impact particularly on the next
generation. That was the profile of advice of client that I served when I
was an advisor. That's still the profile that I serve today, except my client is
now the financial advisor, as opposed to the corporate executive. Right?
So, one of the data points or the amount of the data that we're collecting
is that the profiling match and what we believe because this, I sold my
firm in 2020.
Speaker 0 - 00:17:33
I don't know if I mentioned that. When I sold my firm, it was not an 80 20,
right. It was actually probably more about a 60, 40, where 60% of my
clients fit the right profile. Well, if you're a buyer of any business, the
higher percentage of ideal clients will increase the value of the firm. What
we believe is going to happen in the future as advisors begin to think
about their own succession planning and their own exit strategies, is that
if they have a client portfolio that has a high percentage of ideal clients,
that is going to be worth more to the ideal buyer, the firm that bought my
firm was looking for third quarter executives that were five to 10 years
away from retirement. They had a tremendous, net worth upside. Well,
that was my client base. I got a slight premium when I sold my firm.
Speaker 0 - 00:18:43
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 - 00:18:44
Well, congratulations. It sounds like go beyond your firm, helps financial
advisors raise the value of their practice,
Speaker 0 - 00:18:51
Too. It, we believe it will. So, so we don't have those metrics yet, but that
is definitely some of the metrics that we are capturing. I believe within two
to three years, we will be able to say to an advisor, when you present your
firm to potential buyers, here's why we think you can ask for five, 10 or
15% higher than the going rate at the time, because Marcus will move up
and down, right? We don't know what the exit metric is going to be. The
way the advisor firms are sold today is sold at a multiple of revenue.
Right? We think of the future. It's going to be a multiple of EBITDA. In my
case, I think I got about a 7% premium when I sold at the time of the
market. When I just compared my firm, to the market rate, I got about a
7% premium.
Speaker 0 - 00:19:50
Now, five years from now, it doesn't really matter what the EBITDA
multiple is. You can get a premium over that multiple, you can get a
premium. Gotcha. So it sounds.
Speaker 1 - 00:20:03
Like it, the first front end piece is kind of coaching based with some
Like it, the first front end piece is kind of coaching based with some
human, analysis in the front end. Tell me more about what that looks like
now, how long does that take for the financial advisor to go through?
Because I'm sure that's probably a question that's.
Speaker 0 - 00:20:20
In their minds. So, so really we're selling two things separately. One is a
certification program, which helps the advisor to become more of a coach.
That's called a certified purpose mentor program. We're actually
revamping the program is going to be a 12 week program. At the last time
we did it was a six week program. What we learned with it was too much
material and it was too intense. Many of those, graduates are still
struggling with absorbing the material. We're lengthening the, we're
doubling the length of time and we're shortening the exercises. We're also,
going to send them through the program in pairs. You will have a learning
partner with you. That's a 12 week program at the end of that. You will
have your certification, which means you will have you, the advisor will
have a, a higher, much higher, understanding of how to coach your clients
in the areas of behavioral, finance and emotional intelligence.
Speaker 0 - 00:21:28
As well as the neuroscience behind why people make fight or flight
decisions when stress rises at the end of that, you will also have access to
the software for one year. That software will include licenses where you
can actually start taking your clients through, go beyond so that you can
understand their profiles. Now, what happens is the client gets the login,
answers a series of questions. You, the advisor don't get to see their
answers. What you get to see is the snapshot report that is produced at the
end of the answers, the questions and answers that the client answers are
private. Of course the client could share that with you and our
experiences. The clients that have a deep relationship with your advisor
will say, what? You already know a lot of stuff about me. I want you to
hear why I answered this question.
Speaker 0 - 00:22:30
Why I believe that I'm uniquely, these are my gifts in life. Why I believe
that, this is the group of people I want to help with my investment
portfolio. Those are some of the questions that we ask why my dad
inspired me, and this is the way my dad inspired me. The advisor would
get to see the snapshot report and would get to see the questions the client
allowed them to have that. Now they have a single profile. When they're
communicating back and forth about an investment portfolio retirement
within three years, or sending their child to college and paying a certain
amount, the advisor will have a deeper understanding of why this is so
unique to that particular client, give you a story. One of the clients that did
go through this with me back in 2000 and maybe 13 ish, 14, 2014, she was
a retired, both husband, wife went through it, but the wife was the
primary contact.
Speaker 0 - 00:23:38
She came up with a purpose statement. That sounded something like this.
My purpose in life is to help others, essentially improve their or live a more
integrated life. So she was a real estate investor. One of the things that she
was interested in doing was reducing the number of real estate holdings. I
think she had about 40 pieces of property that she was managing their net
worth was almost all rental real estate. By looking through her lens of
purpose, we created a goal to sell off 30% or 40% of a real estate in one
shot, which was a very challenging exercise. We ultimately pulled it off in
about 2017. It took a few years, but we accomplished something called a
10 31 exchange where we swap her property for another property. But, the
point is that were able to set this financial goal and attack this goal
because by getting rid of some of her properties, she was going to be able
to pursue what she believed in life was more purpose centered for her, and
it required her to get rid of property.
Speaker 0 - 00:25:09
We ultimately did that from, if I didn't understand that about her, I may
not have helped her accomplish that because from a investment
perspective, the real estate was producing high cashflow for her. She
ended up being high cash flow real estate for low cash flow, in fact,
negative cash, real estate growth upside, but the high cash flow real estate
required a high amount of her time and energy. Right. She wanted to have
more of her time back. Sure. But, but avoid the taxes. So we did a spot.
Very cool. It sounds like what you have is quite unique and creative. Yeah.
So I would say it's definitely creative. It is unique, but, as you can imagine,
there are competitors there's about four or five other companies that are
pretty, early stage in this there's two or three companies that have been
around for awhile. Actually one of them, was purchased by Goldman
Sachs.
Speaker 0 - 00:26:23
It's interestingly in 2009, 19, excuse me, 2019. And it's a platform called
fin life. That's probably the biggest, platform out there. Golden paid a
couple hundred million dollars for it. Wow.
Speaker 1 - 00:26:39
I'm going back to the questions in the process for your system. How many
questions does it look like? Is it 50 questions, a hundred questions? Like
how long does it usually take folks to.
Speaker 0 - 00:26:48
Get through it? Yeah, so there are five different segments and each
segment has its own set of exercises. I would say each segment is
somewhere between 30 minutes and 90 minutes, to go through the entirety
is going to take several hours, obviously, maybe three to five hours,
roughly. Yeah. It's definitely not something you would do in one city, right.
There is the core of the plan form is what we call pulse, which is checking
the condition of where you are today, 15 minutes. The next chord, the
exercise is called a rush. We changed the name, we're calling it GDP goals,
dreams, and purpose. And that about 45 minute exercise. Platform is
about 60 minutes, but when you add it all together, what to get through
the whole thing is probably three to five hours. Cool. I would suggest,
individuals go through it probably over a 30 day timeframe, not something
you would do.
Speaker 0 - 00:28:13
You couldn't do it in a week if you could do it in one day. We believe that
the time to process the information between each sitting is really valuable
time. I had a beta test to go through it last week, the 20, I think she's a 24
year old, young lady. And, she emailed me after she went through it the
first time and she said, boy, I've never had these questions asked for me to
ask me. And, I'm probably still processing. But it's helped me to
understand. We scope, we asked users to do a 62nd scores, 10 questions,
take 60 seconds called purpose score. It will quickly tell you, how aligned
you believe your life is with your purpose. And, it's a score of zero to six.
And, average score is about three and a half to four. We ask you to go
through the exercises and then go back and take that test again, 60
seconds.
Speaker 0 - 00:29:25
As in this young woman's case, she moved up from a 3.6 to a 3.9 just by
going through a couple of the exercises, because once she was able to
articulate a draft of her life, purpose statement, things, her life became
more clear just going through that exercise. And she recalled, yeah. She
began to understand why she made, the decision she made to quit her job
and started different jobs. She was a middle school teacher and she now
works in software.
Speaker 1 - 00:30:04
Cool. That's cool. There a financial advisor that's not a good fit for your
program?
Speaker 0 - 00:30:11
What we have found in, and I was in this place myself when I was
somewhere between five and 15 years in the industry, I thought I knew it
all. You, you probably couldn't have told me that I could have used more
training because I really was doing well in my career. I was making a lot
of money and I really thought I had my stuff together. What I found is
individuals that are in that span are a little harder to convince that they
don't know at all. And I understand that. It's not that they're not a good fit
it's that they need to be self-aware. We teach emotional intelligence and
there's four stages of emotional intelligence self-awareness self-regulation
empathy, which is understanding other people and then social skills, which
is managing your empathy with other individuals. The reality is there's a
period in our brain development where we really are in the mode of, just
executing.
Speaker 0 - 00:31:21
That typically happens in your late twenties to probably up through your
forties. I don't want to, I would never want to say no to a 35 year old, but
I think a 35 year old, most of them might say no to us.
Speaker 1 - 00:31:38
Interesting. It's that middle band that you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 0 - 00:31:43
That that middle band is, so the way I would describe it is we invest our
marketing on both sides of the spectrum. We don't market in the middle,
we for the, early and we market for the late.
Speaker 1 - 00:31:59
Yeah. That makes sense. So, where do you see this in the next three to five
years? You mentioned that maybe AI is the future. What are you thinking
as far as making this even better than it is already?
Speaker 0 - 00:32:12
Yeah, so our go to market is financial advisors, but our earliest customers
are life coaches and executive coaches. We will expand, deeply into the
executive coaches, life coaches, health coaches, and business coaches.
When you add that to the financial professionals, that's about 1.2 million
individuals between and Canada, but the future really is enterprise. That
may actually happen sooner than we expected because we're in early
discussions with an enterprise partner where they would bring financial
wellness and inclusion to employees that are probably below the income
and net worth spectrum, that they could hire a financial advisor or even a
coach. These are folks that are probably less than a hundred thousand a
year, maybe even less than 80,000 a year. We're talking with a firm that
they would deliver our content through their employer under a financial
wellness program and financial inclusion program. Once we get there, the
sky's the limit.
Speaker 0 - 00:33:29
As I mentioned, we're a well nest platform or a well tech platform. We're
just launching as a wealth tech through a WealthTech products through
financial advisors. If you really want to understand the psychology behind
it, if you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy, Maslow, Abraham Maslow
was a psychologist that, created a hierarchy back in the fifties and sixties
of five different levels. What he believed at the time was that selfactualization
was the peak of the pyramid. You remember that? Selfactualization
what most people don't realize. I didn't know this myself, I
graduated college in the nineties. Self-actualization was self taught at the,
as the peak of the period. Abraham Maslow changed his mind before he
died. He found that there's a higher level and what he called selftranscendence.
And it's really simple. Once you have self-actualized
actualize, you simply want to turn around and help someone do the same,
right? The whole concept of paying it forward, he called it self
transcendence.
Speaker 0 - 00:34:47
We might call it, paying it forward, but psychologically in fact, our
neurobiology is designed to serve other people and help other people
achieve something of success. You think about a baseball player that goes
on to play professionally may even win a world series, right? And he gets
brought back as a coach. He helps his team win a world series and then go
ask him, which one of these two would he be willing to give up? He might
be willing to give up the individual, maybe not. The point is that we are
designed at a biological level for something that neuroscientists now call
or, well, they've always called it, but it's you die Monica decision-making
or you activities. Eudaimonic activities are simply, little less self-centered.
This is where you serve your fellow human beings. Purpose is about
serving other people by definition, purpose is other centered activities or
other centered living.
Speaker 0 - 00:36:01
So, the future is probably, includes a direct to consumer model, a business
to consumer. It might be in the form of a downloadable app or the app
store. It might be a form of just going to a website, but it's probably a
direct to consumer.
Speaker 1 - 00:36:25
Very good. Cool. I like it. I think it's awesome. Well, congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you. So, anything else that you'd like to, educate
financial advisors on since that's the vertical of choice for go to market?
Speaker 0 - 00:36:38
Yeah. It's, it's the vertical of choice, not just because I'm a financial
advisor or I spent 25 years in that space. It's the vertical of choice because
in order to live a better life, you have to make better decisions. There were
two key decisions that we believe lead to a better life. Number one is make
better health decisions, eat better, sleep, better exercise, because if you
feel better, you live better. The second maybe equally important is making
better financial decisions. What we say is better wealth, better for life.
Awesome.
Speaker 1 - 00:37:26
Well, thank you so much, Greg. I appreciate you being a guest on our
podcast. You're very welcome. Can you give us your website and your
phone number or whatever?
Speaker 0 - 00:37:36
Yeah. The website is simply www dot try, go beyond.com T R Y go
beyond.com. You can find us on Twitter. You can find us on LinkedIn and
Instagram as well. My email is Greg G R E g@trygobeyond.com.
Speaker 1 - 00:37:54
Awesome. Thank you so much, Greg.
Speaker 0 - 00:37:57
Thank you, Craig. All right.
Speaker 1 - 00:38:06
Awesome. Good. I think it was excellent.
Speaker 0 - 00:38:11
I don't know what, so I've got to do another podcast. I was actually
supposed to do it last Friday and it got re I went golfing instead, so that's
okay. I told my friend that, I have to reschedule it, but, I've now been
invited to like multiple ones a day. So I really appreciate you being yep.
Yep. Your pop, my cherry, so to speak.
Speaker 1 - 00:38:34
Well, style is very, casual. It might be different than the others that you
joined. I don't, I don't send them an agenda. I don't, I don't craft an
outline. I like to do it like on the fly and prompt too, because it's more
natural. That's just the way.
Speaker 0 - 00:38:51
Yeah. The, the one that, I was supposed to do last Friday, the audience is,
junior and high school up to age 40. So it's actually a leadership,
program. My son, my youngest son went through the leadership program
and this is the guy who runs it and he sent me the questions in advance,
like three or four questions in advance. He asked me to write a couple of
questions that I'll ask you that he'll ask me. Then, but the one that is really
influential is a woman name. Oh shoot. I forgot her name, but she has a
podcast that I think reaches something like, oh gosh, how much does it
reach? It's a large by the thousands of financial advisors it's called D
wealth news, digital wealth, health. Very cool. It's going right to my target
market. Right. In fact, is there any way, when do you do a snippet of the,
when can you do a spin, edit like a snip of this? Oh, I'll have it live today.
Speaker 0 - 00:40:13
Oh, you will.
Speaker 1 - 00:40:15
I don't really cut. I don't really edit too much. I'm just going to cut at the
tail end of it just because I clicked the wrong button. I don't really edit.
You'll have the links in your hands by this afternoon.
Speaker 0 - 00:40:27
Okay. I could give it to somebody who could slice it and just turn it into a
62nd promo. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 - 00:40:37
Yeah. I usually do like a YouTube link and then I do an audio on, all the
major podcasts like Spotify and apple and Amazon.
Speaker 0 - 00:40:46
Okay. What would help me is to give me a, something really short that I
could say about Petronella. Yeah. I have a blurb, a little blurb, particularly
obviously, it is a regulated industry. So something that, okay. I ran a firm,
Daniel advisors, we had five employees. We, I think I mentioned to you,
were just at that point of transitioning from state registration to sec, one
of, were you mentioning this? So I sold the firm before I switched. Yeah.
One of the things I was concerned about was whether we would pass the
SCC requirements. Yeah. I think we wouldn't have, but I didn't want to
test. Right. I believe a lot of my early customers are going to be in that
range. What I think would be helpful is something that describes that. I
don't even mind reading it as a commercial. Hey, I was able to, I was
asked to join a podcast by correct Petronella from cyber blah.
Speaker 0 - 00:42:12
Right. For, for you advisors out there that are in that transition from state
registration to sec registration Craig and his team could come in and do
an audit, help you to understand how to make sure you pass the audit
when the sec comes calling. Cause what is, I don't remember what the
statistics are, but when you convert to sec, you go on a list and the sec will
audit X percent of those riots. It's 1%, right? Yeah. Well I think it's a big
preside. It might be 20. It's not a bigger percent. Okay. Yeah, because you
gotta remember, this is the first time that these firms are sec registered.
Speaker 1 - 00:43:05
Oh. It might be a very large percent. Okay.
Speaker 0 - 00:43:08
It might be 25% in year one, right. 20% in year one. You may get a 20%
chance of getting an audit in year. One of being, because I think the sec
must audit you within the first five years. You just take five divided by, 20%
chance in year one. Right. What I can say in the little infomercial, like the
lead is, don't get caught with your w whatever your tag is. You know,
Speaker 1 - 00:43:50
We'll mold that into something that's yeah.
Speaker 0 - 00:43:55
I was, I was reading your emails that you sent back a few months ago
cause you sent blurb. Yeah,
Speaker 1 - 00:44:03
It is. Yeah. But it can be significantly reduced.
Speaker 0 - 00:44:06
Yeah. That would be great because we are in the middle of kind of our
marketing push. This will be great for both of us.
Speaker 1 - 00:44:19
Yeah. That'd be awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 0 - 00:44:24
I know we didn't get to bring the piece into any of the questions, but, who
else would be a good podcast,
Speaker 1 - 00:44:40
Interview for you? attorneys are good, especially IP attorneys. Really
anyone that's working with somebody that's, their clients are regulated.
Like, you mentioned sec of course, HIPAA for healthcare. Any folks like
that are influential influencers in their space or have clients in their space
that are subject to these types of regular? I like these regulations just
because they give of a push. I mean, I can help small businesses too. A lot
of my work recently has been around ransomware and some more
protection for companies. But you know, so.
Speaker 0 - 00:45:23
I, I put the name of Jonathan Sparks in the chat. Okay. He is an attorney
and my provisors group. Okay. He is, the one that did our IP filing for, I
believe a lot of his, clientele. I can imagine a lot of his clientele are
smaller. Maybe even tech focused companies. Is he sparks law. Yep. Okay.
He's also a, he's got a big personality. He he'd be a good guest. Yeah.
That'd be awesome. All right. I'll think of some more, but how's business
going for you?
Speaker 1 - 00:46:17
Good. We just won this a nice, fancy, better business bureau torch award
for 2021. We also won the 20, 21 UpCity award. A lot of my marketing
I've changed from really, just try to, I mean, I, I don't know if you read any
of my books or anything else, but it was a lot of more prevention, but I've
kind of moved away from that just because I'm getting older and tired of
trying to convince people to do something. I I'm focusing more on, well,
when this happens to you, we're here to help. Just, but oh, always looking
to help folks that want to, that are in a place in that are ready to get help,
in your business model. Right. My model is obviously cybersecurity and
compliance is very important, especially if you're regulated, but with
COVID, it just kind of, I've seen a lot of folks just kind of push it to the
back burner.
Speaker 1 - 00:47:23
Don't want to do it. Don't think it's going to get trigger an audit. I focus
more on, the folks that are willing to amplify their defenses and, try to get
them to do an assessment, go to the doctor and get a checkup. Right. Try
to get that physical done, to see what's going on, do that initial assessment
and gap analysis to show them where they're at.
Speaker 0 - 00:47:49
I just put another name and that his name is Kevin Bonnette. How cool.
Okay. The harness group, if you pull that up, I think he's, I assume he's
still there. So this was my, it vendor. Okay. And, but they don't, I don't
believe they cross into what you do. I think that you would be a good,
partner for them, because I mean, they ran my it and we never talked
about any security or compliance, but what we talked about was really
more like, firewall stuff like firewall, but it going deeper at your level. No,
they weren't equipped for that. They were setting up computers and
making sure you had, their basic.
Speaker 1 - 00:48:45
Right, right. Yeah. I found that we actually partner with a lot of other it
companies that, we'll take our stuff in bolted onto there. So, you know,
resell.
Speaker 0 - 00:48:57
There, there is a great company in the financial services space. Have you
done much of an in-service? I know you do it a lot in healthcare. Yeah. I
have, I have a handful. Or have you partnered with any of the it, what are
they called? it vendor. What are they called? I.
Speaker 1 - 00:49:23
Caught you talking about the vendor security questionnaires from the
financial.
Speaker 0 - 00:49:27
No, no. What are the, what are the it consultants that manage your
manager? Oh, just an administrator. I D it administrator. That what they
call the ones that run your servers.
Speaker 1 - 00:49:38
Stuff? Yeah. Like a systems administrator.
Speaker 0 - 00:49:41
Yeah. Okay. There's two or three of them that are nationally like the
players. Okay. I don't remember their names off the, I didn't use one. It's
pretty expensive, but, to get into the advisory space, if you work with those
guys, cause they have all the clients, right. They may have a competitor.
Who's your competitor.
Speaker 1 - 00:50:13
It just really varies. So, there's some like larger managed security services
providers.
Speaker 0 - 00:50:22
Would be yeah. Managed services. That was the term I was thinking of
Would be yeah. Managed services. That was the term I was thinking of
managed services.
Speaker 1 - 00:50:26
There's managed, which is what we used to do more back in 2006 and
then there's managed security services provider or MSSP. We're more that
specialist, cyber security and compliance. Yeah. We're, we're the
cardiologist opposed to the.
Speaker 0 - 00:50:43
Practitioner. Yeah. The managed services is that is the GP. That's the
general practitioner. Yup. There are a handful. There's a couple of those in
the industry that, they do the day to day stuff.
Speaker 1 - 00:50:57
Yeah. Like there's some CMI, like in provisors there's some folks that are
CMIT, it's a big managed services franchise across the country. We would
compete on the managed services level, but they don't really do the
specialized cyber that we do. Not at the depth and level that.
Speaker 0 - 00:51:15
We do it. Yeah. I've got to think of there's one guy that I can, that I've met
at conferences multiple times. He would be a good contact for you, but
I've got to remember, I've got to go back in my notes and find out, I took a
proposal from him, but I was like, man, this is expensive. I can't afford.
Speaker 1 - 00:51:35
Yeah. You know, it's interesting too. Like, people will ask me, what
verticals do you focus on? And I like to focus on the CMMC or defense
contractors and things like that. The reality of the situation is I can help
really any business. It's just, I, I personally like the regulations because it
gives them of a push to do something. I'm actually finding some, of
progress in the banking vertical where they're looking to amplify and,
open up their wallets to actually do more pen testing and do more of the
higher end work. Because like you mentioned, pen tests are expensive.
They start at 30, $40,000 and go up from there. And, I found that in my
sweet spot is in that 20 to 200 user count range. The re I I'm noticing,
especially in the past few years with COVID, I have some really large
enterprise customers that will do consulting retainers and pen tests and
more higher end work.
Speaker 1 - 00:52:36
Obviously we're not going to be their help desk, or, they're going to have a
team for that, but we'll help advise their help desk on the cyber and be
that fractional CIO role.
Speaker 0 - 00:52:48
I'm just thinking of these names as you're talking. I'm just popping them in
the chat.
Speaker 1 - 00:52:55
Yeah. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah. If you can, if you don't mind, if you can
email warm intro, these, that would be perfect.
Speaker 0 - 00:53:04
Yep. Andy greeters, a guy I just got referred to, and he's more of a, and all
of these are in the wealth management. These are all financial services
except for Jonathan Sparks and Kevin Burnett, Gnostic. Craig sick house
key. And he's a, maybe even, credit union. Yeah. These are folks that some
of them might, you guys met Mary York is the PR firm we hired. She only
works with FinTech and she works with credit unions as well. Craig's and
Kowalski's with credit unions. So.
Speaker 1 - 00:53:57
They would all be good referrals.
Speaker 0 - 00:53:59
For me. These are people who you would be a good for them to be able to
say, Hey, we're going to bring in, we're going to refer you to Craig. It
makes them.
Speaker 1 - 00:54:10
That's right. So, Alrighty, sir. Thank you. Appreciate.
Speaker 0 - 00:54:15
It. Got this done. It only took us eight months. That's not, you.
Speaker 1 - 00:54:20
Know, I mean, at least we got it done. Right. I'll get the links to you and
send them over to your email. All right. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Take
care. See you later.