Hidden Savings and Cyber-Safety: An Insightful Discussion on Business Wealth and Security with Mike Clark

Want to uncover hidden savings in your business and bolster your bottom line? Get ready to join us in a riveting discussion with esteemed financial expert Mike Clark. Mike spills the beans about cost reduction strategies that can dramatically improve your cash flow. We delve into how he aids businesses to pinpoint and fix leaks in their systems, which, interestingly, he offers at no charge. He takes his cut from the assets under management, a unique approach that has helped countless businesses save up to 25% on expenses.

Have you ever thought about the impact tax credits could have on your business? It's a typically under-explored area, and many advisors don't even know about the eight federal tax credits, let alone state and municipal ones, that your business may be eligible for. We shed light on these missed opportunities and stress the importance of having trustworthy advisors who can guide you through this labyrinth of tax credits. 

Finally, we confront one of the biggest threats to businesses today - cybersecurity. You might be surprised that it's not just the big corporations that are targeted by hackers but small and medium-sized businesses, too. The potential implications of a data breach can be catastrophic. However, with the right safety measures, you can safeguard your business. From managing IT services to using secure passwords, we offer tips to keep your data safe. The conversation concludes with nuggets of wisdom on building your financial wealth and increasing revenue, with a strong emphasis on treating client relationships as business relationships.

Mike Clark

(209) 605-2705

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeclarknationalreferralnetwork

Be part of our 3D Asset Care webinars, where experts in Tax Strategies, Estate Planning, Real Estate, Education Planning, or Asset Protection offer you unique perspectives and education on achieving success.  Also included will be our Town Hall Questions, where the audience asked us unscripted questions.  Look for the next one at: www.protectionpointadvisors.com/events

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:55

Welcome to the successful life podcast. I'm your host, corey Barrier, and I'm here with, I mean, mike Clark. What's up, buddy Corey? What's happening?

Speaker 2: 1:03

Good to see you, man. Good to see you. It's been a couple of weeks, it feels like a couple of days, but it's been a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Yeah. So, mike, if you could, you could explain what you do a little bit better than I can, and I think this is going to be a really eye-opening conversation for a lot of the contractors that we work with, because I know the stuff that you and I have talked about and I for sure know that we're going to hit on some things that are going to hit home, because most of these guys are not protected in the way they need to protect. So, with that, tell us a little bit about yourself, bro.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Yeah, absolutely so, corey.

Speaker 2: 1:41

Long, long time ago, I worked for medical device companies.

Speaker 2: 1:43

I sold medical devices and I didn't come from money Right, I didn't have a relationship with money, and I was introduced back in 2007 to a financial education process that really opened my eyes to how the wealthy managed their money, and I was in such awe of that process that I moved to Utah to become an advisor.

Speaker 2: 2:01

I went on to raise $42 million for a handful of companies. I got my MBA, and the one thing that I realized in this whole process is that business owners one, have a lot of hats that they're wearing and, two, the people that they trust to give them information to run their business successfully are typically not communicating, so there's gaps in various aspects of their business that are not running effectively or efficiently. They're leaking money. So in 2017, I got rid of the investment banking side and I became an advisor on the retail side to help business owners stream up some of those leaks, and what I do now is I manage a national referral network, which is a repository of professionals that I can pull from to help business owners run more effectively, manage cash flow, grow their cash flow and then move on into retirement. That's what I do.

Speaker 1: 2:55

So when I hear all that, the first thing I think is like how much am I going to have to pay this guy?

Speaker 2: 3:02

That's a great question and the answer is nothing, corey. So what we believe is that most business owners, right, they've got a monthly nut they got to cover and let's just call that $100,000. Sure, and they're managing all of these things and where most advisors will come into them and say, hey, we need another $5,000 or $10,000 to build your retirement, and the business owners like, holy crap, I don't have five to $10,000 extra dollars. Our idea is that if we build a financial team around that business owner that crossed the board, it doesn't matter, and we can reduce their costs by shoring up some of their leaks. If we can reduce their costs by simple cost reduction strategies, right, if we can benchmark some of the systems and processes that they're using, and we could take that $100,000 nut and drop it to say 95.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Well, now I've got a little bit of an arbitrage to say, look, let's utilize that to build your future outside of your business. Right, and that's how I get paid. I get paid strictly from assets under management. I don't charge for introductions to business owners, that relationships between the business owner and that professional. I don't charge the professional for the introduction to the business owner. I make no money from that interaction. I get paid one way and one way only, and that's assets under management Period.

Speaker 1: 4:31

Fascinating. Not what I anticipated, to be honest. I mean, I just assume most people have. You know, most people have a fee there, or a maintenance fee or a minute or some sort of fee. That's pretty reassuring. So for the folks listening, contractors, how does this? So? Give me an example of a leak. So when you say a leak in a business, say I'm running an HVAC company doing $100,000, we use your example month, or the nuts $100,000, whatever the. I guess you could probably pull from that what would be considered a leak?

Speaker 2: 5:10

Right. So one of the aspects of the National Infrared Network is we do interviews with these professionals, just like you and I are doing now, and I recently interviewed a gentleman that does cost reduction strategies and what he does is he goes in and analyzes every aspect of a business owner. So in your scenario, hvac, they probably have employees which probably have uniforms, they probably have some sort of telecom, they may have some waste, because I mean the guys go do their work. Somehow they've got to get the trash back right. They've got a lot of just costs associated with one in that HVAC business. So the analyst comes in and says where are you spending money? And then typically goes and renegotiates those fees at a lower rate.

Speaker 2: 6:00

Because what business owners don't understand is that they just call AT&T and say I need a business phone, and then there it is Comcast, xfinity, whatever. The phone is right. But there's gas and water, there's the uniforms and some of these Corey, some of these companies. You could go back three years and get rebates on some of these costs that you've been paying, that you don't even know you're paying for, and so what some of these companies do is they'll get 25 up to 25% back or savings or, however you want to look at it, 25% savings on those costs. And here's the thing, corey, they don't charge for that service either. They take a percentage of the money recovered. So there's zero risk for a contractor HVAC whatever the case is to go through this process.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Thank you, Okay, so let's just pretend that I'm still skeptical. I still think this guy could be up to something like he's. He must be, even must be. There's got to be a way. He's got to hit me with some fee afterwards. There's got to be a way. That you know. I just don't know how anybody could come in and do that. So on average, and I don't know if you could tell me this I'm sure you can on average, a company has been in 100 grand a month and then monthly, not typically. Is that a 1% reduction? Is that a 5% reduction? Is there kind of a ballpark you can give us?

Speaker 2: 7:30

Yeah, anywhere from 15 to 25%, holy cow. And that depends on yeah, that depends on the variables, right? So I introduced this gentleman to a client of mine who actually runs restaurants. Okay, well, he leases the buildings, so there's no gas, there's no water, there's no telecom, he doesn't have uniforms because it's just kind of a deli, right. So that's not an ideal client, but it's not like it, right?

Speaker 2: 7:57

But I see guys like any day heating and air here in Salt Lake City, they've got branded trucks, their drivers have branded uniforms. They've these guys roll out branded carpets to into a home, right, to make sure their feet are clean. They've got branded everything, meaning they have a uniform contract, right, they have a contract with a carpet cleaner to roll out those rugs, right, they have some sort of telecom, right. So I'm assuming companies like that aren't using individual cell phones. They've got work phones, sure, right? However, that is, they've got. They've got iPads or some sort of technology that they do their proposals on, which means it's connected to the internet, which means the business has telecom. So you see where I'm going with that.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Yeah, so is it one, is it if it kind of feels like the things that you're mentioning are probably taken for granted? Right, it's Verizon, is you know, $2,500, whatever the number is, a month, and that's just what it is Like. Yes, probably going to go up next year, and that's just what it is. Or the rug company, or the dry cleaners, or whatever. And so what you're saying is you're able to go in and say, hey, like you know, you do the call, you do the negotiation. Let's say for them, or you come in, present the information, give them the facts, and then they have to go chase the money down. How does that work?

Speaker 2: 9:24

No, no. So what they? What? What? This particular instance, the analysts would go in. They would evaluate all those contracts and say look, this is what we think we can do. Okay, do you want to do this? Here's the proposal. The proposal is is if we do this, we will take 10% of the recovered revenue. That's how they get paid, right?

Speaker 2: 9:49

So now so now you've got a proposal, I can save $3,000 a month on all of my costs, or 10,000, pick a number or not. But the key thing, corey, is now that you're now you're armed with knowledge to make an educated decision, right, and this is just one aspect. The number one cost for a business is health insurance Poor bit, when was the last time? And this is the thing, and this is across the board. But I think it's for you, corey, and I think this is important because look, as you're teaching people to increase efficiencies and increase cash flow, which hopefully they hire more people to scale the business Right, as you teach them those aspects, sometimes what they forget is, with that comes additional costs, right? So so you've got this. All of the, all of the things that you don't think about telecom, gas, water, fuel, that kind of thing. But then you take the number one cost healthcare.

Speaker 2: 10:54

When was the last time some of these guys sat down and said, hey, am I losing money on healthcare? Is the company spending too much on healthcare for what it's getting? You could take business insurance Right, most companies set it and forget it. They go by their property insurance, they go by their insurance for the trucks, they go by all this insurance and they're like my guy's taking care of it, bs, he's not taking care of it Because you're just cutting the check. When was the last time these guys sat down and said, hey, what's new and how can you save me money? Am I getting the value for my insurance on all of my fleet With?

Speaker 1: 11:38

this. I would almost argue that maybe they don't even think that they can negotiate these prices.

Speaker 2: 11:49

Right or yes. But what's even worse and I don't mean to pick on CPAs, but I'm going to, I'm going to hammer them. I hammer them every day. And here's a story. I had a partner of mine out in Florida. He had a business owner I don't know the business, but it was a. It was the R&D tax credit or some of the ERTC credits that are going around. He did the evaluation for free, presented the findings to the business owner and it was something ridiculous. Core is like $500,000 at this. Potentially, this business owner would get back. I don't know how big the company is, but $500,000 is $500,000. What am I, yep? This business owner went to the CPA. His CPA looked at it and his CPA told him if this was possible, I would have told you about it. Guy goes back to my buddy, dave. This is what my CPA says. Dave hands them the documentation, the IRS codes, everything goes back, shows the CPA the IRS codes. All of it says the same response Into the day. The business owner walked away, didn't go through with it. $500,000, corey.

Speaker 2: 13:11

So here's a thing for your listeners. I don't care if you're a plumber, a contractor, trusses, I don't care. There are roughly eight federal tax credits that you may be eligible for. Eight. That does not include state and municipal tax codes or tax credits that you may be eligible for Now. The caveat, corey, is I'm not a CPA, I'll tell you that right now.

Speaker 2: 13:42

But the state of Florida, as an example, in total has 35 to 40 tax credits available to business owners Veteran tax credit, minority tax credit. If your office is in a target employment area, there's a tax credit for that. If you're reinventing your business, like if your contractors are constantly doing things with technology, making things stronger, doing testing, different materials, whatever the case is well, that's an R&D tax credit. Your CPA doesn't have the bandwidth. And I say that and I'm picking on them again, because I've talked to CPAs and I've asked them why they don't do this, and the response I get, corey, is we don't have the bandwidth. What does that mean? And so this is so you look at. In other words, it doesn't benefit them.

Speaker 1: 14:39

In other words, it doesn't benefit me, so I'm not doing it, correct?

Speaker 2: 14:43

I'm so fearful of somebody taking their clients because they too, by the way, I'm going to pick on them Just like a contractor, as you're sitting here listening to this. You're running a business and you've got proposals you need to send. You've got projects in the pipeline. You've got accounting that you need to account for where the money goes for the projects. You've got all of that to manage. You have to remember your CPA is doing the same thing.

Speaker 2: 15:15

So I want you to think about that, corey, as somebody that's listening, sit back and think about it. What is something new I can introduce into my business and how is that going to affect my time, my family life, my financials? Okay, and then think about you are the same thing as a CPA. The CPA has all of those same challenges that you're facing as a business, as a contractor, and then you ask, well, how come they don't learn it? Well, how come you don't do what you need to do? Right, right, I mean, corey, how many companies or how many people that you talk to like? Oh man, I don't have the time for this.

Speaker 2: 15:57

Yeah most Right. So you're saying you don't have the time or the money to be efficient, to make more money. Right, come on.

Speaker 1: 16:05

That sounds crazy. It sounds totally crazy, but that's really a good point. So what are some of the tax credits? If you don't mind me asking, like just some, if you could, I would like for you to share maybe a couple of them that maybe most people don't know about.

Speaker 2: 16:22

Absolutely so. The two that are most readily available in the marketplace today are the R&D tax credit, which is a research and development credit, and then the employment retention tax credit. Excuse me, what is that R&D?

Speaker 1: 16:37

What is the R&D tax credit? I mean meaning, like how much is it in? That's the three years back when, right?

Speaker 2: 16:43

So you can go three years back, yep. So the R&D tax credit real quick. It was done back in the early 90s, I believe, and it was really for tech companies to get credits for innovation. And then they changed it in the early 2000s to really say, look, if any business owner is doing anything new to promote their business or to push their business forward with innovation, then they can apply for this tax credit and be eligible. So for an example hey, yeah, if a dentist buys new equipment right, he's got an old X-ray machine, he's buying a new X-ray machine and he's buying new equipment like brushes and all these things he can apply for tax credits and get those tax credits. Like, whatever money that he spent on those business expenditures, he can get a percentage back.

Speaker 2: 17:36

Okay, so there's been a big shift for people in the contractor world across the board to go digital Right, right. So there's been a lot of digital renderings for homes, digital proposals. I mean somebody that does home improvements now, like a handyman, like somebody wants a proposal, like when you leave the house, right, people want things so right now. So and I'm not saying that this is once again, I'm not a CPA but if you have integrated technologies into your business over the last two or three years. I would say to contact your CPA and see if you're eligible for these tax credits. And, corey, look, it depends on the company, it depends on what you spend, but I don't care if it's $2,000. It doesn't cost you. If I told you right now I'll cut you a check for $2,000. But when you cash it, you just have to give me 400 bucks back. Would you do it? I would, yeah, if I gave you $20,000, but you had to pay me five. Would you do it?

Speaker 1: 18:51

Yeah, so all right. So give me an example like AI is a great example. Every company is trying to implement AI into their business, and you can do that a gazillion different ways. Yep, would that fall into the R&D tax credit?

Speaker 2: 19:07

So that one might be a little tough Corey Simply because, it's not.

Speaker 2: 19:13

You're not necessarily creating it, you're just plugging into a system that's already there. Okay, right. So on the other side of that, let's just say that you got a software, right? Well, you're going to have to tweak that software for your business, right, you're not creating the software. You might be using Salesforce as an example, whatever, and each industry has specific software for that industry. So contractors are a little bit different than dental offices, right? But as you get that software, you got to tweak it, change it. Maybe you're white labeling it, right, you're making it yours. That's more of a technological shift than going and logging into chat, gpt and using something for marketing.

Speaker 1: 19:59

Good, that makes sense. So we built a roofing software that measures roofs. The concept is not necessarily new. There are other companies that do the same thing. They just don't do it the way we do.

Speaker 2: 20:17

It Does that make sense. I would say to talk to somebody and see if that's eligible, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Yeah, because there is tweaks, we have to customize it for each person, each roofer. And, yeah, for sure, absolutely. Now could I have all right? So, as the software company, so to speak, would I be able to write do you use that R&D credit and the roofer be able to use that R&D credit, or no? In that situation no, All right.

Speaker 2: 20:46

So you're the developer of it, right, you're tweaking of it Now, hopefully, the individual using your software because it is a aspect of their business, they're taking that as a business expense and a tax deduction, hopefully, right. So as a developer, absolutely, I would say to talk to somebody about getting and seeing what that eligibility is.

Speaker 1: 21:08

Okay, that makes sense, all right. So I think you painted a pretty, really good picture there and I think everybody knows what this damn ERC or whatever tax I mean you have. If you don't know what that is by now, to be sure I mean you can tell us really quickly. But I would imagine most business owners know about it because there's ads for it everywhere. You get LinkedIn messages from everybody, like it's crazy.

Speaker 2: 21:29

Yep, and the reason they're pushing it because it's the money's running out. So that is one of the tax credits where it is going away, right, okay, when, if they haven't shut it off already, it's getting close because the pool of money is like they've got a pipeline right, there's a lag time. So they need to look at it and like, oh, we've got to, we've got to fill these requests, right. And then but I mean that's the easy part, I mean just ERTC credit, when is that shutting off? You can simple Google and they'll tell you about it.

Speaker 2: 22:03

But really it's an employee retention. It has to do with money that you received back in the day during COVID. Did you stay open, did you work? And you get credits for having those people employed during that timeframe. But there's there's tax between the outside of those two. Like, if you're hiring veterans, there's a tax credit for that. If you start a 401K for your company which, by the way, is a tax deduction for the business owner you can get up to 5,000 a year for three years on the money that you spend on a 401K. That's a tax credit. There's tax credits for what they call target employment areas. So if your business is located in a underdeveloped or you know an area that's lacks income and you're bringing people revenue into that geographical area. You can get a tax credit for that, right, right, I mean, those are the easiest ones.

Speaker 1: 23:04

That makes sense. Yeah, that makes total sense.

Speaker 2: 23:07

All right, we're real quick. Why I used to joke? I mean not saying I would do this, but I used to joke about you know. Let's just say you and I one of us is a veteran, the other is not and if I were the veteran I went into a job and I applied a joke. I would not recommend doing this, but it is a joke. It's like look, I will pay you 500 bucks if you hire me, right? And then the reality is is that's the tax credit the business owner would get if they hired me? So I'm not lying, but it's right, don't do that. Please, don't go bribe somebody to hire you. But I'm saying let people know of the tax credit because it's there. Cpas just start doing them.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Yeah, that's not shocking. I have my own stories about CPAs and they're not great. So I you know. You're right, dude, you can't. It's hard to trust them with everything because they don't know everything, but they certainly will tell you they do.

Speaker 2: 24:06

And there are differences, corey. There is a difference between a CPA, a controller, a CFO, and people call I need a CPA, okay, well, what do you need? I need somebody to run the books? Well, that's not a CPA, that's a bookkeeper. Well, I need somebody to manage my accounts payable and accounts receivable Well, that's not a CPA, that's a controller. Right? So you need to be very clear on what it is that your business needs, so then you can fill that gap. But then you have to have the team around you to be able to answer. Ask that question to get clarity, because you might not even know what you don't know, right, and then get that clarity so they can provide the value that you need and not just oh, you need a CPA, well, there's a CPA. Well then, that doesn't, that solves nothing, right?

Speaker 1: 24:57

Yeah, exactly. And then the contractor's going to say, I mean, I told you what I needed, yeah, but you left half of it out because you didn't know right. I mean, whose fault is that? Well, nobody's, I guess I don't know. It's not the CPA, I guess it's not the contractors, or maybe it is. The contractor should have done their homework, yeah, I mean, yeah, that makes sense. So I want to shift for a second.

Speaker 1: 25:20

We talked right before here about something that really kind of shocked me a little bit. I'll just tell you a quick story. Recently, both my dad and mom have been my mom for sure victim of like a scam. You know, we've all got text messages that say our bank is withdrawing money and crap and click on a link and I'm not really sure what happens, other than things get actually. Why don't I just ask you? So if I'm a business owner, I've got 15, 20, 100 employees doesn't really matter In my employee, actually. I'll give you a perfect example PHCC. Right, phcc is plumbing, heating, cooling contractors association.

Speaker 1: 26:06

Okay, but several of our members got a text message from one of the well known members that said hey, do me a favor, go out and buy 15 gift cards for 50 bucks each and let me know when you get them. No problem, they went out, bought the gift cards and then he said supposedly him one. To him. He said great, I'm not gonna be able to get by there this week, so just scratch off the numbers and send me the cards. And that's what they did and like that wasn't really the question. But that story should tie into how this could affect at a much larger scale than what I just described. Yep.

Speaker 2: 26:52

Absolutely so. To tie into that story, I'll tell you the story that we talked about a little bit ago, corey, was that? So part of the network right is having these resources for business owners to protect themselves. And so one of the interviews we did a couple weeks ago was with a managed IT service provider, and he does a lot to protect companies against these kinds of hacks. So, long story short client did work, or his client did work. The receiver was supposed to pay him $26,000.

Speaker 2: 27:24

Somewhere along that way, a hacker sent an email to the end user and said hey, I changed my bank account information. Why are the funds here? Two days after that happened, the client calls his client and says hey, you haven't paid me. Yes, I did. Here's the receipt, here's the bank account. That wasn't my bank account and the money's gone Right. So the problem that we have is the data shows that every business it doesn't matter if you're a two person or 20,000 person business you're getting bombarded every day by people that want your information and if you look at the data, last year there was like 1800 breaches. This year already there are 2100 breaches. It is happening daily, corey.

Speaker 1: 28:18

And the chances of finding. What's the percentage of those 2,100 breaches that they tied to an individual and they actually went to jail or whatever? My guess is probably very little near zero near zero.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Yeah. So how could this affect? All right, so let's just take a, we'll just use HVAC company. How could this affect that company? Let's just say that they paid the bill. Right, they paid the vendor, whatever it was. Let's say they paid me and it was hacked. What's the real? So the hacker gets the $26,000, right, but what's the bigger picture here?

Speaker 2: 29:05

Well, the bigger picture, Corey, is that you look at an HVAC or you know HFAC company. They've got guys in the field, they're doing proposals, right, there's there's constant information being back. You know shared back and forth Request for bids from city, municipalities etc. So let's just say somebody hacks into an HVAC company and then they there's a ransom for their data. Okay, Well, now the company has no access to actually do bids. So let's just say, just think about this.

Speaker 2: 29:41

Let's just say you're down for three days, four days, meaning you have zero access to your software and your data to actually go do bids, Right, so now you're behind the ball, so now your competitors are getting those bids. Then you can't send the information out for the accounts payable that you have like on draws. Right, you did the work, you did the checklist, everything's got approved by the appropriate regulatory bodies, and now you're sending the bill for that X amount of work so you can move forward with the bigger job. Well, you can't send that because your software is down. So your business is now at a standstill. And then, on top of that, you've got some guy on the dark web somewhere asking you for 50, 60, $70,000 to get your data back. And then the question is well, do you have 50, 60, $70,000 to turn the light switch back on? And then your question that you asked before we got on the call was how do we know they're going to give it back? Well, you don't.

Speaker 1: 31:11

All right. So when a company gets breached like that and let's say they do, they pay the 60 or $70,000, they get their data back. In my mind I'm thinking. I would be thinking okay, so it's just a matter of time before they do this to me again. Yep, so how do? What steps do you take to make sure that doesn't happen again? So this is?

Speaker 2: 31:34

this goes back. This goes back to that question is that if I was going to give you $20,000, would you give me 5,000 back? Right, and the question to you is how many? How many clients that you sit down with? You show them all these numbers that how you can increase efficiencies and revenue and scalability, and they're like, yeah, it's not for me. Okay, this is the same thing. I don't know if it's ever going to happen to me, so I won't do it today. And then today right Turns into tomorrow and you know how tomorrow never comes.

Speaker 2: 32:02

It's one back up your data. Have somebody come in doing evaluation of your system? Back up your data. So if somebody calls you one day and says I stole your data, I need $50,000. You could give them the middle finger. Shut that off, shut everything off, go back to your server, cause you're backed up, put everything back on and move forward. So basically, you give the bad guys the middle finger and be like sorry, and now you're starting from scratch. Now you've got everything's gone. They're off and running, everything's turned back on new passwords, new security codes, new everything. Now it's a brand new fight to get back in it's not that was so hard.

Speaker 2: 32:49

But see, this is thing, corey, backing up your system. It's the same thing. You look across the board, corey, to implement your services and processes. It is work. It's a little bit of work for a big return. So, yeah, you put a little bit of work into beginning to get everything backed up and everything on processes and to teach your employees how to protect themselves, and then after that it's just maintenance. So, yeah, what is your time worth? What is your company worth? And if you got hit once, one time, it could be a matter of you being in business or out of business. So then the question becomes is how important is your business Right?

Speaker 1: 33:40

Yeah, that's tough man, that's really tough. I cannot imagine one then have it pay out the money but then trying to claw back from that. Let's just look at right now Like it's not, like it's easy pickings right now.

Speaker 2: 33:56

No.

Speaker 1: 33:57

Right, so any amount of hours that you lose to a problem could be detrimental Extremely detrimental right?

Speaker 2: 34:06

I mean because everybody and this is the social media world that we live in we got information at our fingertips If a client calls you and this is the thing, hey, we're buddies or we're family.

Speaker 2: 34:19

No, you're not, you're just not. I don't mean to be rude, but you're not. You might golf with the guy or the gal, you might go to basketball games, but at the end of the day they're going to do what's best for their business period. And if they call you today and you just happen to be hacked and they call you and say, hey, we need a bid for this, oh yeah, my system's down. I'm not going to be able to do that today. When can you? I don't know. They will hang up the.

Speaker 1: 34:46

Okay, cool, they'll hang up the phone and they'll call the next number Yep, because their business has to keep moving Right.

Speaker 2: 34:53

And we know for a fact that, despite this being a relationship business, that relationship goes so far. That's right.

Speaker 1: 35:04

So, that's.

Speaker 2: 35:04

It's still a business. To your point, corey, you might be able to claw back and get that relationship back once you get back online. But there has been. I mean the MGM got hacked. They were down for like 10 days. It was brutal. They closed the hotel down. Yeah, I mean they shut things down.

Speaker 1: 35:26

Holy cow, like what much money was that per day? Massive, massive, massive Yep, holy cow Yep. And with someone like that, gets hacked. You think, man, if the MGM got hacked like anybody could get hacked?

Speaker 2: 35:45

Anybody.

Speaker 1: 35:46

Do you know what happened?

Speaker 2: 35:48

Do I know what happened? Yeah, so this is. I don't know what happened, but I'll tell you what likely happened. And this is what happens with a massive amount of hacks Somebody in your organization opened an email they shouldn't have, they opened it and they click the link that they should not have opened.

Speaker 2: 36:09

And they're so sophisticated, corey, right, it is simple. As you're the CEO and I'm a subordinate, and I get this email that looks like you, smells like you, everything's you, and it says, hey, I need to count information for this. Click the link and put it in this. Click there's the door. Right, it is hey, I need, just like the story about the gift cards, here's the link. I need you to go to this link to go to buy these gift cards on this website. That's the door, right?

Speaker 2: 36:48

So we have to start understanding that this and I always tease people that your cell phone is neither important nor urgent Right, if it rings, you don't have to answer it, despite it being mobile, right, but if you're, if you own a company and you are in the field, encourage your employees. I don't care how busy you are. If it looks suspicious, it smells suspicious or you got that gut feeling, pick up a phone and call me If you think anything is suspicious. I don't care where you are in the field. Have your employees train them to pick up the phone and call you. Did you send this email? Do I need to send this to this client? And don't get annoyed when they do it?

Speaker 2: 37:42

So it's that important, corey. It is that big because the reality is most individuals don't have an exit plan, right. They think their business is going to be their exit. The odds are people that that are listening to this are not going to sell their business. So there are. They are 100% reliant on pulling the cash flow out and, at some point in time, shutting the lights off and walking away. But if you're hit with the 50 or 60, 70, 80 thousand dollar ransom, what does that do for your livelihood? I mean not just the business, corey, but now we're talking about your livelihood, your family, the food on your table. It's not just about the business and the employees, which are extremely important, but the people listening. They did this. They left whatever company they left with to start their own company, to be the boss, and with the boss comes responsibilities, right, that's for sure. So just think about that Like if you had to cut a check for $70,000,. What would that do to your life? It would not be good.

Speaker 1: 38:53

I can tell you that much right now. Right, and for most people, I don't think it would be good. No, I mean, especially if you think about the season that we're in right now, which calls shoulder seasons, slow time, because you know, 70 degrees outside their air conditions are not breaking, heat's not on, yet there's really not a lot going on, right, right, this is the time that it would. It would break a lot of the money. It would. It would break a lot of people a 50 or 60 to $70,000 unexpected, and not to mention the, the, the hundred thousand dollars a day you're going to miss because you're down.

Speaker 2: 39:31

You're down, yeah, yeah. And then I mean, look, we go down this rabbit hole, so you get hacked. You can't get that. That draw from that client that you did the work on. Well, you've got some contractors, you got to pay what?

Speaker 1: 39:48

happens if you don't pay them. They ain't going to be your subs anymore, that's for sure.

Speaker 2: 39:53

They've got options. So all of a sudden they go somewhere else, they start subbing for somebody else. Now they're busy, now you get turned back on. Who are you going to use?

Speaker 1: 40:03

Right, they're not going to be the guy paying them. To come back to the guy that didn't pay them, correct?

Speaker 2: 40:09

And I don't care what. I don't care what your excuse is. You can say that you got hacked. Whatever, they don't care, right, right.

Speaker 1: 40:18

Wow, all right. So does it happen more through email than text, or does it matter?

Speaker 2: 40:27

No email is probably the biggest statistically. Emails. That the number one way for a bad guy to get into your system and that phone? Yeah, that comes through, just somebody clicking a link, but like an authority figure lots of times, like your boss.

Speaker 1: 40:43

Right, If your boss sends you an email and says do X, Y and Z Lots of times. People just do X, Y and Z. Yep.

Speaker 2: 40:50

Yep, but look, if you're a boss, well, I would assume most people listening to this are the boss. Ok, right, so you need to be very clear with your field reps, your technicians, the office staff. There is no point in time, ever Well, you ever ask them via email for a password of some system, ever. So if you ever see an email, understand that I will never, ever, send an email asking you for a password, which, corey, is usually what happens. I'm in the field, I don't have access to this. Send me the password for this username and link, and then the person in the office goes yeah, corey, no problem, the password is I, like Snoozekeen, and then the hacker's like bingo.

Speaker 1: 41:45

It must work, because it seems to happen often. I mean, what percentage of business is every year? Just just, I don't even know if you know this number, but like, how much last year, of those 1800 people, so to speak, how much money did that equate to that was lost? Is there?

Speaker 2: 42:03

a way to do. You know that, it's in the hundreds of millions. Yeah, and they're sophisticated, corey, like what they'll do now because it's computing is so fast. They will. They will find somebody in the company, they will see them on social media, they will follow on social media and they will email as if they know you. So, so, as the boss, like, you know my family, you know, and all of a sudden you get an email. I get an email from you and it says hey, it's been a while since we talked. How are the kids? How's soccer, how's football? Hey, can you do me a quick favor? Send me this password?

Speaker 1: 42:45

Yeah, right, hey, I didn't see you in the office this morning.

Speaker 2: 42:48

How is your kid doing? I know they're not feeling. Well, send me the password Right. Sure, corey. And there it is. Sure. It happens all the time, all the time, and it's more and more sophisticated than ever.

Speaker 1: 43:05

That's wild man. That's unbelievable. So that's one of the things that you offer to help people with.

Speaker 2: 43:12

So yeah. So as a recap, corey, what I do is build that team right. What cost reduction health insurance, property and casualty, it support right, specifically to protect against data breaches, business entity structures. So what I am is that hub for the rest of the network. Is that so as the business owner goes out and does what they need? Is they're in the field doing proposals, doing what they need to bring revenue in right? Then my job is to identify the gaps in that business and bring in the people to do that, so they don't have to go interview them All right, glad you said that.

Speaker 1: 44:02

So I do have one last question. When you from the initial meeting with the customer, a company, what's the timeline? And the involvement of the owner or their employees, meaning, what's the timeline of hey, great to meet, you come in, do your thing, okay, we found these things, we're going to go handle them, and then you get paid. Do you know about how long that would take? I know it probably varies.

Speaker 2: 44:32

Yeah, and it really does. What I mean by that is there are some things that the owner needs to be directly involved in, right? But let's just say they want to do a benchmark on their business insurance. Well then, in that case, somebody in the office that handles the financials could send the information to the insurance agent to do the benchmark, right? So this is the other part about the delegation side of it. So there are some things that the owner needs to be involved in, like the 401k. If we did a benchmark on that, right, I would assume that if they would be the sole person to talk about IT stuff in terms of hacks, they would have to be involved in that.

Speaker 2: 45:18

But the conversations are so short, upfront, it is literally probably a 30 or 45 minute conversation. What you're currently using, what I need to do a proper evaluation I will go do that evaluation report back to you in 24, 48 hours, whatever that timeframe is, and then in that case it's usually just email. This is what you're currently doing, this is where the gaps are at and this is how you fill them. That's it, Right.

Speaker 2: 45:47

So, ultimately, one of the things that people think about, especially with health insurance, and say 401k, is like, oh my gosh, it's going to take so much time. It doesn't take any time. Everybody. All they need is the current statements, right, and then evaluate those statements and say, look, I can save you money or I can't. And then from there it's just transferring data. It's so seamless these days. I don't understand why business owners I mean I do understand because they're very busy, but it doesn't take a lot of time to email somebody a statement through a secured link, by the way, and have them do a benchmark it health insurance. It could literally save you $600, $700 a month.

Speaker 1: 46:36

Yeah, that makes sense, makes total sense. Yeah, mike, this was such a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this. This is unlike really any other show. I've had to be honest with you and I think you've given the audience a ton of knowledge to think about, really at zero cost and it seems like a no-brainer, if you ask me. So I would encourage anybody to reach out to you that has any of these questions and just have a conversation with you, because it doesn't cost anything to have a conversation with you.

Speaker 2: 47:10

Nope, it does not. I mean at the end of the day, corey, I mean one. I appreciate you because I was pretty aggressive with you when I emailed you to even talk about this option. But there are so many individuals that talk about increasing revenue and doing all these things, and that's great Increase revenue, increase scalability but what are you going to do with that money? How are you going to build? Because, look, at the end of the day, corey, your listeners are building their financial wealth, right, and so if you're spending money on all these other services that you should not be spending, you're taking money out of your pocket. You're taking money out of the business's pocket secondarily, but it's your money. And if you were leaking money on your personal stuff, would you stand for it? No, you would call Verizon and get all upset and be like my bill's too high, blah, blah, blah and yell at them. The business is no different. Protect your business, get more money back in your pocket and build your financial future. Simple as that.

Speaker 1: 48:17

Perfect, now really quick. You do have a YouTube channel, and then you also offer a webinar once a month. Can you tell everybody where they can find that and where they can find?

Speaker 2: 48:27

you, yep. So on YouTube, just National Referral Network, just do a search. Lots of interviews on there. The webinars are through our advisory firm, which is Protection Point Advisors, and the easiest way to get a hold of me is mclarkatprotectionpointadvisorscom. So mclarkatprotectionpointadvisorscom. Perfect. Thank you, brother. Thank you, corey man. I really appreciate it. I love you so much, brother.