John Ray, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Mark Hoffman, ClearRisk

May 24, 2022 by John Ray

Minneapolis St. Paul Studio

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Mark Hoffman, ClearRisk

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LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Mark Hoffman, ClearRisk

Mark Hoffman of ClearRisk and The Resilient Journey Podcast was the guest on this episode of Workplace MVP LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022. He is not only a Continuity Consultant for ClearRisk, but the host of the podcast they sponsor, The Resilient Journey Podcast. He and Jamie talked about resiliency, the work ClearRisk does in risk management information, his presentation at RISKWORLD, the amazing stories on The Resilient Journey Podcast, and more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Mark Hoffman, MCBI, CBCP, Continuity Consultant, ClearRisk, and Host of The Resilient Journey Podcast

Mark Hoffman, Business Continuity Consultant, ClearRisk and Host: *The Resilient Journey Podcast*

ClearRisk works with risk managers and senior management from over 150 organizations across North America in retail, property management, municipalities, technology, and many others. Their team comprises a powerful combination of risk management experts, insurance specialists, and a multidisciplinary squad of tech-savvy individuals, all dedicated to pushing the risk management envelope.

Their focus is on optimizing our customers’ risk to keep people and assets from harm, thereby making our customers more successful. Their solutions have empowered customers to mitigate millions in total cost of risk, achieve higher operational excellence, increase safety, and increase the bottom line.

The Resilient Journey Podcast

Mark Hoffman LinkedIn

Company website | Company LinkedIn

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

**Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”**

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting Live from RISKWORLD 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:22] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassmann here, coming to you from the RISKWORLD 2022 Expo Hall in R3 Continuum’s booth, our show sponsor. And joining me is Mark Hoffman from ClearRisk US Corp.

Mark Hoffman: [00:00:38] Yeah.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:38] Welcome to the show, Mark.

Mark Hoffman: [00:00:39] Thanks, Jamie.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:40] Yeah.

Mark Hoffman: [00:00:40] This is fun.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:41] Yeah, it’s exciting. I’m glad you stopped by. I know we’ve been having fun chatting already before, but tell us a little bit about what ClearRisk does.

Mark Hoffman: [00:00:49] Well, no, before I do that, I have to say why I stopped by. It’s because of your producer, John’s light out front that just drew me in, this beautiful on-air light that said, “Man, I got to learn more about that.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:01] Yeah.

Mark Hoffman: [00:01:02] But no, seriously. So, I’m here with ClearRisk. I was a speaker at the conference. I spoke yesterday, and we can talk about that a little bit. But ClearRisk is a risk management information system. So, RMIS. We do claims, and incident reporting, and tracking and analytics. And I’m also helping them develop a business continuity module to help companies be more resilient. And we’re here at the conference as well, down at Booth 1918. And it’s been a great experience.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:33] Yeah. So, I know it’s kind of the first time back in-person after a couple of years.

Mark Hoffman: [00:01:38] Yeah.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:39] So, you know, what have you felt the vibe being or the people you’ve been talking to, what are you kind of sensing from the audience?

Mark Hoffman: [00:01:45] Well, the first vibe for me was before I spoke live in front of an audience yesterday, I sort of had those butterflies that you don’t always get when you’re in front of that Zoom screen or whatever. And a lot of the conferences that I spoke at the last couple of years, they have you pre-record it and send it in. And so, it’s very easy for those things to come off really flat because you’re in your office by yourself, and you don’t have that feedback that you get from the audience.

And yesterday, yeah, okay, there were a little — you know, some jitters maybe early on, but I had a full room, standing room only, great eye contact, people taking pictures of the screen, you know, things like that. And you get that interaction with the audience that says, wow, it’s just energetic and it really, you know, charges you up. As far as the conference goes, it’s great to see people. There have been some very clever things to draw people in, the potting contest, some of the walls, the sand sculpture and, you know, the on-air booth over here.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:46] Our on-air booth. That’s awesome.

Mark Hoffman: [00:02:48] Yeah. So, well done.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:48] Thank you. So, talking about your presentation, tell me, what was the topic of that presentation or kind of dive into the meat of what you were discussing?

Mark Hoffman: [00:02:59] Yeah, I sort of took a different approach, and it’s a risk that everybody’s thinking about, and it’s cybersecurity. And so, I spent 20 minutes yesterday talking about how to effectively communicate if you’ve been the victim of a cyber attack, and really to kind of narrow it down to the main nuggets.

It’s basically three things. If you need to communicate to external stakeholders, or to the public, or even to your employees, it really needs to start with the fact that you have to own it. You have to tell the truth. You have to explain what happened, admit what happened. And this applies really to any type of crisis, not just a cyber attack, but basically just come out and say, “Listen, this is what’s happened,” and tell the truth. Whatever that initial statement is, it has to stand up to fact checking, right?

We live in a world right now where everybody — I was at the ball game last night. I went down to a Giants game and I was sitting next to a woman who said to me, “Oh yeah, I was in Toronto once.” And I said, “Oh, what were you doing?” And she said, “Well, I was filming a movie there.” And so, I said, “Well, that’s kind of cool.” And I asked her what the movie was, and she told me, and she told me what her role was. And then, when we turned away from each other, what did I do? I Googled it, right? Just to make sure that is this woman legit? Like, you know, was she really in that movie? And she was. And it was really kind of cool. So, whatever statement you make has got to stand up to that fact checking, which is, you know, real time.

The next thing is add some context to what you just told me. And then, the example that I used yesterday, company came out, and they admitted that they had executed on an email that they shouldn’t have. But then, they added appropriate context. “Look, our servers were not breached. You know, user data was not compromised in this.” And that’s important context.

And then, the third thing is talk about what you learned from it, and what you’re going to do different going forward. And if you can do those things, and it’s so different than, you know, the average celebrity apology, right? You can do those things. This is what happened; we admit that it happened; if necessary, apologized for it happening; add some good context to it. And then, talk about, “What did I learn? This is what we’re going to do different going forward.” That’s a winning formula for communicating effectively.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:18] Yeah, I love it. I feel like those are kind of like, you know, the go-to for when you make a mistake-

Mark Hoffman: [00:05:24] Right.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:24] … in a way. Like I mean, that’s what I tell my employees. You know, I live by that. I had a boss very young in my career, mistakes are going to happen, issues are going to happen, cyber risk could happen-

Mark Hoffman: [00:05:33] Right.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:34] It’s how you respond to it and, you know, address it, accept ownership or responsibility, and then what are you going to do to make sure it doesn’t happen going forward. So, I love that you brought that up into that presentation because I feel like that those are just standards you should live by, but yeah.

Mark Hoffman: [00:05:49] Right. And it was interesting. Somebody asked a question right at the end and they said, “Yeah, but big corporations lie.” And so, I said, “Yeah, okay, but we need to influence that, right? We need to change that culture. We need to make sure that we come at this from the standpoint that your answers have to stand up to fact checking. Otherwise, you’re just going to make it worse.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:08] Oh, absolutely. When I think of, you know, in addressing a comment like that, it’s like, yeah, but in today’s world, the truth is eventually going to come out.

Mark Hoffman: [00:06:17] Right.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:17] And where do you want to — you know, would you want to be like on the positive side of that or the negative?

Mark Hoffman: [00:06:22] That’s right. Lawyers like to use the term the fact pattern.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:26] Yeah.

Mark Hoffman: [00:06:26] And the fact pattern is you better be right. You better be on the side of right as you go forward. Yeah.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:31] Yeah, interesting. So, I understand in talking to you, you also do a podcast, which is exciting. I love having other fellow podcasters on our podcast with us. Tell me a little bit about what you do there.

Mark Hoffman: [00:06:41] Yeah. So, the podcast is called The Resilient Journey. And it is sponsored by ClearRisk. And you can find us anywhere that you find podcasts – you know, Spotify, Google and Apple Podcasts and all that stuff. And basically what we do is we focus on resilience, whether it’s business resilience, organizational resilience. We talk about cyber risk and things like that.

But we’re also starting to talk a little bit more here about personal resilience. And there’s some very interesting stories. I’ve talked to some folks who — one of my favorites was a guy called Vince Davis. I love him to death. He’s from Chicago and he’s in the emergency management field. And he talked about racial inequity in the emergency management industry. And he said, “Mark, I’ve been doing this for over 20 years.” And he said, “I know and I can list for you all of the other people in our industry who are black.” And do I have time to tell the story I mentioned before?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:38] Oh, yeah, keep going. Yeah.

Mark Hoffman: [00:07:40] He said, “Hey, you know, one of the things you have to realize is the privilege that you have that you’re not aware of,” he said, “When you back out of your driveway in the morning to go to work, you’re Mark, or you’re Jimmy, or he’s John.” He said, “I back out of the driveway in the morning and I’m black. And that’s how I’m viewed on the way to work, at work and on the way home from work.” And it’s things we don’t think about. And so, I’ve interviewed him and I love that one.

I interviewed a guy from the UK who lost a family member and talked about the struggles of trying to come to work with that burden. And it really kind of ties in to what you’re doing. And he wrote an article, you know, what do you do when the resilience person or the continuity person can’t continue? How do you deal with that? And he talked about the first step, the hardest step was needing to say, “I need help. I need a break. I need to stop.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:36] Yeah. And, you know, I’ve talked to a lot of people as well. And, you know, even on this podcast, some that have experienced some really traumatic events in US history. I interviewed a gentleman that was in the Pentagon during 911.

Mark Hoffman: [00:08:47] Wow. Yeah.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:48] You know, and so hearing those personal stories, I think they’re so helpful in allowing you to be able to connect yourself, so that you’re not just assuming you think you know how somebody feels, but you’re actually learning from somebody what that feels like.

Mark Hoffman: [00:09:02] Right.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:09:02] And that’s so powerful.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:09:03] Right. You know, I interviewed a guy a couple of weeks ago. Sean Vanslyke is his name. He’s the CEO of a company called SEMO Electric Cooperative or something like that. He’s in Missouri. And he does a thing called the Friday Feature. And it’s a one-minute positive little story. And he puts it up on LinkedIn, he puts it on YouTube. And he’s really affected my life. Like, I don’t want to maybe go as far as to say, well, he changed my life, but he certainly influenced me to be more positive.

And that’s what we need right now, right? There’s so much division in our world, and there’s so much hatred, and anger and frustration. And I was in the Frankfurt Airport a couple of weeks ago, and I was on the phone with my wife, and our granddaughter had gone to the hospital. She had a really high fever. And I was trying to talk to her, and I couldn’t hear her. And I just walked off to sort of a corner area. Well, it turned out, it was one of those entrance areas to the lounges, you know, where the elite travelers get to go. And the guy comes up to me, and he goes, “You can’t be here.” And I said, “I’m having an important conversation and I can’t hear out in the main hallway.” “I don’t care. You can’t be here.” And so it turned into a little bit of an argument.

So, I went somewhere else, and I got off the phone with my wife, and I went back up to him and I said, “Look, I understand about the rules. But you could have showed some compassion there.” And that’s just for all of us.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:10:26] Yeah.

Mark Hoffman: [00:10:26] Be better. Let’s be better. Let’s raise the bar, and not look at our neighbor and say, “Jamie, you need to be better.” Look in the mirror and say, “Mark, you need to be better.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:10:36] Yeah.

Intro: [00:10:36] And that’s where it needs to start.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:10:38] Yeah. It’s like you see a lot of those LinkedIn posts about, you know, understanding that somebody might be going through something that you’re not aware of.

Mark Hoffman: [00:10:45] Right.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:10:45] And how do you show that compassion all the time? Because you might be the difference in somebody’s life that day by just being kind.

Mark Hoffman: [00:10:52] Yeah, you might be.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:10:52] Yeah.

Mark Hoffman: [00:10:53] You might be. I had mentioned to you that one of my interviews, a good friend of mine who went through some childhood trauma. And now, after a long struggle — and then attempted suicide. Now, she helps women who have been through similar things. And she told me during the interview, she said that four people have come up to her and said, “You know, I was suicidal, too. I had a suicide plan, but because of my conversations with you, I don’t feel that way anymore.” And, you know, that’s impact, and that’s leadership, and that’s what we’re about, and that’s what we need to try to do.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:28] Yeah, I love that conversation. It’s kind of like we can make that difference in someone’s life-

Mark Hoffman: [00:11:34] Yeah.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:34] … just by being human, and compassionate and caring. So, I love that. Great.

Mark Hoffman: [00:11:39] You know, you like to ask questions just like I do, right?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:42] I do, yeah.

Mark Hoffman: [00:11:43] And you get a charge out of when you ask a really good question-

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:46] Yes.

Mark Hoffman: [00:11:46] … when a guest says to you, “Oh, I love that question.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:48] Yes. It’s like, “Oh, I did good.”

Mark Hoffman: [00:11:50] Yeah, that’s right or “I have insight. I think I understand what you’re talking about.” I asked Tracy, who’s the guest I’m talking about, and that’s the episode that’s coming up this week, by the way. I said to her, “Okay. Well, I’ve never been through anything like this. What would you say to me? How can I help? What do I do?” And she says, “Oh, nobody’s ever asked me that before.” And that’s how you know, it’s a good question.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:10] Oh, absolutely. You know, I actually had a gentleman on my show one time who had been — he had bipolar. And I asked him, because he talks about when you tell people that you have bipolar, they always go, “I’m sorry.” He says, “That’s not what I want to hear.” My next question was, “Well, what do you want to hear? What can we say because we don’t we don’t know what you feel?”

Mark Hoffman: [00:12:32] Right? Teach us.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:33] Teach us.

Mark Hoffman: [00:12:34] Yeah.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:34] “What would you like us to say?” So, it’s awesome. So, I’m right there with you. I think this is great. And really appreciate you stopping by and joining us.

Mark Hoffman: [00:12:43] Thanks for having me. And now, you-

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:45] Yeah.

Mark Hoffman: [00:12:45] Now, you owe me one. Now, you have to be a guest on my podcast.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:47] Oh, I’d love to. Thank you for the invite. Absolutely.

Mark Hoffman: [00:12:50] Well, we’ll talk about what you do here-

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:52] Yeah, fantastic.

Mark Hoffman: [00:12:52] … and what the conference is all about. Yeah. Because it’s all part of being resilient.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:55] Absolutely, it is part of being resilient. And I would be honored to be on your show.

Mark Hoffman: [00:13:00] Awesome.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:13:01] Yeah, wonderful. Thanks again for joining us.

Mark Hoffman: [00:13:03] Thanks for having me.

Outro: [00:13:08] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

LIVE from WORKBENCHcon 2022: Doug Pisik, Wood Artist

May 24, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

LIVE from WORKBENCHcon 2022: Doug Pisik, Wood Artist

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LIVE from WORKBENCHcon 2022: Doug Pisik, Wood Artist (Organization Conversation, Episode 21)

Wood artist Doug Pisik was host Richard Grove’s guest LIVE from WORKBENCHcon 2022 in the Wall Control booth. Doug described the types of projects he does, including highly decorative wood boxes, custom work, and art pieces for galleries and events. He and Richard talked about his transition out of corporate work, his workshop, tool organization, and more.

Organization Conversation is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Doug Pisik, Wood Artist

Doug Pisik has received awards in many juried exhibits of national artists, been part of over a dozen museum exhibitions, collaborated with other recognized artists, and he has accepted large commissions including several from Home Depot, Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre, and the Smith Gilbert Gardens. He is classified as a “Master Woodworker” from the Woodworker’s Guild of Georgia. His work is collected by Tony and Emmy award winners, movie producers, CEOs, and other artists and can be found in collections coast-to-coast and in Europe and Israel.

His work is often composed of unique geometric patterns generated out of highly contrasting woods with a perfected technique called “Through-Pattern Construction” allowing complex patterns to pass from the outside through to the inside of his boxes and to the backside of his sculptures ensuring every facet is finely decorated.

Dyes and stains are typically avoided and instead, Pisik continuously searches for woods with naturally contrasting colors and tones to accent his work. Some of his pieces are constructed with over a dozen species of wood and are composed of over a thousand pieces seamlessly joined together into a solid composition.

Connect with Doug: Website |Instagram | Facebook

About Organization Conversation

Organization Conversation features interviews with movers and shakers in storage and organization, from professional organizers to the creative and talented Brand Ambassadors who use Wall Control products every day. You’ll hear tips, tricks, and how-tos for storage and organization, as well as receive first access to Wall Control promotions. We talk with our suppliers and partners to give you a look behind the scenes at how we operate, what makes our family-owned and operated brand tick, and some of the fun and interesting insights that go into making our business run. We love our guests, as they are engaging and entertaining with interesting experiences to share. By focusing on those guests and the amazing stories they tell, we hope you will be enriched and find your time listening to the Organization Conversation podcast as time well spent.

Organization Conversation is hosted by Richard Grove, and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and others.

About Richard Grove

Richard Grove, Host, *Organization Conversation*

Richard Grove‘s background is in engineering but what he enjoys most is brand building through relationships and creative marketing. Richard began his career with the Department of Defense as an engineer on the C-5 Galaxy Engineering Team based out of Warner Robins. While Richard found this experience both rewarding and fulfilling, he always knew deep down that he wanted to return to the small family business that originally triggered his interest in engineering.

Richard came to work for the family business, Dekalb Tool & Die, in 2008 as a Mechanical Engineer. At the time Wall Control was little more than a small ‘side hustle’ for Dekalb Tool & Die to try to produce some incremental income. There were no “Wall Control” employees, just a small warehouse with a single tool and die maker that would double as an “order fulfillment associate” on the occasion that the original WallControl.com website, which Richard’s grandmother built, pulled in an order.

In 2008, it became apparent that for the family business to survive they were going to have to produce their own branded product at scale to ensure jobs remained in-house and for the business to continue to move forward. Richard then turned his attention from tool and die to Wall Control to attempt this necessary pivot and his story with Wall Control began. Since that time, Richard has led Wall Control to significant growth while navigating two recessions.

Connect with Richard:

Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn

About Wall Control

The Wall Control story began in 1968 in a small tool & die shop just outside Atlanta, Georgia. The first of three generations began their work in building a family-based US manufacturer with little more than hard work and the American Dream.

Over the past 50+ years, this family business has continued to grow and expand from what was once a small tool & die shop into an award-winning US manufacturer of products ranging from automobile components to satellite panels and now, the best wall-mounted tool storage system available today, Wall Control.

The Wall Control brand launched in 2003 and is a family-owned and operated business that not only produces a high-quality American Made product but sees the entire design, production, and distribution process happen under their own roof in Tucker, Georgia. Under that same roof, three generations of American Manufacturing are still hard at work creating the best tool storage products available today.

Connect with Wall Control:

Company website | Facebook | Instagram

Jonathan Wilson, FinCEN Report Company

May 23, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Business Radio

Jonathan Wilson, FinCEN Report Company

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(North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 457)

Jonathan Wilson, a practicing business attorney and Founder and CEO of FinCEN Report Company, joined host John Ray to share critical information for business owners about new regulations on the horizon for reporting Beneficial Ownership Reports under the Corporate Transparency Act. Jonathan explained what the law is, the reporting that will be required, why it affects thousands of companies nationwide (even single-member LLCs), how FinCEN Report Company is addressing the needs of business owners under this new law, and much more.

North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

FinCEN Report Company

FinCEN Report Company was founded by corporate lawyers and experienced technology company executives to help companies file beneficial ownership reports with FinCEN, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Backed by investors that include senior partners at major U.S. law firms, the Company is preparing the first-to-market secure data storage and collaboration solution for the Corporate Transparency Act.

Their CTA Compliance Hub will allow companies and their attorneys to create free accounts for their individual data and then collaborate securely to prepare beneficial ownership reports. Each reporting company will pay a subscription fee at the time it files its initial beneficial ownership report. That annual subscription fee will cover the initial report and any subsequent amendments the company may make in the following year.

Company Website |LinkedIn | Twitter

Jonathan Wilson, Founder and CEO, FinCEN Report Company

Jonathan B. Wilson is an experienced business lawyer who enjoys solving complex business and transactional problems for clients. He applies his more than 25 years of experience as an in-house lawyer, business adviser and strategist to help business executives and owners achieve negotiated solutions to technology and financial transactions.

Mr. Wilson was the general counsel or chief legal officer of Interland Inc., Web.com Group Inc. and EasyLink Services International Corp., where he advised senior management and the boards of directors on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting, NASDAQ compliance, Sarbanes-Oxley matters, corporate governance, governmental affairs, contracts, litigation, intellectual property and mergers and acquisitions.

Mr. Wilson led Web.com’s legal department through its growth and merger with Website Pros Inc. in September 2007, at various times acting as the corporate secretary and the executive in charge of corporate development.

Mr. Wilson spent the first 10 years of his career in private practice with large Atlanta law firms, including a leading international firm and one of the nation’s most prestigious corporate firms.

Mr. Wilson has represented both large and small companies in outsourcing, patent licensing, software licensing, distribution, and strategic alliance agreements.

In 2009, Mr. Wilson founded the Renewable Energy Committee of the American Bar Association’s Public Utility Section, and he chaired that committee, writing and speaking frequently on renewable energy and clean technology development through 2015.

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

The new Corporate Transparency Act will dramatically change the way companies and their investors interact.
This new law is meant to give the U.S. Treasury greater power to prevent and to prosecute money laundering.
Under the CTA, 25 million U.S. companies will need to file a beneficial ownership report with FinCEN – the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Each beneficial ownership report will need to disclose personally-identifiable information about the lawyer who formed the company and each of the company’s beneficial owners.
Complying with this law will be a challenge for business lawyers and their lawyers.
FinCEN Report Company is the only online compliance solution that enables secure data storage, collaboration, and report filing.

North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.

Trading a Corporate Job for One in Your Own Business

May 23, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Trading a Corporate Job for One in Your Own Business

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Trading a Corporate Job for One in Your Own Business

As you’re building your professional services business, it can sometimes feel like all you’ve done is trade your corporate job for one in your own business. This episode addresses how and why this happens, and charts a way out of this terrible feeling.

The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello again. I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. I receive a lot of feedback from this podcast and from what I write, much of it is private which I understand, who wants to talk about their own frustrations, disappointments, stress, and failures which come from inadequate pricing. I know this firsthand.

John Ray: [00:00:23] Here’s a note I received from a consultant with her own practice in response to something I had posted on LinkedIn, and I’m using this with full permission. “Thank you for sharing that article about pricing. When I took on my first few clients, I was over delivering and under charging. I had learned that I shouldn’t do this because I was more stressed than when I had a job. Once I learned that I could walk away from a client and say no, I felt more confident. But as I learn more about selling contracts, et cetera, it is all about the solutions you provide to the client. It is about how you can make their business and emotional impact better. Thank you for sharing and offering your guidance with your content.”

John Ray: [00:01:17] There’s so much here that this person wrote that’s valuable. But the comment about being more stressed than when she had a job stood out for me. When I speak with a professional services provider about their practice, one of the red flags which indicates a pricing problem is working too hard for too little money. It’s a terrible feeling.

John Ray: [00:01:42] Maybe you’ve left a large professional services firm because you want independence and flexibility. Maybe you’ve left corporate because you are tired of their backstabbing rat race, which has no respect for your family and your personal life. You start your practice and everything is fresh and hopeful. You pull in a few clients and start to get some momentum. You may know that you’re under charging, but that’s part of the dues you think you have to pay to get going. Or maybe you think you have to start out with a lower fee in order to build your business.

John Ray: [00:02:19] After a while, you aren’t getting any sleep, you’re frazzled. You resent your clients who you are busting your butt for. And your significant other is telling you that you made a big mistake. That proud moment when you became a business owner, that euphoric feeling when you were holding the metaphoric glass trophy over your head, it’s now laying on the floor, shattered, because you don’t own a business. You own a job.

John Ray: [00:02:47] There’s a pronoun problem in what I just described. It’s all about I and me. There’s nothing here about the clients I’m working with, whose businesses I’m straightening out and whose lives I’m changing.

John Ray: [00:03:00] My friend who wrote this note points to one of the biggest problems services providers have with their practice. They haven’t spent nearly enough time developing a deep understanding of the needs, problems, hopes, and goals of the target tribe of clients they want to serve. Their description of a client need involves something functional, like filing a tax return or developing digital advertising. Those functions are just the means to a bigger and deeper end, which clients are looking for, solutions which permanently change their business and personal lives for the better.

John Ray: [00:03:42] It doesn’t matter whether they are bakery owners, farmers, attorneys, truck drivers, or programmers. When you’re able to get under the skin of the members of the tribe you want to serve, you end up having more substantial conversations with your clients. They feel like you understand them, and your confidence rises because of that. You’re prescribing remedies which meet long held needs and dreams, not just for the business, but for the business owner, their significant other, and their family. You’re making, as my friend indicates in her note, an emotional impact, not just a financial one.

John Ray: [00:04:22] And the door opens for your pricing to change for the better because you are pricing based on client outcomes, not some silly measure like your timesheet. And you’ve regained ownership of your business.

John Ray: [00:04:38] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this series can be found at pricevaluejourney.com or on your favorite podcast app where you can subscribe, and we would be honored if you do that. If you would like to send me a note, john@johnray.co is my email address. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The title of this show describes the journey all professional services providers are on: building a services practice by seeking to convince the world of the value we offer, helping clients achieve the outcomes they desire and trying to do all that at pricing which reflects the value we deliver.

If you feel like you’re working too hard for too little money in your solo or small firm practice, this show is for you. Even if you’re reasonably happy with your practice, you’ll hear ways to improve both your bottom line as well as the mindset you bring to your business.

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray The Price and Value Journey — **John Ray, Host of “The Price and Value Journey”**

John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.

John owns Ray Business Advisors, a business advisory practice. John’s services include advising solopreneur and small professional services firms on their pricing. John is passionate about the power of pricing for business owners, as changing pricing is the fastest way to change the profitability of a business. His clients are professionals who are selling their “grey matter,” such as attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, consultants, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.

In his other business, John is a Studio Owner, Producer, and Show Host with Business RadioX®, and works with business owners who want to do their own podcast. As a veteran B2B services provider, John’s special sauce is coaching B2B professionals to use a podcast to build relationships in a non-salesy way which translate into revenue.

John is the host of North Fulton Business Radio, Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio, Alpharetta Tech Talk, and Business Leaders Radio. house shows which feature a wide range of business leaders and companies. John has hosted and/or produced over 1,300 podcast episodes.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Ben Albert, Balbert Marketing

May 20, 2022 by John Ray

Business Leaders Radio

Ben Albert, Balbert Marketing

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Ben Albert, Balbert Marketing

Ben Albert, CEO of Balbert Marketing, was the guest on this episode of Business Leaders Radio. Ben talked with host John Ray about his tough childhood, the shift that helped him find his passion in marketing, and how he built his business through podcasts. He also shared his philosophy about podcasting as a marketing tool, his services at Balbert Marketing, who he likes to work with, marketing as a commodity, and much more.

Business Leaders Radio is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton Studio of Business RadioX® in Atlanta.

Balbert Marketing, LLC

Balbert Marketing was founded by Ben Albert and provides a full range of marketing services, including websites, SEO, social media marketing, copywriting, direct mail, and video. They also offer marketing consultation.

Your online presence is vital to your business, and Balbert makes sure you are represented at your best. They work will businesses with growth potential.

Another part of Balbert Marketing is Real Business Connections, a network of Podcasts, Real Conversations With Extraordinary Business People. They are on a mission to move the needle on 1 million careers one conversation at a time.

Company website | LinkedIn

Ben Albert, Founder and CEO, Balbert Marketing, LLC

Ben Albert, Founder and CEO, Balbert Marketing, LLC

When Covid hit, Ben was furloughed from work. He found himself down and out, staring at an empty handle of Jim Bean Whiskey. He was unemployed, depressed, and felt unworthy.

Hesitantly, he opened this very laptop he is typing this bio on right now and started reaching out to strangers on Linkedin. This spearheaded his entrepreneurial journey.

The rest is history.

Now Ben hosts a network of 5 podcasts called “Real Business Connections,” runs a massively successful marketing firm, Balbert Marketing, and has replaced his sales executive income in just over a year. Ben found his way.

You can do all this too!

It lights Ben up to help people, just like you, find YOUR way. Ben loves to help businesspeople find the essence of who THEY are and empower them and their companies to make their mark in this world. None of us deserve to feel small, unworthy, or invisible.

This is why Ben chose a career in marketing. Ben has found in marketing. He has a unique opportunity to empower business people to reach the RIGHT community, the RIGHT clients, and the RIGHT partners, who share the same beliefs and values as YOU. So you can scale above your highest potential, in turn, filling up your pockets AND your soul.

Questions and Topics

How you got into your work
Learning through Podcasts
Podcasts as a business development tool
Marketing as a commodity
The role of a website
Who you work with

Business Leaders Radio is hosted by John Ray and produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. The show can be found on all the major podcast apps and a full archive can be found here.

William Barrett, Mandelbaum Barrett

May 20, 2022 by John Ray

Dental Business Radio

William Barrett, Mandelbaum Barrett

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William Barrett, Mandelbaum Barrett (Dental Business Radio, Episode 30)

William Barrett, CEO of Mandelbaum Barrett and author of The DSO Decision: Winning Answers from Every Angle, was Patrick O’Rourke’s guest on this edition of Dental Business Radio. He covered considerations for practice owners who are considering selling their practice to a DSO or creating a DSO themselves. Bill and Patrick also discussed getting proper legal counsel, misclassification of independent contractors, practice brokers, partnerships, and much more.

Dental Business Radio is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient: PPO Negotiations & Analysis and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

William Barrett, Chief Executive Officer, Mandelbaum Barrett

William Barrett is the Chief Executive Officer of Mandelbaum Barrett. He has over 20 years of experience representing a wide range of businesses with a unique specialty in mergers and acquisitions. He provides strategic advice to companies of all sizes from formation to dissolution and every stage in between. He is known for the personal attention that he gives his clients and the energy he brings to every deal. Bill has a reputation as a deal maker who knows how to be creative and get things done.

Bill often serves the role as outside general corporate counsel to his clients and advises them on issues concerning contracts, employment law compliance, developing policies, executive compensation programs and agreements, as well as business succession and related tax planning. His representative clients include commercial organizations and entrepreneurs in the areas of manufacturing, industry, service, banking, finance, insurance, construction, real estate development, as well as healthcare professionals of varying disciplines and organizations. Throughout his career, Bill has successfully managed the purchase or sale of hundreds of businesses, professional practices, and facilities.

In the healthcare space, Bill is well recognized nationally as a transactional lawyer in dental and medical practice transitions, practice sales and purchases, associate buy-ins, start-ups, and the structuring of dental services organizations (DSOs) and management services organizations (MSOs). Bill represents clients throughout the country and is well versed in the specific rules and regulations that govern the healthcare industry.

William S. Barrett (Bill) is the author of Pain-Free Dental Deals: An Entrepreneurial Dentist’s Guide to Buying, Selling and Merging Practices and The DSO Decision: Winning Answers from Every Angle. He has authored many articles addressing the legal and business needs of licensed professionals and facilities. He regularly speaks on a wide variety of topics to professional tradeshows, associations, study groups, societies, as well as students and residents at dental and medical schools across the country. In 2018, Bill appeared on Howard Farran’s well-regarded show Dentaltown to talk about practice transitions. Hear what he and Howard spoke about here.

Mandelbaum Barrett

Since its founding in 1930, Mandelbaum Barrett has been committed to providing its clients with the highest level of personal, hands-on attention to their legal needs. They take a proactive approach in representing our clients; from the board room to the courtroom. Mandelbaum Barrett attorneys are zealous advocates, treating their clients’ concerns as though they were for their own family.

They take the time to get to know their clients. The better they know them, the better they can anticipate their needs and potential legal issues before they arise. That’s why they invest the time to learn about clients’ industries and competitors. That’s also why they provide informative seminars on various business, economic, and legal topics. They are in this together as their client’s partner for success.

Their business clients are diverse and include organizations of all sizes in various industries with national and international interests, such as banks, governmental entities, real estate developers, public and private institutions, biotech companies, manufacturers, health care providers and facilities, as well as individuals and families. Clients say they choose Mandelbaum Barrett because an experienced attorney is both effective and efficient.

Company website | LinkedIn

Dental Business Radio covers the business side of dentistry. Host Patrick O’Rourke and his guests cover industry trends, insights, success stories, and more in this wide-ranging show. The show’s guests include successful doctors across the spectrum of dental practice providers, as well as trusted advisors and noted industry participants. Dental Business Radio is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®. The show can be found on all the major podcast apps and a complete show archive is here.

Practice Quotient

Dental Business Radio is sponsored by Practice Quotient. Practice Quotient, Inc. serves as a bridge between the payor and provider communities. Their clients include general dentist and dental specialty practices across the nation of all sizes, from completely fee-for-service-only to active network participation with every dental plan possible. They work with independent practices, emerging multi-practice entities, and various large ownership entities in the dental space. Their PPO negotiations and analysis projects evaluate the merits of the various in-network participation contract options specific to your Practice’s patient acquisition strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Connect with Practice Quotient

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

Prospects Who Check References

May 20, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Prospects Who Check References

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Prospects Who Check References

What indication can you draw from prospects who check references? What does checking references reveal about a client’s price sensitivity or their orientation toward value? The episode explores those questions.

The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. I once spoke with a client about better discerning prospects whose sole concern is price. His experience led him to the belief that when a prospect doesn’t check with references, which have been provided, then that’s an indication that the prospect is exclusively focused on price.

Now, I hadn’t thought of this before, but the idea makes sense to me. If a prospect checks your references, they’re interested in the how of what you do, how you work with a client generally, your responsiveness, your ability to explain difficult concepts in plain English or other intangibles, which they value. They may sense you possess these intangibles they’re looking for because of the conversations that the two of you have had up until that point, but they want to confirm them.

Further checking with references takes time. The effort involved in emails, going back and forth with phone calls, all that can be tedious. And a client’s willingness to make this investment is probably a reliable indicator of a client who is not just serious but one more concerned with a decision to buy grounded and perceived value instead of price.

My client’s hypothesis, I think, rings particularly true in an extraordinarily complex service offering, where a client is particularly uncertain in deciding and where the cost of selecting the wrong provider is high. It could be, on the other hand, that a prospect doesn’t check your references because you’ve got stellar testimonials so thoroughly documented that there’s no need to make a phone call. Such a circumstance is probably rare, though, as most professional services providers really don’t spend that much time at all cultivating and documenting effective testimonials.

So, what’s the point? The point is that you’re better off in your practice spending time with prospects interested in making a value-oriented decision. Those are the clients willing to pay a price that’s reflective of the value that they perceive, and they’re the ones that are much easier for you to work with. So, how do these thoughts apply to your own business?

I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. This series can be found at PriceValueJourney.com or on your favourite podcast app. And we’d be honored if you would subscribe to the series. If you’d like to connect directly, you can email John@JohnRay.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Eric Togneri, Neri Capital Partners and Rob Margeton, Ryco Advisors

May 19, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Eric Togneri, Neri Capital Partners and Rob Margeton, Ryco Advisors

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Eric Togneri, Neri Capital Partners, and Rob Margeton, Ryco Advisors (The Exit Exchange, Episode 14)

Eric Togneri, Managing Partner with Neri Capital Partners, and Rob Margeton, Co-Founder of Ryco Advisors, joined the show to discuss critical elements and considerations in selling a business. They discussed the increasing attempts of equity groups to consolidate industries, the role of business valuations, current issues such as price increases in labor and product, the conversations to assist sellers to improve valuations, encouraging business owners to reduce their role, and much more.

This episode of The Exit Exchange was co-hosted by Bob Tankesley and Maria Forbes and is produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.

Neri Capital Partners

Neri Capital Partners was founded in 2006 with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Our firm is an investment bank for family-owned and privately-held small and midsize businesses with a strong history and clear path to growth. Neri Capital provides merger, acquisition, and related advisory services.

Neri Capital Partners’ entrepreneurial and transactional experience and expertise has positioned the firm as uniquely qualified to offer advisory services for business owners to successfully Determine, Build and then Realize the value they have created. Regardless of where our clients are in their business life cycle, Neri Capital services are designed to add value to liquidity.

Company website | LinkedIn

Eric Togneri, Managing Director, Neri Capital Partners

Eric Togneri is a Lower-Middle Market Investment Banking professional providing Investment Origination and M&A Advisory. He is also a Consumer Goods Team Leader for Sales, Shopper Marketing, Trade Promotion, Trade Finance, and Business Analytics.

Eric is currently serving as Managing Director of Neri Capital Partners focused on providing Business Owners the path to Determining, Building, and Realizing the Value of Companies; Also, providing Deal Origination expertise for Private Investors to achieve Quality Deal Flow.

Prior to Neri Capital, Eric was an accomplished Consumer Products Department Head and National Team Leader with Fortune 100 consumer organizations such as L’Oréal, Pfizer, and Sanofi; Also, a Sr. Consultant at Neri Consumer and a Principal in the Category Management Association.

Ryco Advisors

Ryco Advisors is an Atlanta-based, independent advisory firm focused on the sale of small and lower-middle-market owner-operated companies.

The professionals at Ryco not only have extensive financial and transactional experience, but they’ve also been business owners just like you.

They have run their own operating businesses and understand firsthand what it’s like to make the decision to sell and which steps to take to achieve a profitable sale. They leverage their perspective as business owners, coupled with years of experience working with major Wall Street firms and consulting companies, to achieve superior results for our clients.

They have advised numerous clients – both large and small – on sale and transfer transactions, and treat every business they sell as if it were their own.

Company website | LinkedIn

Rob Margeton, Co-Founder, Ryco Advisors

Robert (Rob) Margeton has over 15 years of experience working in the financial services industry and running his own business. Prior to co-founding Ryco Advisors, Mr. Margeton served as a Managing Director at Capstone Advisory Group, a New York middle-market restructuring, and financial advisory consulting firm. During his tenure there, he advised clients on over 50 transactions across a diverse set of industries. Mr. Margeton also has extensive experience running and managing his own business.

Together with Lindsay Margeton, he acquired the flagship Fleet Clean location in 2013 and oversaw a successful sales process in 2018. During their tenure at Fleet Clean, the company’s revenues and EBITDA grew by over 75% and 95%, respectively. They managed over 30 employees and serviced more than 150 clients throughout Metro Atlanta, including many Fortune 500 companies. Ryco Advisors assists owner-operating businesses in the lower middle market space on sell-side engagements. Businesses typically have revenues between $5 million and $50 million.

The Exit Planning Exchange Atlanta

The Exit Planning Exchange Atlanta (XPX) is a diverse group of professionals with a common goal: working collaboratively to assist business owners with a sale or business transition. XPX Atlanta is an association of advisors who provide professionalism, principles, and education to the heart of the middle market. Our members work with business owners through all stages of the private company life cycle: business value growth, business value transfer, and owner life and legacy. Our Vision: To fundamentally changing the trajectory of exit planning services in the Southeast United States. XPX Atlanta delivers a collaborative-based networking exchange with broad representation of exit planning competencies. Learn more about XPX Atlanta and why you should consider joining our community: https://exitplanningexchange.com/atlanta.

The Exit Exchange is produced by John Ray in the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. The show archive can be found at xpxatlantaradio.com.

John Ray and Business RadioX are Platinum Sponsors of XPX Atlanta.

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Gerry Stanley and Mark Moore, Harvard MedTech, LLC

May 19, 2022 by John Ray

Minneapolis St. Paul Studio

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Gerry Stanley and Mark Moore, Harvard MedTech, LLC

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LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Gerry Stanley and Mark Moore, Harvard MedTech, LLC

Gerry Stanley and Mark Moore with Harvard MedTech spoke with host Jamie Gassmann LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022 about their mission and the technology developed by Harvard MedTech. Their innovation involves virtual reality headsets combined with behavioral health interventions which assist claimants in dealing with workplace trauma. Gerry and Mark talked with Jamie about the specifics of how this technology works, the types of claimants that can benefit from the approach, its use in pain management, and more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Harvard MedTech, LLC

Gerry Stanley is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, and Mark Moore is Senior Vice President, Market Partnerships, for Harvard MedTech, LLC

Harvard MedTech is committed to Smart Device Technology for in-home patient care. Its mission is to push the frontier of capabilities and create or find the most innovative smart technologies from around the world. These technologies may be devices, systems, or elements that expand an extraordinary human experience.

They are also committed to home-based therapies to facilitate greater compliance by – and a higher quality experience for – the patient. Their dedicated behavioral health clinicians train patients on how to use smart equipment and technologies, and provide oversight, motivation and encouragement.

What most makes HMT stand apart is our unmatched ability to integrate technology with behavioral science in a way that produces faster, safer and better outcomes for patients, increased convenience for providers, and lower costs for payers.

Company website | Linkedin | Gerry LinkedIn | Mark LinkedIn

About Workplace MVP

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

R3 Continuum

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:21] Hey, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassmann here. And I’m broadcasting from RISKWORLD 2022 in the expo hall and our show sponsor’s booth, R3 Continuum. And joining me is Gerry Stanley and Mark Moore from Harvard MedTech. Welcome, gentlemen.

Gerry Stanley: [00:00:38] Hey, thanks for having us.

Mark Moore: [00:00:39] Thanks for having us.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:40] Yeah. So, tell me a little bit about what Harvard MedTech does.

Mark Moore: [00:00:45] Gerry’s got this.

Gerry Stanley: [00:00:47] So, we’re a virtual reality company that couples virtual reality with behavioral health interventions to treat the effects of workplace trauma. So, as opposed to looking at pain, depression, anxiety or PTSD as the actual problem itself, we really look at that as a constellation of symptoms that we want to treat to give a very holistic, biopsychosocial approach to how we’re treating patients.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:08] Wonderful. So, tell me a little bit about – so, like if – are you – from a risk insurance perspective, if they have a client, you know, what types of situations from a trauma perspective are you seeing most commonly that their employee would benefit from your solution?

Gerry Stanley: [00:01:23] So, we really focus on claimants that are, I would say, in the most volatile state. And if you really look at the data on that, most of those patients have some sort of an underlying psychosocial issue that’s driving it. So, it’s really not a functional biologic issue. It’s something else in their life, an underlying issue at home, a history of depression or anxiety. Those are all the things that really derail recovery for patients. What we want to do is say, “Let’s address them holistically. Let’s treat the person as a person, not just as a disease or a traumatic event.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:52] So, tell me a little bit about how does that virtual reality work? Like what is that claimant experience when they’re in that virtual reality?

Gerry Stanley: [00:02:01] So, what will happen is we call the claimant; and as part of that, we’re going to do some assessments on the patient and match them with one of our personal clinicians. We, then, mail the virtual reality headset to the patient’s home, so they can engage in it as much as they’d like. From there on, every week, we have our personal clinician engage with the patient. So, every week we’re adjusting what they’re doing in the headset. We’re going to adjust when they do it, how often they do it, how long they do it, and what types of programs that they’re doing.

So, our program is designed to have four – what we call – experiences. okay? Those are the categories. So, we have knowledge, meditation, distraction and escape. And what the escape is, it’s escaping. It’s going to see the towers of London, swimming with dolphins. It’s taking an injured worker from the safety of their home to let them go transcend that and go into the world. The meditation is very basic eye control, breath control, body awareness, meditation. But because they’re in a virtual reality headset, it’s incredibly immersive. So, it’s very simple meditation done at a very high level. The knowledge pieces are much more simple. It’s education and empowerment, because most workers will say, “I really didn’t get a lot of education from my clinician. Like the doctor doesn’t tell me what’s going on.” So, we really want to empower our patients to be active participants in their care and let them know that it’s not realistic, that you’ve had an injury, that you will always have a little bit of pain. Pain is normal. That’s a normal part of the healing process. So, having zero pain is not how you get back to work. We have to get to a point to where that’s realistic.

And then, we also have a distraction phase where if we’ve got patients that are experiencing pain, we know that we can put them into these modules, and in 3 to 5 minutes, we can get a 44 to 50% reduction in their pain immediately. And that pain will last anywhere from 2 to 3 hours with a legacy pain relief. So, if you think about that in terms of pharmacology, that’s what we’re seeing with somebody takes a Percocet, or a Vicodin, or one of the opiates that people talk about, that’s what you’re hoping for is a 50% reduction in pain that’ll last 2 to 3 hours. We’re seeing that in a completely non-pharmacological way just by using virtual reality.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:52] Interesting. So, the ideal claimant is somebody who suffered some type of a traumatic injury that’s causing them ongoing pain. And so, this could be used as kind of a pain management tool for them basically, correct?

Gerry Stanley: [00:04:04] Definitely an adjunct for some of the pain. So, we really focus on areas where we see the greatest pain. So, we focus on shoulder surgeries, back surgeries, foot and ankle surgeries, amputations or specific injuries that we know have really the lowest return to work, highest post-operative complication, highest opioid addiction – the surgeries that are going to have the most likelihood of having a complication. But then, we also like to identify claimants based on some of their underlying psychosocial issues. So, they may have issues that are driving that. Like I said, maybe they’re caring for a child at home, maybe they’re caring for an aging adult or a parent. We’re seeing that a lot more. We have multigenerational families in the home. So, we want to make sure that we’re addressing these folks, saying, “What’s going on in your life?” So, that it’s not just give this to everybody, but let’s really identify the high risk claimants early on to give them that extra level of support, so that (1), they can get better; (2), they can be whole. And then from the insurance industry side, we really want to be able to close that claim.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:57] Now, I know you had an interview earlier today. So, Mark, do you want to talk a little bit about some of the things that the journalist was asking you on the interview that you had?

Mark Moore: [00:05:09] Oh, it wasn’t me that had the interview.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:10] Oh, okay.

Mark Moore: [00:05:11] It’s not allowed at the table.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:12] Yeah. Oh, wow. But you got — you were allowed at my table. So, you get to talk about it.

Mark Moore: [00:05:16] No. I was at a client meeting. So, Gerry was the one that actually was there [crosstalk].

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:18] Oh, got it. Okay. Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about that interview because that was — you were pretty excited about that, so.

Gerry Stanley: [00:05:27] Well, it kept me from running the 5K this morning.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:28] I know, you missed out.

Gerry Stanley: [00:05:30] So, that is excitement in itself.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:30] Yeah.

Gerry Stanley: [00:05:31] They’re outside running in the cold. I’m inside on TV. So, life was good.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:34] But it had amazing views.

Gerry Stanley: [00:05:36] It was — you know, it was a lot of fun. It was Best TV. They were just kind of looking at different innovators in the industry. And they brought us in to talk about advances in telemedicine and some of the new –I would say we’re a little bit revolutionary bringing virtual reality into the space. So, how we’re disrupting the space and what we’re doing to really bring technology to health care or really adjust where care is received. For the most part, care has always happened in the clinic or in the hospital. Now, we want to do it in patients’ homes. Like, “Let’s actually go where the patient lives instead of having the patient go to where the care has historically lived.” So, it’s really that paradigm shift of going to where people live and meeting them where they are, so that we can really try to find the right care for the right person at the right time.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:16] Yeah. And you know, when you think about it like the shift over the last couple of years where telehealth and people being able to, you know, have appointments right off their phone to diagnose them, you know, this is a really prime opportunity in time where people are starting to get used to that care in the home. So, that’s great.

Gerry Stanley: [00:06:33] So, we’ve talked about telemedicine for probably a decade, but patients didn’t like it and doctors hated it. So, you’ve got this great idea that nobody wants to utilize in the pandemic. That’s really kind of the blessing of the pandemic, is it forced us to get out of that comfort zone. And now, people love it. I know doctors that have moved straight to just all virtual practices because it’s so convenient. It’s just less disruptive to everybody’s life. So, it’s-

Intro: [00:06:56] Yeah.

Gerry Stanley: [00:06:57] It’s been fun just to see that evolution in such a short period of time.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:00] Yeah. And what I like about, you know, your virtual reality and trying to help that pain management is that shift away from having to take a narcotic, you know, an opioid to treat a backache. You know, and you hear so much about the opioid crisis. I mean, I know I haven’t heard as much about it. I think COVID kind of silenced a little bit, but I don’t think it went away. And so, you know, this is really a great kind of alternative to those who are like, “I really don’t want to take something to handle my pain. I’d really like to have some type of a solution that allows me an alternative options.” So, that’s great.

Gerry Stanley: [00:07:34] It’s been really great. It’s a lot of fun to be doing something so innovative and still helping people.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:39] Yeah, that’s fantastic. And I know you guys are exhibitors here at the conference. So, you know, tell me a little bit about some of the traffic and the conversations you’ve been having. What are — how are people responding to you?

Mark Moore: [00:07:50] It’s new, it’s novel. So, for us, as an organization, it’s something that’s not been in the marketplace. Everybody’s talked about the biopsychosocial pieces that go into the claim. We’re actually putting an appliance with that, with therapy. So, it’s having a lot of, “What are you guys doing? Oh, can I try that on?” And they take it as an Oculus. They look at it as a kids’ game or something along those lines. And once they actually sit down and get immersed in the system within the VR headset, they then see the difference of what that can have for the patient. And hearing the story that goes along with that and the science has been brought to fruit, we’re having tremendous amount of traffic and a lot of people kicking the tires and saying, “There is a solution here. How do we apply this in our organization and for our claims?”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:30] Yeah, that’s fantastic. I can imagine. It’s always great to see something new and innovative that, you know, maybe somebody hadn’t thought of or maybe they thought it needed to have a solution there. And you guys kind of brought it to market. So, it’s fantastic.

Gerry Stanley: [00:08:43] Thank you.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:43] So, if somebody wanted to get a hold of you and learn a little bit more about what you’re doing, how would they do that?

Mark Moore: [00:08:49] Well, you can go to HarvardMedTech.com. There are places that you can send a referral in, ask for information.

Gerry Stanley: [00:08:56] You can go to info@harvardmedtech.com. That’s a great place. Send an e-mail to that, and we’ll be able to communicate with you directly. We also have referrals at HarvardMedTech.com if you’re an adjuster, or a patient care provider, or doctor, or nurse practitioner, PA saying, “Hey, I’d really like to try this for one of my patients,” feel free, you can send send that in directly to us.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:09:14] Wonderful. Well, it’s been great having you both on the show. Thank you so much for stopping by.

Mark Moore: [00:09:18] Hey, thank you.

Gerry Stanley: [00:09:19] Thank you.

Outro: [00:09:22] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

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