John, how did you start speaking on identity theft?
Who are your best audiences?
How does your audience feel when they walk out the door?
Can you give me a sample of some of the speeches you've given recently?
What is the single most important thing each of us could do to protect ourselves?
One last question... what happened to your partner?
Q. John, how did you start speaking on identity theft?
A. Several years ago, my business partner used my identity to embezzle $300,000 from our clients. One of the clients eventually caught on, thought I'd done it and spent the next two years trying to put me in jail. The liabilities destroyed my business. The two-year criminal case sucked the life right out of me and the financial troubles just about destroyed my marriage. All because I failed to protect my identity.
At some point I woke up and decided that I had a responsibility to keep this from happening to other people, other companies. So I wrote a book, Stolen Lives: Identity Theft Prevention Made Simple . As a product of the awards that Stolen Lives won and the fact that identity theft quickly became America's fastest growing crime, I was frequently asked to speak. In no time, that responsibility became a passion, and I've been a full-time identity theft speaker ever since.
Q. Who are your best audiences?
A. Let me answer that at two levels. Every person with a Social Security number is at risk of identity theft, which means that nearly everyone can benefit from my presentation. One in ten households will experience identity theft in 2008 with an average cost of recovery of $7,500 and several hundred hours. By implementing the tools I cover in my presentation, almost all of their personal risk can be eliminated or drastically reduced. That is how it will affect your audience at a personal level.
But at another level (which entails business profitability and responsibility), organizations hire me because they need their employees or members to understand the value of the private data that they handle every day . Whether it's a client's credit card number, a patient's medical file, employee records or sensitive intellectual capital, our economy is built on information. If employees/executives/board members don't believe in the inherent value of that information (and the resulting liabilities of collecting, storing and handling it), then we can never expect them to protect it.
When I motivate the audience to think twice about company privacy, their return on investment (by preventing a costly data breach) can literally be hundreds of times my speaking fee. Companies that proactively train their employees and inform their customers about identity theft protection not only significantly lower the chances of a costly data breach but are delivering a level of customer service that differentiates them from their competitors. Safety sells. Companies like TJX (who just had a data breach of 45 million identities) learned the hard way about the profitability of privacy. My audiences understand that before it happens.
Back To Top Q. How does your audience feel when they walk out the door?
A. Motivated to protect their privacy and empowered with the tools to make it happen. I stand up in front of the audience as a living, breathing example of what can happen to the person on the other end of that "data" if it is accidentally lost or stolen. I don't sell fear, but I do give a voice to reality. And I don't come at it from the perspective of law enforcement or techno-babble, but from having been the victim of identity theft. When the audience walks out of that room, there is no question left that they will be motivated not only to protect themselves and their families, but the sensitive data they handle every day. In fact, their jobs depend on it.
Back To Top Q. Can you give me a sample of some of the speeches you've given recently?
A. Sure. In the past several months, I've spoken at national conferences for Lincoln Financial Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield (medical identity theft), the Federal Reserve Bank, Prudential Real Estate (top 50 producers), Fifth Third Bank (best retail customers), Premier Bankcard (employee training), The Principal Financial Group (national safety week), Drury Inn Hotels (executives/managers conference), Pfizer (technology group), many small and mid-size financial and estate planning firms, law firms, insurance providers (client wellness events), universities (highest risk demographic) and national associations (member wellness). As a service to the community, I deliver speeches to high school students about protecting their privacy on websites like MySpace.
Back To Top Q. What is the single most important thing each of us could do to protect ourselves?
A. There is a danger in recommending one tactic as it tends to oversimplify the problem. Just as deadbolts are not the only way to protect your home, identity theft can't be solved by a silver bullet. It takes a combination of heightened common sense (which I deliver interactively using Think Like A Spy tactics), a process of re-habituation regarding privacy (which I take the audience through comically), and a real motivation to make a change (which I provide by showing the destruction, personally and professionally, to my life). That said, you should follow my five steps to revolutionize your privacy: freeze and monitor your identity, opt out, go paperless and stop the flow, both at home and at work. These are all techniques you will learn during the presentation.
Q. One last question... what happened to your partner?
A. Ah, yes. For that, you will have to come to a speech. |
