5 Myths Stopping You From Having A Podcast + The New Boardroom Conversation: AI, Cybersecurity, and Business Risk

OPENING - EPISODE 36 PAUL WRIGHT Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Link Thru Social Podcast. My name is Paul Wright, and we are on episode number 36 today. And we will be welcoming two guests. First, Carl Richards, and he will explain the five myths stopping you from having a podcast. And also Brian Beck will be talking about the new boardroom conversation: AI, cybersecurity, and business risk. And so much more. Those two guests will be joining us right after this short break. SPONSOR MESSAGE - TICKETPORTX SPONSOR MESSAGE You've worked hard to build your audience. So why send your customers somewhere else? Introducing white label digital storefronts from TicketportX. Now you can process tickets, registrations, donations, merchandise sales, and collect valuable customer data directly on your website or custom landing page. 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INTERVIEW 1 - CARL RICHARDS / PODCAST SOLUTIONS MADE SIMPLE PAUL WRIGHT & CARL RICHARDS And welcome back to the Link Thru Social podcast. Well, we have an interesting guest for us today, Carl Richards. And Carl has spent more than 25 years behind the microphone, on radio and on stage, entertaining and influencing audiences worldwide. He's a three times best-selling author, 10x speaker, and MC, podcast host, and the founder and CEO of Carl Speaks and Podcast Solutions Made Simple. Welcome to the program. It is an honor. Thanks so much for having me. I'm stoked to be here. Yeah, we're very excited to have you. And as we mentioned off-air before we start, we're both fellow Canadians, so it's always nice to have a Canadian on the Link Thru Social Podcast. So we can apologize to each other as we go, right? Exactly. We're such easy people to get along with so I I did a little intro for you. You've you've been in this business, you know, 25 years behind the microphone, on radio, on stage. Maybe just give us a little brief capsule of of who Carl Richards is. Yeah, very very good question. apparently, very apparently I love apparently I love the media world because I've spent my entire life in it. I grew up in a musical family as well, so love music. Probably led to my love for radio as well. But when I'm not on the radio and I'm not doing things in the podcasting space, I love to cook. I sometimes leave an ad, put that in my my bio, as it were, and I'll not invite people over, but make them salivate thinking that I gotta get over to Carl's house because he's gonna cook something delicious. But yeah, I'm I'm married, live in a beautiful area in Canada called the Thousand Islands, and yeah, I I'm very passionate about what I do, and I know you hear that a lot from people, but passion goes pretty deep when you you know eat, sleep, breathe, and basically live previously in the media world and now in the podcasting space, which is technically media, anyways, and taking over a lot of the the space where you know radio dominated several years ago, and it's still a very viable platform, but podcasts are beginning to get a little bit more notice. They really are, Carl. And it's it's amazing. You know, there we we just celebrated you know a small milestone. We hit 25 episodes. we started earlier this year. And when I was looking at the stats, there are so many podcasts now out there. A lot of them don't last past the 25, and a lot of them get started and and aren't successful. as a business owner, you know, we have a lot of business owners that are viewers and listeners to our show. why would a business owner need or or want a podcast? Because I said so. That's what I usually tell people, I'll say, I said you need a podcast, you need a podcast. But no, in in all in in all honesty, it's a very viable way, especially now. I mean, at the recording of this episode, it's it's the summer of 2026. So it's a very viable way in our modern world to elevate your brand, your business, and your credibility. It used to be, you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, if you were the expert, you would write a book and go on a speaking tour or go on a media tour and have that expertise of yours go out to the world that way. And that's how a lot of thought leadership came about, too, in in those days as well, through a lot of people who did a lot of coaching, writing books, hosting their own events, and and then they would they would want to showcase it to the world. podcasting now is a way to do that so that it doesn't matter who you are or what level of business you're at, there's a podcast or place there for you. So I don't advise a brand new business owner to start a podcast. You probably need clients at that point, but certainly if you're if you're trying to get to the next level, and let's say it's you know, you know you're trying to get to quarter million or you're trying to get to that half million mark, and it you need to do something different than just social media posts or drop emails, a podcast is a viable way to do that because it gets you in front of your ideal client, especially when you've positioned your content that way. it also allows you to, you know, keep position it in such a way that they they they take action. You know, if you were on radio years ago, you could say, okay, here's a copy of my book and go buy my book. But now you can have specific calls to action in every episode, which I really like about the space. And it really gives people the opportunity to get to know more of you before they, especially for business owners who have you know high-ticket offers, it make it easy, it makes it easier for them to develop that know, like, and trust factor we hear so much about, and then individuals can decide whether or not they want to do business with you. And that's kind of the metric that I use when I'm chatting with prospects myself about whether or not a podcast is viable for them. I'll say, okay, well, what's it worth to you to not have a podcast? What's the value of a client to you? And if you know, having a podcast means getting a couple of clients a year and a client is worth $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, it's probably worth the investment and the time to be in the podcasting space. Now, I see you've you've identified five myths that potentially hold people back from starting a podcast. you know, you've you've started to touch on why we should have a podcast, a business owner. what are five myths that you've identified? I'm curious to know what these are. Yeah, there's there's five, and every now and again people will throw out other curveballs too and say, Oh, I never thought of that one. But yeah, the five myths are the the the first one is the money myth. You know, I just don't have the money or don't appreciate or understand the value of it. And I just explained that, you know, you know, really, what's the value of not having the show or what's the risk in not having a show? Especially if you know your ideal client is waiting to hear what you have or needs the solution to whatever problem they have. So the first one is the money myth, not understanding the value or thinking that it's going to cost $10 billion. That's an extra that's an actual number. I looked it up. $110 billion to start a show, and you don't need that, right? You can have a very good show. Hey, I love getting clients, and I would love to say that come with a little bit of a budget so we can work together, but you can do it quite simply and still have a massive impact. So, you know, really think about that. The second myth is the competition myth. There's too many out there, so many podcasts out there. Well, you and I both know that there's probably about four million podcasts worldwide. And when people will say that there's too many out there, I'll ask, well, how many websites are out there? And I usually get a chuckle, right? Or how many people are on social media, but that doesn't stop us from having a website. So it's not how many are out there, it's how are you cutting through the noise so you can be seen and you can be heard. and as far as how many, there's roughly about only, unfortunately, only about 800,000 of those shows are active on a regular basis. I'm not going to get into the depth of that, but you've already chatted about it a little bit. the the third myth is the content myth. What am I ever going to talk about on a podcast? And again, by the time a business owner's thinking about this, they have probably done something in their business. They've written a book, sent an email, posted something on social media, written a blog, ran a course, served clients. All of that is content. So it's not about content creation. I like to say it's about content curation. How are you taking all of that knowledge that you have about your industry and the work that you do and curating it into separate podcast episodes? So that's the that's the content myth. The fourth myth is the tech myth. It's too technical. I don't know what to do. I wouldn't know where to start. Well, honestly, it's the same reason why I don't fix my own car. Because if I did, I my spouse would go come running out and saying, it's a Tesla, it doesn't need to be fixed. but on top of that, who do we usually call when we need something done and we don't know how to do it? You know, I don't know about you, but I don't do my own dental surgery or, you know, I've never tried to remove my own appendix. I usually go to the expert that can do that for me. Same thing with the podcast. You can get a lot of questions answered, and maybe even get you started on the path by asking the question, who do I need to have a conversation with, not what do I need to learn or how technical is it? And that's where people get get hung up for sure. Sure. And the final myth is is the time myth. And what I what I like about the show that that you do is you actually answer this question with the show because there's a lot of misconceptions as to how long a podcast episode should be. And when I ask that question when I'm doing workshops, I get anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours. And the honest answer is a podcast episode needs to be as long as it needs to be and as long as your audience will listen to you. So the sweet spot is that 25, 30 minute mark. But if you know your audience is only going to engage you for 15, 20 minutes, then do it 15, 20 minutes. you don't need to have a long form show to have massive impact. And as far as the time goes, because people are busy, which do you think takes more time to record? A two-hour episode or 15-minute episode? Pretty straightforward answer there, right? and then the back end work after that depends on whether you have you know, somebody that you're working with, like us, or if you're doing it yourself. And again, how much technical or how much work you're putting into it after. but again, always err on the side of less is better. There are a lot of long-form podcasts out there that don't get the love that they probably deserve because the audience probably vanishes after about there's a there's a stat out there, and I can't remember who put it out, but Edison Research does a lot of statistical type stuff. And the the stat that I'm I'm putting out there is the closer you get to an hour, your audience will probably stick around for about 30-35 minutes. 93% of the podcast listeners will stick around that long. The closer you get to an hour, it erodes. And by the time you go over an hour, you're at 12% of your audience. So, do you want almost all of your audience, or do you want 12% listening to your long-perform show? So those are the five myths that I try and talk people off the ledge, so to so to speak, so they can navigate the podcast space with a little bit more ease and simplicity. No, I I love those are all great points. And you you mentioned one that standing out from the crowd, you know. This is something that people need to understand. A podcast will help you stand out from the crowd, and it and it can also help you be found through SEO and now through AI search. really telling people, and I've been learning a lot more about this lately, that it's a good idea because there's all the tools in place on most of the podcast producing platforms now where you can get a script in your podcast and put it out as a blog. And that's gonna help you get found for your podcast and potentially for your business, whatever you're talking about through your podcast. And it's really important that you understand that because it's a very helpful tool. It really is. 100%. And with the work you do, obviously you you know that there's a lot there's a lot of what do they call it? AI slop. And I think that the I I don't know for sure, maybe you have some insights, but the the social media platforms are recognizing this, and they're not necessarily dissuading people from putting out there, but people are pretty smart and recognizing that it's not necessarily as authentic as it needs to be or should be. So be aware of that. Yeah, AI is great for helping you save time to create certain things, but definitely make sure it doesn't fall into the slop category because there's so much of it out there that is really pushing people away. Isn't it amazing how how quickly this is taken off? Like a year ago, we were making little caricature posters of ourselves, you know, like as an action figure when you would put the different things that you do, and they would be part of this box set action figure. That was about a year ago or a year and a half ago, and now it's these traditional AI type posters that come out on social media when you're promoting an event or services or some restaurant. It's so apparent that you know it was it was produced by AI, and and and most of the social media platforms now have like a little warning on their AI content involved in this post. the speed that things are are going and it's it's just gonna get it's just gonna move faster. This train isn't stopping it. Yeah, exactly. And what I think is happening too is it's it's it's forcing people in a way, maybe force is the wrong word, but it's really making people sit up and take notice. And because there is so much, if I can use this word, pushback to the inauthentic approach that a lot of you know AI has, a lot of people are looking at podcasting to bring about the the real versions of their content and themselves. And so they're they're really digging in their heels in that sense. Not everyone, of course, is doing that. Some are still you know, doing AI-generated content, and if that works for you, great. But a lot of people are recognizing that people at the end of the day still do business with people, and they want the real you and they want the authenticity, you know, the real version of you, right? What's one thing you wish you did? You're breaking up. I didn't quite catch that. Sorry. What's one thing that you wish you did when you started your own audience? One thing I wish I did. Got help, got training. see, I spent as you said off the top, I spent a lot of years working in radio, and I thought, you know what, this is just an extension of that. I know everything there is to know, and what little pieces are that I might need to learn, it'll be a piece of cake, it'll be easy. There's a lot I didn't know, so I wish I had gotten a lot more insight about how to properly launch the show. insight about here's a here's a really good example. When I launched the show, I was only on Apple Podcasts because someone told me, you know, you only need to be on one platform. Well, in theory, maybe back back in the day that may have sounded good, but there are a heck of a lot more platforms out there than Apple. And as a matter of fact, the most popular platform now, believe it or not, for podcast consumption, is YouTube. Well, imagine going back seven years ago or eight years ago when I was putting my show together and trying to decide which platform. I wasn't that active on YouTube, so I would have picked Apple as an iPhone user. I would have picked Apple, but I would have had a small audience representation of my audience. It wasn't until I actually got into this business of running the podcast agency that it was actually one of my clients taking one of my programs who said, you know, you could go on all the directories, right? It's probably good for your audience growth. And I'm like, oh, I didn't even think of that. So I was almost two years only on Apple, and then I realized, oh my goodness, there's a lot of growth outside that one platform. But again, that goes back to the education and the training and understanding that, yeah, there's conventional media and then there's podcasts or digital media, and even though they're all media, they behave differently. So that's one of the things that I wish I knew or wish I had done was gotten the help that I think that would have made a difference to my the growth of my show, but also the understanding it's not about metrics the same way as it is in conventional media, because the metrics are all about numbers and radio and television print, how many readers, how many listeners, how many viewers. Yeah, podcasting's a little bit different. You can be more niche, which means you don't have the same large presence. Some people do, but you don't need it to have a very successful show, right? So, but again, understanding that would have made a huge difference back several years ago when I was first getting started. Absolutely. And it's almost when when you're doing a podcast, you said you don't need the millions of listeners or views or or what have you. You're you're building a small community. that's that's how I take it here. That I have a lot of business professionals that come on here and coaches that listen to the show. I get a lot of feedback from them. And I I'm trying to build a small community. Yeah, for sure. Well, I think you're absolutely right that you know there's there's that the I the idea that and I I attune it to the speaking world because I've spent years also in this in the speaking world. Right. speakers will vie to get on a stage in front of a hundred or a hundred and fifty or two hundred people doing the conference circuit. there's pushback when you tell a podcast host or you tell a podcast guest, hey, there's only 200 people in this audience, in this podcast audience, people go, that's all. Like so there's this pushback, but the reality is that would you stand on a physical stage and speak to an audience of that size? And people say yes. And the thought of getting in front of 50,000 people or even 10,000 people scares most people, even professional speakers, because they don't know how to handle a crowd that size. Most of them are used to smaller, more intimate, as I said, more conference type events or even smaller a training size, you know, that 20 to 50 size. So don't just discredit the size of your audience at all and understand that having that niche or having that that content that's so well positioned that's attracting every single episode, the 50 people or the 100 people, or whatever the magical number is that you need to be in front of, that's what's most important. Not the I have 10,000 listeners on my show, and how many are actually tapping into your wisdom or your services? And I'll almost guarantee you, at numbers like that, a lot of them it's vanity metrics, and a lot of it's probably less than half of a half of a percent. Yeah, that's the reality. Yeah, absolutely. Now, now, Carl, your your website is podcastsolutionsmadesimple.com. Why don't you just wrap things up and tell our viewers and listeners what they're gonna find on your website and some of the services that you offer yeah sure at podcast solutionsmade simple.com I could have made the website title a little simpler I guess but but hey you know it's probably good for a refresh but on the front page firstly you'll find out a little bit more about us and the team that we have also some of the podcasts that we've helped conceptualize and grow and maintain on a regular basis you'll also find links to my podcast there as well and there's a page that shows you the the team that that we have that puts together and it's not just a a team of editors we have content specialists we have a graphics designer we have video engineers and audio engineers that help put the show together and it's not just a title it's it's these are experts that help you do that and then if you know if there's more information that you'd like to learn about then there's the opportunity to reach out also and grab some time with me always happy to have a call with people wonderful well I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today Carl I like site everyone it's podcastsolutionsmadesimple.com Carl Richards it's a been a pleasure thank you once again for coming on the show thanks so much had a blast all right well the link through social podcast will be back after this short message SPONSOR MESSAGE - SMART POST APP SPONSOR MESSAGE tired of stressing over what to post on social media meet smart post app your all-in-one solution to create schedule and grow your content effortlessly in just a few taps you can generate engaging posts stay consistent and keep your audience coming back for more no more guessing no more burnout just smarter content faster whether you're a business owner creator or entrepreneur Smart Post App offers both premium and pro plans in addition we have new features that have been recently added that include instantly viewing public links to your posts on any network weekly view allowing you to plan hour by hour account groups group your accounts to save time and simplify your workflow and a desktop version which offers a simpler way to stay consistent start posting smarter today at smartpostapp.com Smart Post App because your content should work for you INTERVIEW 2 - BRIAN BECK / PROXURVE SOLUTIONS PAUL WRIGHT & BRIAN BECK hello everyone and welcome back to the Link Thru Social podcast well we have a really nice guest for us today Brian Beck and Brian is from Proxerve Solutions and he works with mid-size organizations to turn AI and cybersecurity from concepts into real business outcomes while most conversations in this space focus on what AI can do Brian focuses on why companies struggle to implement it and how to fix that. His work is all about helping leaders cut through the noise align technology with real workflows and drive measurable impact without increasing risk. Brian welcome to the show thank you very much that was quite the introduction I appreciate it my pleasure you're doing some amazing things obviously on the show we talk a lot about AI every week and I'm excited to speak to you today about some of your views and and perhaps some tips that you can provide our listeners and followers but before we get going why don't you just give us a little bit of information about your background sure so I have been in the industry for 35 plus years I appreciate the earlier comments about how young I look for all the experience I bring appreciate that very much there you go but I grew I grew up in the industry literally you know my dad actually started a business way back in the 80s mid 80s yes dating myself with laser printers and so we became one of the very first certified or authorized I should say service centers around laser printers oh yeah that turned into hey can you fix my laser printers yeah got certified in multiple different manufacturers and then that turned into I can't print so can you take a look at my computer and you know you're talking about the Windows early days of Windows right yes way back in the day and then that turned into network administration hey I got a problem with my server hey can you help us design architecture for it continue to go through certifications continue to go to school with continuing education different levels of degrees and things along those lines but it was the practical application of all of it so I'm learning concept concepts right in a perfect world this is how it works but then I'm putting it into play so I started to learn the variance between the two and the big thing for me was you know when the cloud wound up coming out Microsoft was doing a pretty aggressive launch around it and they came to Joliet Illinois which is where I was living at the time and they did this massive presentation around the cloud and it was confusing as I'll get out. Engineers leading the conversation and focusing to you know the three letter acronyms and how to configure and how to do but I'm sitting in a room full of a mix of engineers and business owners business leaders and I could see the confusion I was confused myself on a lot of it until the very end where it finally clicked I'm talking about a remote secure server. Oh so that started me on a journey of I got to be able to translate this stuff into real business results. So why is this an advantage for your business so that you're investing in a strategy not a as it used to be seen a cost center you know you're taken away from my profitability right with old school IT. So I started that journey continuing education practical application and now you've got right AI and AI is just the next generation or the next flavor where you had the dot-com boom or you had Y2K right everybody thought going from 1999 on your calendar that was it and then all of a sudden two things exactly right 2000 the apocalypse look out the world is gonna stop planes are gonna fall from the sky and yet we all woke up the next day and it started to become okay so how do we continue to move forward? Let's take the fear out of it let's try to understand what it has as an advantage for a business competitive edge and let's start to leverage it. But AI does it in a much different manner because it affects every single level of the organization. So we have to be a little more informed about it and we got to be more I would say intentional about how we're trying to be able to bring it to bear. Absolutely we talk about a lot education and calming the fear because a lot of people are are nervous there's a lot of rhetoric online about pros and cons of the the quick emergence of AI and AI solutions and it it this is one of the reasons I'm doing the show to bring professionals on to to talk to everyone and to educate and and bring awareness to what is really going on out there. And that it's not necessarily actually it's it's not necessarily it is not all bad it's very good. And you know there's there's many things that we can we can do to improve our business now definitely the the new boardroom conversation out there is AI cybersecurity business risk so let's let's talk about cybersecurity first what what what do you do at your company as far as cybersecurity and and protecting your clients yeah I mean we are cybersecurity first and foremost I usually tell people when I first walk into a room or we're having an initial conversation think of me like the concrete guy. So the concrete guy is the guy who comes in and sets the foundation that you're able to build your business or anything else on top of. And if that foundation is shaky or has cracks in it, you have a risk. And that risk when you're talking about the cyber world is large gaping liability associated with all kinds of costs ransomware anything along those lines data injection all of these things that can wind up coming in from the outside or accidentally clicked from the inside right that's usually the biggest way that people wind up coming in. So cybersecurity is really seven layers designed around preventing us from doing something silly and having the PC then or Mac execute on it right or your iOS or mobile device whatever you want to be able to use within the frame of this context. So first thing we got to do is we got to understand what does your technology look like right now? Can it safely support any kind of AI strategy on top of it? And if not let's address those gaps first then we can start to scale okay now let's have those conversations AI where do you want to be able to go how do you want to be able to use it let's make sure from a business standpoint we have a target that we're gonna be shooting for what an ROI looks like time frames are going to be realistic. Education how is this going to be rolled out to the team right there's all these different dynamics that come into play when you're talking about leveraging AI for the benefit of your organization but most people don't connect right now the AI cybersecurity business result. They connect AI business result and it's pie in the sky and I want to do all these overly complex things. We have a different conversation where we tell them if you really want to go fast first we got to slow down. And it seems counterintuitive but if we invest up front in setting that foundation now we're laying the groundwork for a successful launch and also a scalable solution. It's repeatable and now we can start to use that as competitive advantage. So again now you're making an investment you're not spending money. Right exactly and what what are some of the the biggest misconceptions about AI and running certain parts of your business that you have run into from some people that have approached you yeah I think the biggest thing would be they focus more to which agent or what's my favorite tool which is a pretty con pretty easy conversation for me to turn around and just say well what's the goal you're trying to achieve with it you know if you begin with the end in mind you do the whole Stephen Covey approach you're much more informed along the way. So what is it that you really want to do? And typically what I continue to hear back is something. And that that is a quote on multiple occasions something. Something is not an answer right you don't expect expect that or accept that kind of answer when you're talking to your teenager and they say hey why do you want to do this? I just want to do something. No right you continue to drill down. Business leadership that surprises me that the response is literally I want to do something we got to get out of that mindset. We got to figure out it's not the tool it's the goal. So how do we reach that goal and that starts to inform us about the solution that can be then implemented and does my technology even support what that solution is going to look like so we need to project that out and again go back to the foundational elements before we start building towards it. In your own business it's proxurve.com that's PRO it's r be dot com how are you implementing AI into your own business? A lot of it has to do with research validation so being able to make sure information that we're putting up there education wise content rolling out communications for clients that's where we're the most focused currently however as a cybersecurity firm we have been using AI within our tool sets for years to your point earlier right AI is really not new it's the accessibility to it that's new right the term's been around since the 1940s and in varying degrees of complexity and advancement it's been there I mean it's been in your Excel spreadsheets for quite a while now what they term AI and you used to create all those formulas the if then or kind of things now that stuff is considered AI which on some level does a disservice to really what AI has the capability to be able to do because it is so much more than if then or but from a marketing standpoint it latches on it draws people in I mean they say I have AI in my ring please tell me what this is actually doing from an AI standpoint assessing data through various sensors and sending it to the software and the software is then interpreting. It's not really in the ring but the marketing is there and associates it to make things simple but that creates misconceptions and it starts to create opportunities for people to start to spin some wheels that really don't need to be spun but it sells products. So let's be intelligent about what we're trying to be able to use it for and that that's the way that we try to approach it. If we're gonna leverage AI it's got to be for an intelligent use that looks for a business result that provides an improved culture internally enables our team but also provides value to the clients that we serve. So we mentioned earlier about fear and in the news lately there's been a lot of talk about certain ai agents chat GPT and couple of others where the AI has breached their securities and it it again it's it's it's brought out the fear mongers oh look look what happens when we let ai get out of control skylight yeah it's it's all it's over the world's over what you know what what what would be your comments you know on on these types of fears of people yeah I think it this also goes back to some of the conversations that we have with business leadership around AI and why those foundational elements are so critically important before you start throwing agents into your environment or at the same time you don't even know what your people are using in the environment because you haven't done policy or your current IT firm or IT team internally isn't just they're not up to date right they're not investing in that continuing education to understand evolving needs, compliance needs even just day-to-day type stuff. So if you don't have your cybersecurity practices up to date these newer advanced models will exploit it. And it's not that they're designed to exploit it it's the questions that are being asked and it's the fact that guardrails are not being properly set up for your environment to leverage the proper use of the tool. And the guys who are inventing these things who are continuing to invest and evolve these models even they they've been saying it for a little while but there's that competitive need to be able to drive business forward and we can't fall behind what other countries are trying to do. They can't fall behind just because they feel ethically hey this is the right thing to do but they have been continuously raising their hand saying we got to put some governance around this stuff because these models are going to evolve and they're gonna outpace cybersecurity. It's not that they're outpacing at least in my opinion they obviously are at a much higher pay grade than I am but I don't see it as it's outpacing cybersecurity it's outpacing cybersecurity practices that's in the general public. So how are they addressing what they're doing? That's part of the reason you guys actually may recognize I'm in a conference room and I'm punched over a little bit because I'm at a conference helping with a large not-for-profit launch a statewide initiative and part of it is around a vast majority of it is around proper cybersecurity practices to protect them so that they can protect the boards the donors all the different organizations and communities that they're affiliated with and how all those things intersect. Well the AI guys are raising their hands for the same reason. Most small to medium business which is a vast majority of the businesses across the United States it's not enterprise believe it or not small to medium business they all have varying practices and if they're gonna be leveraging those tools inside their varying practices there's going to be problems. And breach incidents are just going to continue to be part of the norm and that puts a lot of people at risk. A lot of people a lot of wealth a lot of liability all over the place you got to think about the insurance ramifications of this and the cost associated to that that trickles out to the general public it's a it's a bigger picture thing rather than just what I'm doing inside my walls. Yeah it's inside my wall has effects that trickle outside of it. We got to think bigger absolutely and and you're right it's up to business leaders governments to put these things in place the strain this train isn't gonna slow down it's just gonna get faster and it's it's up to them and exactly companies are trying they really are trying to imagine about your generation you really think about where we've come out of twenty years oh it's it's incredible and you think about you know businesses a couple of years from now if they don't have this stuff kind of figured out and part of their culture when they're trying to attract talent and recruit talent let's say out of college my son just literally started last week well actually Monday. Monday was his first full day of college congratulations thank you I am incredibly proud of my son I I I could go on a whole show probably for a week and just talk about how incredible my son is I'm very fortunate but his one of the first things that he showed me was hey dad take a look at this and showed me on his phone the course curriculum for AI literacy for his university and man this stuff is starting in elementary school but when you got colleges that are coming out as part of your orientation to get ready to start attending classes for AI literacy and orientation when they come out they are going to be that is just part of what they do. That's gonna be part of what they look at. So when you're an employer trying to attract that talent to come into your organization they're gonna be evaluating you just as much as you're evaluating them. Because they're gonna have options they're gonna have opportunities and right depending on where they rank in the class and all that kind of fun stuff. Yes of course there's variables that go into everything but if they're gonna come in or even people who are only a couple of years removed from college who maybe are already starting that upward trajectory and they've got some momentum behind them and you're trying to recruit them in if you don't have these tools available that's going to compliment them, they're gonna see that as holding them back. So if you want to be able to attract future talent this isn't just about what I'm doing today. It is setting up today sets up tomorrow and let's make the right investment. So that again we it is an investment to help my organization today but future recruitment of talent to continue my growth trajectory and my success. Right like it's it's we're already in a bad situation as far as quality talent that's out there for certain skilled jobs and and so very good point. the companies should be looking to the future and to implement all these all these different things. Brian we have to wrap things up in a few minutes but I'd like to talk a little bit more about your company Proxerve Solutions and I mentioned it's proxurve.com and we'll include the links in the descriptions depending if you're watching or listening to the podcast but tell us a little bit more your company and if we visit the website what type of things you offer and how they can reach you. Sure. well Proxerv has been around since 2002 so longstanding in the community long-term relationships we are about evaluating culture of organization as much as we are about execution and the results that we provide on on all sides of the table so if we make a commitment we follow through if we're gonna set an expectation we want to make sure that we can meet or beat it we will be the first ones to raise our hand and let you know if what's being requested is going to be unrealistic or if we would not be the right fit. The goal is to always have and develop long-term relationships and a vast majority of that is how you communicate in the culture right and also obviously proving results we've been very fortunate being able to do that ranked on the MSP 501 top ranked in Indiana 2026 so we're gonna look for two years in a row in 2027 but right now let's celebrate 2026 a couple other accolades that come along with it within the community you can find us check out the website at as you mentioned proxerve.com you should find a little bit of a story about us there and our focus towards the process we walk through so that both sides can evaluate if it's going to be a good long-term fit from a cybersecurity first perspective into AI solutions but that drive alignment and business results and scalability that's where we're focused to so if you go to the website and you like what you see you can click on the info link that'll send a message to me I'll review the message obviously and then circle back with you and see if a conversation makes sense or you can find me at LinkedIn and if you search for Brian Beck Proxy I guarantee you I am the only one that comes up our name is quite unique which sometimes is an advantage and sometimes it's a how do you pronounce that? Which is sometimes a fun conversation. But send me a connection request or shoot me a message on LinkedIn happy to respond there as well and continue the conversation if it makes sense. Wonderful well it's been certainly a pleasure Brian and I really appreciate you taking some time. I know you're you're at your show there and I encourage everyone to check out Brian's website proxurve.com and we'd love to have you on the show again in the future because cybersecurity is so important and I'd like to continue that conversation at some point that's wonderful. Well that's Brian Beck and the link through social podcast will be back right after this short message. SPONSOR MESSAGE - TICKETPORTX SPONSOR MESSAGE Introducing TicketportX multi-day events hosting a festival, seminar, conference, tournament or event series. No more manually sending tickets 24 hours later. No more scrambling to issue comps and catch up with attendees. With TicketportX, everything happens in real time. 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