Dan Shoemaker, CRO at Accurate: Public Service to Corporate Juggernaut. His Story.

[00:00:00] I got into a strategy and corporate development role. I went from kind of sales and marketing

[00:00:05] into a strategy and corporate development, and we did. I spent two years doing a couple

[00:00:10] different deals, doing everything from sourcing opportunities to diligence, to closing

[00:00:15] deals, we sold the business to a private equity firm. I was working with bankers and lawyers

[00:00:21] and it kind of took me back to my campaign days, right? Because when you're doing a deal,

[00:00:25] as you guys know, it's the same thing. It's this frenetic pace of activity from the time

[00:00:32] that you sign that L-O-I to sign that you get it actually closed, the diligence is a really

[00:00:39] in depth process but it's kind of the exacting.

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[00:01:21] Hey, this is William Fidgett, Ryan Leary. You are listening and watching Inside the Sea

[00:01:29] Suite. We've got Dan on from Accurate and we're going to learn all about his journey

[00:01:35] to the Sea Suite. So we've known Dan for a while, done some work with him but we don't

[00:01:40] know anything about his journey. So we're along for the ride as well. Dan, would you do

[00:01:45] us a favor and introduce yourself and what you're doing now?

[00:01:49] Yeah, absolutely. Listen, super excited to be here. William, Ryan, thank you guys for

[00:01:53] having me. Sure. I am currently the Chief Revenue Officer at Accurate

[00:01:58] and we're a global provider of employment screening services and I have the pleasure

[00:02:03] of working with our full go-to-market team. So we're thinking from marketing to sales,

[00:02:09] on-board, implementation, customer service, account management, a couple hundred employees

[00:02:15] worldwide.

[00:02:17] So Chief Revenue Officer, that's a new wish I guess because it's a Sea Suite position

[00:02:26] and the way that you all have its structure, I would assume you've got marketing go-to-market.

[00:02:30] You've got everything under you.

[00:02:32] Yeah, it's RCEO Tim Dot was very sort of exacting in the way he wanted to structure the team.

[00:02:40] So he wanted to have like RCEO has everything on the back office side so operations, technology,

[00:02:47] development and then I've got everything on the front-off. So essentially I get the chance

[00:02:52] to work with the team and kind of manage the whole customer journey from how we go out

[00:02:58] to market and reach clients and prospects, how we communicate with them, how we sell to

[00:03:02] them, how we support them. So it's been interesting.

[00:03:07] So you have customers as well?

[00:03:11] Yeah, yeah so I have our account management team as well as our customer service team.

[00:03:16] So all of you have actions with our clients and with their candidates are.

[00:03:20] That helps. I think that helps. That's a closed loop because yeah, the customers are

[00:03:26] also people that you up sell. So there's a sales component as well as a support kind of

[00:03:31] all the other things that they need. So I actually, I like that. Every model is a little bit

[00:03:37] different. You go into some organization, they've got sales, they've got marketing.

[00:03:41] And then there's a whole lot of blame going both directions and so I kind of like the

[00:03:47] buck stops with you in this model if it deals with revenue, it lands on your desk.

[00:03:54] And the one thing I really like is the relationship between marketing and sales.

[00:03:59] You know, that's kind of like this historical cat and dog relationship right within the corporate

[00:04:04] world. And having both of those teams completely aligned has been fantastic.

[00:04:10] I mean, it's just as you know, we've kind of lowered all of those silos that are, you

[00:04:15] know, historically see between sales and marketing said like guys, we're in this together to

[00:04:19] the business. So that's good. Great.

[00:04:24] So Dan, I love the story of today, but I love even more this story of how you got here,

[00:04:31] which is obviously the purpose of the CSU, right? So let's travel back in the time.

[00:04:36] Let's start digging in. We don't have to go to infinite toddler stage.

[00:04:41] I know I'm out of luck.

[00:04:43] I think we're years though.

[00:04:46] Critical years, but was your first word and start there.

[00:04:51] Do you ever remember your first word?

[00:04:54] I don't.

[00:04:56] Now, I'm sure my mother who is 91, but tell me that.

[00:05:00] You got good genes to be around.

[00:05:03] So let's so so tell us about little Dan.

[00:05:07] How did you get started in business?

[00:05:11] What's your story?

[00:05:13] So my story really began, I would say.

[00:05:19] I mean, like everyone probably with within what kind of late high school college.

[00:05:24] So in high school, I was almost a dropout.

[00:05:29] I barely got out of high school.

[00:05:31] I feel like I heard this story.

[00:05:33] We're similar stories very good.

[00:05:35] I tell people I was I graduated 25th of my class was 900 students and people are like,

[00:05:40] it's awesome.

[00:05:41] Like from the bottom.

[00:05:42] Well, William, you and I were in a very similar position.

[00:05:47] So I had a lot of fun in high school.

[00:05:50] I spent a lot of time as I kind of affectionately called smoking and joking.

[00:05:56] We did a lot of smoking.

[00:05:58] 100%.

[00:05:59] And mistakes were made.

[00:06:00] Yeah, mistakes were made, but a lot of lessons were learned too.

[00:06:04] Right.

[00:06:05] So I think, you know, and I got out of that.

[00:06:07] Got a lot of that out of my system in high school.

[00:06:09] So I barely got into college and I followed a good friend of mine to your real small school in the middle of Missouri.

[00:06:16] I grew up outside DC and Virginia.

[00:06:19] And, and I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do.

[00:06:23] So someone told me like, hey, you should just study something you really love.

[00:06:27] And I love geography.

[00:06:29] I am a, I am a, you can probably see this map.

[00:06:32] I'm not saying that.

[00:06:33] I was about to say.

[00:06:34] I am, I am just passionate about geopolitical issues, geo like economic issues, cultures.

[00:06:42] I'm just passionate about that.

[00:06:44] So I was like, okay, I'm going to study that.

[00:06:46] No clue what that would do for me after that.

[00:06:50] So I spent two years in Missouri decided that's not where I wanted to be.

[00:06:54] I took some time off went to community college and then got into Virginia Tech,

[00:06:59] which is where I wanted to get from, which had a great program kind of moving up the ladder academically,

[00:07:05] which was good.

[00:07:06] And then I realized I really wanted to be in politics and policy.

[00:07:10] So my mother was a big influence on that.

[00:07:13] She'd always been involved in politics at a grassroots level.

[00:07:16] And she was a huge influence on me and me and that.

[00:07:19] And so I did some internships on the hill.

[00:07:22] I did some internships with campaigns.

[00:07:25] And when I graduated from tech, I jumped into political campaigns in Virginia.

[00:07:30] And I was in retail politics for about three years and a variety of different roles.

[00:07:37] Campaign manager, political director on congressional races, low-state housing.

[00:07:43] So you got to see how the sausages made?

[00:07:45] Oh yeah, so I got to.

[00:07:46] Yes.

[00:07:47] And what I loved about being in retail politics is your job is different literally every day.

[00:07:55] Right one day, one day you are talking to the press.

[00:07:58] You're talking the Washington Post.

[00:07:59] You're talking like Peter Baker at the last hour.

[00:08:01] Wow.

[00:08:02] The next day you are headed out literature out of high school football.

[00:08:05] Right?

[00:08:06] You know, like,

[00:08:07] the next day you're at a, you know, you're at a high dollar fundraiser meeting Newt Gingrich or,

[00:08:14] you know, governor so and so.

[00:08:16] And then the next day you're blowing up, blowing up balloons at an event.

[00:08:19] You know, so it's,

[00:08:20] you literally have this compressed time,

[00:08:23] you know,

[00:08:24] the campaign is only typically six months long.

[00:08:27] And every day you have like 100 things to do.

[00:08:30] You wear a hundred different hats and I've got a lot of volunteers to manage as well.

[00:08:34] You have a lot of volunteers to manage.

[00:08:36] So which is money.

[00:08:38] Oh yeah.

[00:08:39] Now when you say retail politics just for,

[00:08:42] well for me actually.

[00:08:44] And probably some of the audience as well.

[00:08:47] What does that mean?

[00:08:48] So that's really campaign bought like can you.

[00:08:51] Okay.

[00:08:52] All right.

[00:08:53] So you're,

[00:08:54] so you also have to put your marketing sales hat on right?

[00:08:56] Yeah.

[00:08:57] That is a lot.

[00:08:58] A lot of that is about,

[00:08:59] you know, selling the candidate and selling the vision and all of those things.

[00:09:02] So I love that.

[00:09:04] About three years into it.

[00:09:06] I became well one we lost a lot.

[00:09:09] I was not very fortunate.

[00:09:11] Like the goal in,

[00:09:12] in campaign politics as you win.

[00:09:15] And then let her stand and stand into some great job right?

[00:09:18] All of a sudden.

[00:09:19] So it's so that great job.

[00:09:21] I was not fortunate enough to have a lot of those trends.

[00:09:24] Did you pick the wrong candidate a little bit less?

[00:09:27] What's that?

[00:09:28] Did you pick the wrong candidates or you were just bad at your job?

[00:09:31] Yes.

[00:09:32] I was question.

[00:09:34] That's a lot of question.

[00:09:35] Yeah.

[00:09:36] I'm saying,

[00:09:37] could you just stop?

[00:09:38] Could you just stop?

[00:09:39] It is.

[00:09:40] It's not possible.

[00:09:42] I think you don't go with it both.

[00:09:45] Okay.

[00:09:46] You picked the wrong horse.

[00:09:48] And yeah.

[00:09:49] I picked some,

[00:09:50] I mean,

[00:09:51] honestly, work for some amazing people.

[00:09:53] But what I saw was that.

[00:09:57] This was kind of the rise in the early 90s,

[00:09:59] the rise of the political consult and the political consultant would come in

[00:10:03] and take the candidate and essentially reposition the candidate,

[00:10:07] the way in which they think that they were going to win.

[00:10:10] Right.

[00:10:11] Sometimes that works, sometimes it didn't.

[00:10:13] So I started to sort of see as you were saying,

[00:10:15] William earlier or earlier,

[00:10:16] like how the sausage was made.

[00:10:17] And I became a little less idealistic.

[00:10:19] And I saw people getting changed,

[00:10:22] you know,

[00:10:23] sort of like,

[00:10:24] for instance,

[00:10:25] I worked for this guy in North Carolina.

[00:10:27] He was running for governor in a gubernatorial primary.

[00:10:31] He was the former mayor of Charlotte,

[00:10:34] who I'm just sitting in North Carolina.

[00:10:36] He played basketball under Dean Smith.

[00:10:39] So,

[00:10:40] I mean, talk about credentials.

[00:10:42] And when he was 19,

[00:10:44] he walked down to his local Army recruiting station

[00:10:49] and volunteered to go to the Vietnam,

[00:10:51] to go to the Vietnam.

[00:10:53] One of the bronze stars.

[00:10:54] And he had this amazing story,

[00:10:56] amazing story,

[00:10:57] just a wonderful person.

[00:11:00] And it was a great example of how, you know,

[00:11:02] people came in and made him into something that he was not.

[00:11:05] And I was lost.

[00:11:06] And I think that was kind of like my last,

[00:11:08] like, okay, I'm done with this.

[00:11:10] And that's when I kind of got more passion about public policy.

[00:11:14] And I'm like,

[00:11:15] okay,

[00:11:16] I get the politics,

[00:11:17] I get the political side,

[00:11:18] but I really am more interested in how do we create good policy

[00:11:21] and how can I be involved in that?

[00:11:23] And so,

[00:11:24] I worked as a lobbyist for a while for an aviation

[00:11:26] trade association at DC.

[00:11:28] Yeah.

[00:11:29] And then I spent three years working for the governor in Virginia as.

[00:11:34] What's governor?

[00:11:36] Jim Gilmore.

[00:11:37] So it was the mid-1990s.

[00:11:40] Yeah, it was before Warren.

[00:11:41] Yeah.

[00:11:42] Yeah, exactly.

[00:11:43] It was right after Governor Allen and before I came to do it.

[00:11:48] Anyway.

[00:11:49] Back then it was pretty much Virginia.

[00:11:51] It was pretty much Democrat, right?

[00:11:53] It was an evolving,

[00:11:55] it was kind of like an evolving,

[00:11:57] more of an evolving red state I would say.

[00:12:00] I hate to use stuff.

[00:12:01] Really?

[00:12:02] But it was becoming more of a,

[00:12:03] it was becoming more conservative like the blue dog Democrats were starting to lose.

[00:12:08] Right.

[00:12:09] The national picture was changing.

[00:12:11] Yep.

[00:12:12] And it was an amazing experience.

[00:12:15] I mean working in the governor's office, working for the secretary.

[00:12:19] That time I was working for the Secretary of Transportation.

[00:12:22] And we had like, you know, five state agencies,

[00:12:25] billion plus dollar budget.

[00:12:27] You know, it was in constantly debriefing her and the governor and working with state legislators.

[00:12:33] I mean, it was just an amazing job.

[00:12:35] That's cool.

[00:12:36] Yeah.

[00:12:37] And so that was a great,

[00:12:39] just a great experience of just working at kind of that executive level.

[00:12:44] And, you know,

[00:12:46] you know, it seems like sales in both of these things, right?

[00:12:50] So in the politics of all these,

[00:12:52] either the retail politics say you're selling.

[00:12:55] Yeah.

[00:12:56] Whether or not we want to call it that or not,

[00:12:58] but you're,

[00:12:59] you're sales and marketing.

[00:13:00] You're actually positioning.

[00:13:01] You're doing all that stuff.

[00:13:02] And even in policy,

[00:13:04] there's an element of sales of getting people on the same page.

[00:13:09] Right?

[00:13:10] Just the building consensus.

[00:13:12] So,

[00:13:13] so you're honing your skills skills way before sales event.

[00:13:17] Interns the pitchers.

[00:13:18] Yeah, no doubt about it.

[00:13:20] And I think you're right.

[00:13:21] You're,

[00:13:22] you're positioning your selling ideas.

[00:13:26] You're out in the marketplace too.

[00:13:28] Yeah.

[00:13:29] You know,

[00:13:30] constituents about.

[00:13:31] Is this something that they like or they don't like?

[00:13:33] Or, you know,

[00:13:34] and so there's,

[00:13:35] there's a lot of those elements.

[00:13:36] There was a lot of communication opportunities for me to go out and speak on behalf of the governor

[00:13:41] and events.

[00:13:42] And, you know,

[00:13:43] I do like the ribbon cutting ceremonies of this,

[00:13:46] you know,

[00:13:47] this new bypass and,

[00:13:48] you know,

[00:13:49] this new bridge and,

[00:13:50] you know,

[00:13:51] that was cool.

[00:13:52] Yeah, it was amazing interacting with the press.

[00:13:54] You know,

[00:13:55] when you're 24

[00:13:56] and you get an opportunity to sit down with a chief executive of a state

[00:14:01] and debrief them,

[00:14:03] you know,

[00:14:04] fly with them to DC or events

[00:14:08] or, you know,

[00:14:09] just the exposure was great.

[00:14:11] Right.

[00:14:12] Right.

[00:14:13] I mean, it was about really kind of instilling confidence in your ideas and instilling confidence

[00:14:19] in how you communicate.

[00:14:20] And I think those are things that were just pivotal for me

[00:14:24] for all of my next steps.

[00:14:26] You know,

[00:14:27] just to,

[00:14:28] when you kind of get the confidence of being in the room, you know,

[00:14:31] that's such a huge,

[00:14:32] you know,

[00:14:33] sort of a huge barrier to overcome.

[00:14:35] How did you,

[00:14:36] you know,

[00:14:37] how did you get that confidence?

[00:14:38] So you're almost a high school dropout.

[00:14:40] You barely get to college.

[00:14:42] Right.

[00:14:43] I mean, I'm talking about the good stuff.

[00:14:45] Yeah.

[00:14:46] I think it's you.

[00:14:47] Let's be honest.

[00:14:48] I think it was a two-bott.

[00:14:50] So that's probably where I was right.

[00:14:53] I think.

[00:14:54] Look at us.

[00:14:56] But then I didn't take finished one.

[00:14:59] I think at least once.

[00:15:00] But there you go.

[00:15:02] There you go.

[00:15:03] Six years of Spanish.

[00:15:04] I don't know any words.

[00:15:06] Which are actually.

[00:15:07] Yeah.

[00:15:08] So so you're 24,

[00:15:09] you're sitting in front of the chief executive of your,

[00:15:11] of your,

[00:15:12] of your state, right?

[00:15:14] So how do you do this?

[00:15:15] How do you,

[00:15:16] how do you sit there and as 24 and how do you look at many eyes

[00:15:18] and say you need to listen to me?

[00:15:20] Yeah, it's a great question.

[00:15:22] It's all about,

[00:15:24] in my mind,

[00:15:25] it's all about preparation.

[00:15:26] Right.

[00:15:27] And it's all about,

[00:15:28] you know, just being prepared and anticipating questions.

[00:15:32] And honestly,

[00:15:33] I've worked with some amazing people.

[00:15:35] Obviously a lot of lawyers.

[00:15:37] But just a lot of people who have been in politics and policy

[00:15:41] for a long time.

[00:15:43] And you watch and learn.

[00:15:45] I'm definitely someone that likes to listen more than speak.

[00:15:48] And so I spend a lot of time my first,

[00:15:50] probably six months,

[00:15:52] you know,

[00:15:53] on the sideline,

[00:15:54] just listening.

[00:15:55] Yeah.

[00:15:56] And just sort of watching how he liked to be debriefed.

[00:16:01] But it really is all about preparation.

[00:16:04] Right. And being the more prepared you are,

[00:16:06] obvious point,

[00:16:07] the more confident you are and what you're saying.

[00:16:10] And it is all about anticipating what that next question is.

[00:16:13] Because he was the attorney general.

[00:16:15] So he was a,

[00:16:16] now he was an attorney by trade.

[00:16:18] Right.

[00:16:19] And so we all know when you're talking to attorneys,

[00:16:22] you know, they can,

[00:16:23] they like to talk one.

[00:16:25] And they like to question.

[00:16:26] And they like to poke holes in your line of reasoning.

[00:16:29] And so when you're going in and talking to someone about.

[00:16:32] Why you should sign this bill or why you should support this,

[00:16:36] you know, policy,

[00:16:38] you need to be prepared for really more of the downside than the upside.

[00:16:42] Right.

[00:16:43] Because that's kind of where he was going to go in the conversation.

[00:16:46] So I really hone my skills about being prepared.

[00:16:50] And all it takes is going into one of those conversations

[00:16:53] and not being prepared to learn.

[00:16:55] Right.

[00:16:57] You don't want to get one shot.

[00:17:00] So I did that for three years.

[00:17:06] And I really wanted to stay in transportation policy.

[00:17:10] I loved it had like the,

[00:17:12] the sort of the geopolitical elements to it.

[00:17:16] I loved that it was pretty a,

[00:17:18] not pretty nonpartisan, you know?

[00:17:20] Right.

[00:17:21] Right.

[00:17:22] And I was,

[00:17:23] I was, I was actually in Virginia.

[00:17:26] The governor can only serve one term.

[00:17:28] So he's a very powerful governor but they can only serve one term.

[00:17:31] Right.

[00:17:32] And at that time,

[00:17:33] I was then going to go into the Bush administration and a DOT job.

[00:17:37] And I was really excited about that and the guy that I was going to potentially work for.

[00:17:42] His nomination was being held up in the Senate for whatever reason.

[00:17:48] And so as his nomination has been held up and be held up.

[00:17:51] At the same time, I was out of the job.

[00:17:53] My wife was pregnant with our first child.

[00:17:56] And I was starting to get nervous and she wanted to stay at home.

[00:18:01] And so I got this kind of call from a friend who was like,

[00:18:07] hey, hey, there's this company that's looking for someone to build out kind of,

[00:18:12] this is Pope right post 9-11.

[00:18:14] Right.

[00:18:15] Build out a sort of a government marketing arm

[00:18:19] of this background screening business that's really solid in the transportation space.

[00:18:24] They're, they were at the time they were called DAC services.

[00:18:28] And the person was Billy Lee who was the person that was that I talked to who was going to hire him.

[00:18:32] You know, I was like, okay, I'll take this job and yeah, we'll move for which.

[00:18:35] The DC and you know,

[00:18:37] it's temporary.

[00:18:38] Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:39] I'll wait on the sidelines until this guy gets, you know,

[00:18:42] can flood original jump back into this great public policy career that I had planned.

[00:18:48] And you know, obviously as they say the rest is history.

[00:18:52] But as I jumped into, you know, sort of the business side,

[00:18:57] the private, the commercial side, I just sort of fell in love.

[00:19:01] I mean, I fell in love with all of the things that I had learned

[00:19:06] that we were talking about like in sales, sales and marketing,

[00:19:08] how I could use those, you know, to my advantage in the commercial side going out and talking to.

[00:19:14] At this time, we were talking to federal and state agencies about how we could help them vet everything from hazmat drivers to, you know,

[00:19:25] all of the things that they were trying to do to create a more secure transportation infrastructure post 9-11.

[00:19:33] So loved it.

[00:19:34] Absolutely loved it.

[00:19:35] Or was there, there needs at that point was it over the criminal record drug testing and safety?

[00:19:44] Like what was the things that drove them to either screen people in the screen,

[00:19:48] or people out whatever your perspective is, but like what drove their decisions.

[00:19:53] Yeah, it was, I mean, it was definitely they were looking for obviously criminal history.

[00:19:57] Yeah.

[00:19:58] I mean, they were really interested in understanding the background of individuals that were.

[00:20:04] I mean, obviously you had this such scenario where these people hijack planes and crash them into buildings.

[00:20:08] So probably a heightened sense at that point.

[00:20:12] Yeah, we got to get a sense of who are these people that are on the road and especially folks that are traveling with back then did all contractors also.

[00:20:21] You know, if you if you contracted with the state, you also had to go through screening.

[00:20:28] Because that happened at one point. I at least there did in Texas it did.

[00:20:32] Yeah, there were some programs that did that where they decided that they wanted to make sure that there was vetting across even private.

[00:20:40] The state facilities and yeah, right, right.

[00:20:44] Okay.

[00:20:45] So I got into this gig in kind of a marketing and sales role.

[00:20:50] And this business was private equity owned, and it was bought pretty soon after that by a larger company that was doing background investigations in the federal government, this company called USIS.

[00:21:05] And then I just sort of decided, well, not need to sort of start to craft a plan.

[00:21:11] Like what do I really want to do?

[00:21:14] And I am I am a planner so don't like everything that I told you like going from.

[00:21:20] There was intention barely getting out of ice.

[00:21:23] But when I did barely at a high school and got into college, when I got into college, I realized okay now I got to start to think about what I wanted to do.

[00:21:32] Sure.

[00:21:33] I'm going to start putting something.

[00:21:35] Well, the moment you said your wife was pregnant is at that point it probably is like I need to kind of.

[00:21:42] Yeah.

[00:21:43] I got sell her up.

[00:21:45] We may not be talking to you today for a wife or pregnant and the Senate wasn't holding up the nomination.

[00:21:52] We may not even know who you are.

[00:21:55] Yeah.

[00:21:56] Exactly.

[00:21:57] And and roads are not blue or red.

[00:21:59] That's one of the best things about that particular area of politics is infrastructure, but everybody cares about it.

[00:22:06] Everybody does yeah, which is which was so much fun to work in because.

[00:22:11] Yeah.

[00:22:12] And you also saw the fruit of your labor right?

[00:22:14] Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:15] You can you can literally deliver something.

[00:22:21] It's not an esoteric which a lot of that stuff can be esoteric and transitory meaning it doesn't stay.

[00:22:30] One regime will have it and the next regime will wipe it out and just kind of goes back and forth.

[00:22:35] And you build a bridge over river bridges and going anywhere.

[00:22:41] Bridges go stay there.

[00:22:42] I mean, it could go somewhere and we hope it does.

[00:22:45] Good point.

[00:22:46] I'll take the biggest projects I worked with and you guys have probably been in the DC area many times.

[00:22:51] Yeah, was the new Woodrow Wilson bridge so we opened that and worked very closely with Maryland and DC on that.

[00:22:59] And then like there's this interchange it's called the Springfield interchange where 395 95 and the Beltway me which was a massive.

[00:23:10] Probably.

[00:23:12] And then Metro out to Dallas.

[00:23:15] So those were three projects that we worked really closely on and again it's kind of one of those things like I mean I wasn't you know pivotal to any of them, but I was involved in that but it's like you can see.

[00:23:26] Like these things made a big difference obviously in the infrastructure in that area.

[00:23:30] I did I spent three summers in DC on internships with the Smithsonian's two of most most audience in the national park.

[00:23:39] So I was there.

[00:23:41] And this would be the 90s is me late 90s and late 90s.

[00:23:45] I was there without a car using the Metro to go everywhere.

[00:23:49] Great system.

[00:23:50] Yeah, I loved it.

[00:23:52] The when you were doing the lobbying.

[00:23:56] What is is that case street that has all the lobbyists like what's the street that has all the lobbyists?

[00:24:01] Yeah, case street is the street of street although our shop was not on case.

[00:24:06] Well, the rich, rich little hot.

[00:24:09] We were a little smaller.

[00:24:12] Like, but yeah, everyone knows from like Capitol Hill to case street.

[00:24:17] Oh, yeah, there's some bars and restaurants along the way in between those two places that it's it's all politicians.

[00:24:25] Yeah, so yeah.

[00:24:27] That's interesting.

[00:24:29] I want to make sure that I understand the background of background screening in what I've been told.

[00:24:37] When it was first started, it was PIs.

[00:24:40] It was private investigators that would do a lot of manual.

[00:24:44] Yeah, they go out and follow a person and they go out question and neighbors, you know, like typical P.I. work.

[00:24:49] They go and do all that stuff to find out what was there then they build a report.

[00:24:53] So the whole whole thing was manual and it was.

[00:24:56] You know, human centric technology.

[00:24:59] Billy is going to go follow up a person that you're thinking about hiring, you know, and if he can dig up anything about you should do this then he's going to put it in a report.

[00:25:09] That's it now.

[00:25:11] It's dated obviously because it's much different now, but what part of that spectrum did you come in on whether still PIs involved when you first started.

[00:25:24] Yeah, not really.

[00:25:27] So when I first started the industry was still extremely fragmented, but they were, you know, we were doing a lot of work.

[00:25:37] The effects.

[00:25:40] Right.

[00:25:41] We had very thin.

[00:25:44] Yeah, we did.

[00:25:45] We had technology platforms that people get order and see results and see.

[00:25:50] They were super basic, but like you know think about gathering records from courthouses.

[00:25:56] Like, you know, 4,000 courthouses around the country.

[00:26:00] That a digital digital or digital us.

[00:26:03] Yeah, facts and mail.

[00:26:04] So there was huge mail in facts operations to get that information, which obviously has changed significantly.

[00:26:12] It wants to turn around on a screen.

[00:26:15] And in number of hours or days at when you first started.

[00:26:19] It was at least five days.

[00:26:22] I want people to hear that because they're like, it's not happening fast enough.

[00:26:28] You understand where we've come from and how many of these people got through that shouldn't have gotten through.

[00:26:35] Yeah, I mean, yeah, shortcuts were probably made.

[00:26:42] And it still is very much more of an investigation.

[00:26:48] Yes, as if you, if you're going to get a security clearance at the Department of Defense.

[00:26:54] We actually had an investigator that had your case and they would go out and interview you.

[00:26:59] And they would interview your employer.

[00:27:01] They would interview your neighbors.

[00:27:03] Oh yeah, they would interview your references and they would create a report.

[00:27:09] That was a much more in depth process than kind of on the commercial side.

[00:27:18] So when I started at USIS, I got quickly into not just sales but then I was interested in strategy.

[00:27:29] I started to become really fascinated by business strategy.

[00:27:32] At the same time, I decided, you know what I think?

[00:27:35] I was looking back to school and get an MBA.

[00:27:40] Because I didn't have, and I had thought about going back to school to get a law degree and then someone with people were telling me like,

[00:27:45] do you want to be a lawyer?

[00:27:46] I was like, no, I don't.

[00:27:47] And I like, then don't pursue that.

[00:27:49] But I was looking for, I was looking for something that would kind of amplify my knowledge.

[00:27:55] You know, coming out of this, I was in politics and policy and then I wanted to sort of get this amplification going into business.

[00:28:04] So I went back to school, got an MBA and got super interested in a couple of things.

[00:28:10] One was, did you take two years off and went and did a full-time program?

[00:28:15] I did a hard time program.

[00:28:17] Yeah, that's hard.

[00:28:18] When I started, I had my second child.

[00:28:20] Oh yeah, thanks.

[00:28:23] And then I ended up having my third.

[00:28:26] So people don't know how difficult that is to juggle work, family, and the MBA.

[00:28:33] It's not like they, it's not like they lessen the program.

[00:28:37] That's what most people don't know when I said, I'm going to do my MBA part time.

[00:28:41] Like, you understand that the full-time two year program for most students, it's killer.

[00:28:48] Like it's designed to kill you because a whole bit is it gone?

[00:28:52] Like they don't, they don't make it like halfway for the part time people there.

[00:28:56] You know, it's the same.

[00:28:58] At this time too, I got tapped to go out to of all places, Tulsa, Oklahoma on a weekly basis

[00:29:07] to run their marketing team.

[00:29:09] So we had this commercial screening business that was in transition and I was tapped to do this for six months.

[00:29:18] And so I was getting on a plane every Monday, flying out there doing homework at a hotel and doing a lot of playing.

[00:29:24] Oh yeah.

[00:29:25] It was a, it was an interesting sort of two years.

[00:29:33] But in that two year, the program that I went to you had an international focus.

[00:29:37] And so we did these kind of capstone projects.

[00:29:41] One was in Turkey, one was in India where we had, we did consulting work for companies.

[00:29:46] We did consulting work for Infosys in India, which at that time was like this small BPO.

[00:29:53] Yeah.

[00:29:54] And I got a chance to go overseas and again, kind of rekindled my love for geography and culture and people.

[00:30:05] And I got so interested in like, wow, like this is a different market and there's different buyers and there's different ways do market to them.

[00:30:13] And I just love that challenge.

[00:30:16] And so at that time, I was like, okay, I definitely want to do something overseas at some point.

[00:30:21] Like I was just in the back of my head.

[00:30:22] I was like, I got to do that.

[00:30:25] So I got into a strategy and corporate development role.

[00:30:29] I went from kind of sales and marketing into a strategy and corporate development.

[00:30:33] And we did, I spent two years doing a couple different deals, doing everything from sourcing opportunities to diligence, to closing deals.

[00:30:41] We sold the business to a private equity firm.

[00:30:45] I was working with bankers and lawyers.

[00:30:47] And it kind of took me back to my campaign days, right?

[00:30:49] Because when you're doing a deal as you guys know, it's the same thing, right?

[00:30:53] It's this frenetic pace of activity from the time that you sign that LLI to the sign that you get it actually closed.

[00:31:03] The diligence is a really in-depth process.

[00:31:06] But it's got to be exacting, right?

[00:31:09] Yeah.

[00:31:10] Somebody has to set the clock because if someone doesn't set the clock, it could take two years to get a deal done.

[00:31:16] Yes.

[00:31:17] So someone, you know, it's different people in different cases.

[00:31:20] But someone has to say, hey, this thing's going to be wrapped up and done by April 1st.

[00:31:24] Period.

[00:31:25] And all of a sudden, you got to, you got to fair not all the risk in it.

[00:31:29] Oh yeah.

[00:31:30] I loved it.

[00:31:31] I loved the pace of that.

[00:31:33] And then I loved the integration piece, too, because I really became passionate about just sort of this idea of change management.

[00:31:40] And so we did that for three years and then I was, it was critical for me at that time.

[00:31:46] I was like, you know what?

[00:31:47] I want to be a CEO.

[00:31:48] Like, that's what I wanted to do.

[00:31:50] I want to run a business.

[00:31:51] And so I had some good mentors at that time who said, well, you need to start to get, you know, P&L roles under your belt.

[00:31:58] And so I took my, I started my first foray into P&L experience and I ran a business unit in Chicago.

[00:32:09] We had about 300 employees, about $70 million in revenue.

[00:32:14] And we moved the family from DC to Chicago and did that for two years and loved it.

[00:32:21] Love building the team, love building the strategy, loved interacting with our clients, loved interacting with our employees.

[00:32:30] And just really fell in love with this like the thing that I thought I was going to really love about it.

[00:32:35] It was just sort of emphasized to me and that right because it when you're a P&L owner or general manager, you get to see it all.

[00:32:44] Right.

[00:32:45] You're not, you know, you don't get kind of pigeonholed into one functional area.

[00:32:50] And I liked that because I lack patients.

[00:32:52] That's my probably my biggest advice.

[00:32:56] And so at that same time, I was thinking like, okay, how do I get overseas?

[00:33:01] And I was talking to a CEO at the time of higher, higher right.

[00:33:09] And he was like, you know what we're thinking about buying these businesses overseas.

[00:33:14] And maybe there's a role here for you and I pursued that heavily.

[00:33:19] I said, I want to do this job for you.

[00:33:22] And so I got the job to be the international, so the global GM.

[00:33:29] And where they public at the time.

[00:33:33] They had gone from public to private and then they were purchased.

[00:33:39] Right.

[00:33:40] And when he was telling me, well, the job's going to be based in California.

[00:33:45] And I said, well, you know, you can't really run a business outside of you.

[00:33:51] This is LA.

[00:33:52] Yeah.

[00:33:53] California.

[00:33:54] So I said what I really want to do is I want to go to London, integrate these businesses and build out the business outside the US.

[00:34:02] And he was like, great.

[00:34:03] You should do you should do that.

[00:34:04] Do you?

[00:34:05] So move the family.

[00:34:06] Yeah, that's on me four kids.

[00:34:08] We moved the family from Chicago to Central London.

[00:34:13] Your wife is going to say just go and do this and come home on the weekend.

[00:34:19] Yeah, no.

[00:34:20] Like that was a non-star.

[00:34:21] Yeah, that was a non-star.

[00:34:22] So we lived in Central London in Pattington on base water road in the middle of it all.

[00:34:28] And we had, it was an interesting time because we had bought two businesses and they were both fierce competitors of each other.

[00:34:38] So the integration challenge was how do you integrate these businesses that are American and American being the arbiter?

[00:34:49] They could have done it better than himself quicker than ever without the American business.

[00:34:55] Oh, no.

[00:34:56] fierce competitors.

[00:34:57] So I was so moved over to London and just fell in love with this idea of how do you build a business outside the US because it was just everything was new right?

[00:35:13] I mean, and you guys know this, you know, we're we're we're we're we're a we have the same language but we don't right?

[00:35:24] Yeah, we've we've butchered their language actually completely.

[00:35:27] There's so much different about doing business in the UK and then expanding into Europe and then eventually into Asia.

[00:35:35] And so we integrated the businesses I started to build the team there.

[00:35:40] I was a daily commuter into into Central London on the team.

[00:35:45] We were traveling all over Europe as a family.

[00:35:48] My kids were going to a little primary school in Marlabun on the high street and I was just like a sponge, like just absorbing all of these different, you know, opportunities and like I would kid with my colleagues.

[00:36:05] I'd be like, yeah, you're going to do a client meeting in Cleveland.

[00:36:08] I'm going to client meeting in Geneva.

[00:36:10] So, you know, that's like I've got better than you.

[00:36:17] No, enjoy Cleveland exactly right now.

[00:36:20] No, no, thanks to Cleveland but it doesn't done whatsoever.

[00:36:23] And we built out a back office in Poland and so I spent a lot of time and kept the vitz of Poland which is not off and just loved working with with the people in that office.

[00:36:36] We greenfielded an office in Singapore, so we started it from scratch at office in Hong Kong.

[00:36:41] I was spent a lot of time, you know, just kind of going all around Amia and APAC meeting with clients meeting with prospects and just figuring out how are we going to position ourselves?

[00:36:51] How are we going to win in these markets?

[00:36:54] And it was just an amazing time.

[00:36:56] I mean, and I was kind of wearing the GM hat and we were growing the business and we were position ourselves really well as a global player.

[00:37:05] So, it was fabulous.

[00:37:07] So, take the box, you know, international experience, take the box.

[00:37:11] We moved back to the US, we moved the Nashville.

[00:37:15] And at that time we were trying to sell the company and that didn't happen.

[00:37:20] Right.

[00:37:21] And then we went through this really interesting period of like three years where we lost a CEO, our holding company went bankrupt.

[00:37:30] I spent six months on the road telling convincing clients that it wasn't us going bankrupt.

[00:37:36] It was just the parent company and it was just a really interesting time.

[00:37:42] We were kind of rudderless, I would say.

[00:37:45] And then I got this opportunity to join a small private equity family office that was trying to build a smaller business in screen space and I joined them as CEO.

[00:37:59] And you know, last box ticked, right?

[00:38:03] I finally made it.

[00:38:06] So, it was that in itself was an interesting journey because I had never really worked for a family office.

[00:38:15] Right.

[00:38:16] And that's a very different dynamic than it is in private equity or working obviously in a public company.

[00:38:22] And I learned a whole lot there during the two years we did a couple of different deals and grew the business from $7 million to $70 million which was amazing.

[00:38:34] So, I think that's really the biggest difference between a family office and a private equity company.

[00:38:40] And then I got this opportunity to do a lot of integration or change management scaling the company.

[00:38:49] But it was really good experience of learning how to be an executive and managing a board.

[00:38:57] And then you know, you know, you didn't have a lot of those same experiences because you, you know, you kind of had a CEO and you had a board and you were a little bit separate from that.

[00:39:09] Great experience.

[00:39:10] I left that in 2019 and I took six months off.

[00:39:18] And at this time we had moved from now to get your fifth kid.

[00:39:25] And you had a plan to close right at this point.

[00:39:28] When it is closed, because your own coverage two and four.

[00:39:34] Yeah, that's the way my wife did a good job at convincing me to have four so like I was like, all right, good we have four.

[00:39:41] We moved from Nashville to San Diego so I took six months off.

[00:39:45] We were living in Coronado which is amazing place.

[00:39:51] So six months off and really took a step back.

[00:39:55] I mean, at that time, I was, I guess this is five years ago so I was like in my late 40s.

[00:40:01] And I kind of just said to myself, what do you really want to do with your life?

[00:40:07] You know, it was kind of like that sort of midlife inflection point.

[00:40:12] Maybe you call out a crisis.

[00:40:14] I didn't go by a poor shirt or anything like that.

[00:40:16] I was like, what?

[00:40:18] I think that was where I was like, what really does make you happy?

[00:40:21] You know, and I think it was a great time for me to just.

[00:40:25] An introspection of just thinking like, what are the things that really matter to me?

[00:40:30] After this whole journey of going from politics and policy and corp dev and strategy and sales and marketing and global and CEO and like, what do I really, what am I really looking for?

[00:40:42] You know, and I spent a lot of time at Starbucks on on Orange Avenue in Coronado.

[00:40:49] Which is what it is.

[00:40:51] And then I spent a lot of time surfing and Pacific Ocean.

[00:40:55] All great places to for you know, to kind of find yourself right.

[00:40:59] 100%.

[00:41:00] I spent a lot of time on the sidelines of my kids football games.

[00:41:05] I mean, I just I really just lived life.

[00:41:08] You know, I just took a step back and said, what is this all about?

[00:41:13] And I literally started to write down the things that made me happy.

[00:41:18] You know, and the things that kind of brought me joy.

[00:41:22] Whether it's in the workplace like the kind of people I like to work with.

[00:41:27] The environment I like to work in.

[00:41:30] You know, sort of what is the company look like that I'm interested?

[00:41:33] I mean, they just sketched out like this.

[00:41:36] Again, I told you guys I'm like a planner.

[00:41:38] So I had to sketch this thing out.

[00:41:41] And I kind of honed in on what I was looking for.

[00:41:44] And ironically when I got, you know, I was talking to the guys that accurate about doing this.

[00:41:50] Do we're doing a deal with career builder?

[00:41:52] We're going to buy a career builder's employment screen and I put it on that as a consultant.

[00:41:56] And I said, yeah, let me.

[00:41:58] I got to chase that chase that kind of kicked the tires before you buy.

[00:42:01] Yeah.

[00:42:02] Because a lot of times when you jump into a job, you don't get to do that.

[00:42:05] I mean, you go through an interview process and I spend, you know, 30 minutes talking to you, William,

[00:42:09] and 30 minutes talking to you, Ryan.

[00:42:10] Like, but I have no idea how you.

[00:42:13] Right.

[00:42:14] Right.

[00:42:15] How long my best behavior?

[00:42:16] Exactly.

[00:42:17] Yes.

[00:42:18] And so going through the deal and doing the deal and getting to know the management team.

[00:42:24] I really felt like, yeah, these are the kinds of people I want to work with.

[00:42:27] You know, this is the kind of culture that I'm a line.

[00:42:30] And this is the kind of challenge that I'm interested in.

[00:42:33] Right.

[00:42:34] Like we got to integrate these two businesses about the same size and then we got to build this good market team from something that is fairly opportunistic to something that is repeatable and measurable.

[00:42:47] And it's been a great experience.

[00:42:51] And I still think I want to get back into a CEO seat at some point because I think that that is something that is on my radar.

[00:42:57] But again, I think now I don't look at it as I'm chasing a position.

[00:43:02] Right.

[00:43:03] I'm chasing an environment.

[00:43:05] I'm chasing a culture.

[00:43:07] I'm chasing an opportunity and what that looks like.

[00:43:10] And I think for me, that was like the biggest kind of aha moment in my career so far is stepping away from chasing positions.

[00:43:19] Because I got really interested in that.

[00:43:21] You know, like, oh, I got to be this and I got to be that.

[00:43:24] You know, so then saying like yeah, but what really does you know make it happy?

[00:43:29] And it's been great.

[00:43:33] That's.

[00:43:34] That's a great story.

[00:43:36] I followed the whole thing and I wanted to interrupt with a lot of questions.

[00:43:41] And I just followed along.

[00:43:43] No, I did.

[00:43:44] Did too.

[00:43:45] On that journey to that.

[00:43:46] I really asked a ton of questions.

[00:43:48] Don't need to know.

[00:43:49] I think the Ryan asked the question yesterday, which I thought was great.

[00:43:53] What would you?

[00:43:54] Yeah, what would your younger self.

[00:43:58] Say to your older self.

[00:44:00] So you're 16 or 18 year old, you know, Dan, say to your.

[00:44:04] Yeah.

[00:44:05] Oh no, younger younger like 10 year old.

[00:44:08] What would make your 10 year old self tell, tell Dan of today to keep in mind as you're going.

[00:44:15] Oh, that's a great question.

[00:44:19] I think you know one thing that I think my 10 year old self would say is.

[00:44:26] You know maybe don't constrain your dreams a bit.

[00:44:30] You know when I was younger, I was I was fairly.

[00:44:36] I was I was kind of an introvert.

[00:44:38] Right.

[00:44:39] When I wasn't like the super sporty kid, I wasn't the most popular kid.

[00:44:43] You know, I was kind of hanging with everybody but I wasn't.

[00:44:47] But I always was like a dreamer.

[00:44:49] You know, I loved to write and my 10 year old self would have said like you're going to be a writer.

[00:44:54] Like that's what I want.

[00:44:56] I wanted to be when I was 10 years old.

[00:44:58] I wanted to be a writer.

[00:45:00] And I think that you know just I think that person would say you know don't constrain your dreams.

[00:45:06] I think and I think because you do.

[00:45:10] You do get you can get kind of pigeonhole into what you think you want.

[00:45:16] Right.

[00:45:17] And obviously you're all all of our environments shape that right because it's there.

[00:45:23] So we tell us what we want or what we think.

[00:45:26] And so I think that 10 year old will be like yeah but you know why don't you go be a you know this that are the other like why are you constrained by.

[00:45:35] Yeah, I think that's something that I kind of keep in the back of my mind.

[00:45:40] Yeah, I think those are we could probably do shows upon shows on this with people just you've been through the journey.

[00:45:48] You've seen success.

[00:45:50] Oh, there's still a lot more than more of the journey to go.

[00:45:53] Well sure yeah well yeah as mothers 91 they want.

[00:45:56] I mean what are you 20?

[00:45:58] He's got time he's got plenty of time but we often forget.

[00:46:04] I mean, you're not going to be able to do that.

[00:46:06] Yeah.

[00:46:07] I mean, you know, I think it's a good thing for me to get this to what level of success you have you forget what you were at 10 years old.

[00:46:11] Yeah.

[00:46:12] And what your 10 year old self would say if you asked them at 10 years old, what do you want to do?

[00:46:16] I want to be a writer.

[00:46:17] I want to be going to be an astronaut.

[00:46:20] That's right.

[00:46:21] But there's dreams right now that job might be a little far fetched but the dream behind that job is real.

[00:46:27] I did a bid for is a nonprofit where you you teach for a day.

[00:46:34] So you go into kindergarten or I think this will be like second or something teaching my kind of.

[00:46:41] Oh yeah, so I came in.

[00:46:44] No, no qualifications.

[00:46:46] Zero.

[00:46:47] No, I actually taught.

[00:46:49] But all right.

[00:46:50] I asked them, I said, okay.

[00:46:52] So obviously all you all are thinking about college college.

[00:46:55] What, you know, what college is you think about?

[00:46:57] Like what names are kind of being, you know, it's and all of them were thinking about community college.

[00:47:03] And this was like second grade.

[00:47:06] I'm like, okay.

[00:47:07] So first of all, let's take all the community colleges and let's throw them out the window.

[00:47:12] Okay.

[00:47:13] And let's start to think about Harvard Stanford University of Texas.

[00:47:16] Let's start thinking.

[00:47:18] Let's you shouldn't have the bar lowered in second grade.

[00:47:22] Right.

[00:47:23] That was my point to him.

[00:47:25] Like, let's think bigger than that because you're going to be better than that.

[00:47:29] So you might, you might go to come to college.

[00:47:32] That's fantastic.

[00:47:33] You know, a lot of them.

[00:47:35] Yeah, and that's exactly it.

[00:47:38] But let's set the ball.

[00:47:39] It's second grade now.

[00:47:41] And you know, 11th grade.

[00:47:43] Okay.

[00:47:44] Yeah, the window gets a little smaller.

[00:47:46] Yeah, it does.

[00:47:47] Right.

[00:47:48] But not in second grade.

[00:47:49] But it broke, literally broke my heart.

[00:47:51] Oh my gosh.

[00:47:52] Yeah.

[00:47:53] Dan, you've been absolutely wonderful.

[00:47:55] Thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your journey with us.

[00:47:59] We just really appreciate you.