The Power of Empathy and Salesmanship: Taylor Liggett Chief Growth Officer at ID.me

[00:00:00] Wait, what would younger?

[00:00:03] Younger Taylor.

[00:00:04] Younger Taylor, yeah.

[00:00:05] So as a kid talking to your older self that didn't exist yet.

[00:00:10] Yeah.

[00:00:11] What would you say?

[00:00:12] It doesn't even have to be advice.

[00:00:14] What would you...

[00:00:15] No, look, that's a great question.

[00:00:17] Look, I will say that I think younger Taylor was very much about taking risks.

[00:00:24] Like was very much about going for it.

[00:00:27] Like sort of being uncomfortable enough to like, I'm going to go for the big move and I'm going

[00:00:33] to trust enough to sort of make that happen.

[00:00:35] And I have tried very much to maintain that as I've gotten older, but as you get older

[00:00:40] and more practical and more settled and so on, I guess, I guess John, I think that would be great.

[00:00:46] Hey, this is William Tidcup and Ryan Larry.

[00:00:48] You're listening to the Inside the C-Suite podcast.

[00:00:51] Got Taylor Liggett on today and we're going to learn all about his journey and some

[00:00:56] of the story and his career.

[00:00:58] We're always fascinated to kind of hear how people started, where they are now.

[00:01:02] This isn't the end of the story nor the journey, but this is a step.

[00:01:07] Let's hope.

[00:01:08] No.

[00:01:09] Let's hope.

[00:01:10] No, no, that's a good point.

[00:01:12] Although that is good to it.

[00:01:14] That is good to it.

[00:01:15] A little right there at that point.

[00:01:16] We're going into a weekend.

[00:01:17] We never know.

[00:01:18] Dude, that escalated quickly.

[00:01:20] Like really quickly.

[00:01:22] Wow.

[00:01:25] Taylor, would you do a favor and introduce yourself?

[00:01:28] Tell us a little bit about what you're doing now.

[00:01:30] Yeah, for sure.

[00:01:31] Thanks, William.

[00:01:32] And thanks both of you for having me.

[00:01:33] Real pleasure to be on and chat with you guys.

[00:01:35] So Taylor Liggett, I'm the chief growth officer at IDME.

[00:01:39] So for those of you who don't know, IDME is the largest digital wallet on

[00:01:43] trusted digital identity network that exists in the U.S.

[00:01:46] And I believe largest private digital identity network in the world.

[00:01:50] So obviously growth with really what that means is a lot of strategy,

[00:01:55] business development, product innovation, a lot of the commercial

[00:01:58] expansion that we're doing.

[00:02:00] So a lot of fun stuff falls into that.

[00:02:02] That's what I'm up to nowadays.

[00:02:04] Your entire history, I'm going to say your entire, but at

[00:02:08] least your background, really thin profile background is just all

[00:02:15] identity and yeah, like have you done anything else in your life?

[00:02:19] Well, I mean look, so this where we'll get interesting because identity

[00:02:26] through sort of a curve and really like, you know, let you guys guide as

[00:02:32] to when we want to kind of like jump into how I got there.

[00:02:34] But I'll answer this.

[00:02:35] Jump in.

[00:02:36] Let's just get right into good stuff.

[00:02:38] So all right, so I'll tell you guys a story.

[00:02:42] There's a little bit of a wind up that will be required.

[00:02:45] So as I was growing up, I don't even remember why this happened,

[00:02:51] but I ended up at a pretty young age.

[00:02:53] I was born in the early 80s kind of coming of age in the 90s.

[00:02:56] I ended up at a relatively early age building a computer with my dad,

[00:03:01] like PC with my wife.

[00:03:03] And it was just like that moment, the only moment I came recall

[00:03:06] in my childhood where I just like it clicked.

[00:03:09] I'm like, ooh, this all like, I really like this.

[00:03:11] This makes sense.

[00:03:12] I just, it was intuitive.

[00:03:14] So I like full on like reading DOS books.

[00:03:19] Never go, never go full, never go full nerd.

[00:03:23] You have DOS for dummies.

[00:03:25] Yeah.

[00:03:26] Is that DOS for dummies back there?

[00:03:28] Is that what we're looking at?

[00:03:30] Hopefully something like this is before the dummies here.

[00:03:33] Oh yeah.

[00:03:34] Oh yeah.

[00:03:35] So when I went to go to school, like I went to go for a computer

[00:03:38] information system.

[00:03:39] So that was a little and stuff on.

[00:03:41] And your school, your school was never like my greatest thing.

[00:03:44] I was a smart kid.

[00:03:45] It just a structured classroom was never sort of my, my grace.

[00:03:47] And so I ended up like well, I was in school.

[00:03:51] There was a new call center that had opened up.

[00:03:54] And I don't even remember what they were paying.

[00:03:56] It was like, you know, like 10, 11 bucks or whatever.

[00:03:58] To me at the time, I'm like, ooh, that's money.

[00:04:00] Like I'm going to go.

[00:04:02] Not being a poor college kid.

[00:04:04] Go.

[00:04:05] And so I started it.

[00:04:07] This was like an outsourced call center.

[00:04:10] And they had just won this big contract with.

[00:04:13] So quest at the time was like a big telco, right?

[00:04:16] They were doing a lot of different services.

[00:04:18] And this was kind of during the initial boom of like mobile

[00:04:21] phones, right?

[00:04:22] Cell phone all coming out in early 2000s.

[00:04:26] And so the specific job I was hired into.

[00:04:30] Was a save desk like retention services.

[00:04:34] Right.

[00:04:35] So it's like the customers that are pissed off or they're

[00:04:39] canceling their call.

[00:04:40] And the metric was like, what percentage of those customers

[00:04:44] could you stop from canceling?

[00:04:46] Right.

[00:04:47] You like resolve and stop from canceling.

[00:04:50] So I do this amongst this group and you know,

[00:04:55] a couple of weeks, months, whatever it kind of gone by.

[00:04:58] And we're told that there's these like.

[00:05:00] Quest executives coming on, coming on.

[00:05:02] They're like, I don't know what to do with this.

[00:05:04] We're told that there's these like.

[00:05:06] Quest executives coming on, coming on sites of dress nice

[00:05:09] being dressed the way.

[00:05:10] Well, I get pulled in a room with these quest exacts and

[00:05:14] with my leadership at the time.

[00:05:16] And I'm like 19 or whatever your 20 maybe and so I get

[00:05:20] pulled into the room and the gist of it was their life.

[00:05:23] So we've been doing this program for a couple years and

[00:05:26] the you know, the highest save rate we've ever seen is

[00:05:29] like 45%.

[00:05:30] It's the best we've ever seen.

[00:05:32] And you're like 80%.

[00:05:34] Like what's going on?

[00:05:36] I had this moment of two things.

[00:05:39] One, I'm like, oh, they think I'm cheating.

[00:05:41] That's what I was thinking.

[00:05:44] Manipulating the data.

[00:05:47] And then school was like, Holy shit,

[00:05:52] like I'm really good at this.

[00:05:54] Like this whole like people sales,

[00:05:59] like that whole space.

[00:06:01] I had not been tracking at all as a like professional focus

[00:06:06] and that was like a watershed moment.

[00:06:09] Right?

[00:06:10] That was a giant epiphany where I'm like, oh wait,

[00:06:12] like yes, I love technical.

[00:06:14] Yes, but like maybe I got strong.

[00:06:16] Maybe my grace.

[00:06:17] Right.

[00:06:18] And that was a huge pivot point for me where I just

[00:06:21] sort of like what started to go all in that that

[00:06:24] direction.

[00:06:25] So it's a very long way of saying right.

[00:06:28] What was the how what was what if you can tell us what was

[00:06:32] how'd you get to the 80% marker over the 80%

[00:06:36] marker?

[00:06:37] I mean, look, it wasn't a bid.

[00:06:40] It's the first year was genuinely.

[00:06:44] This isn't false.

[00:06:47] This isn't false integrity or false caring or anything like

[00:06:50] this.

[00:06:51] No, no, you actually care.

[00:06:53] That that was well.

[00:06:55] First of all, it was like it was just a great

[00:06:57] challenge to me.

[00:06:58] Right?

[00:06:59] That was how I how I went about it.

[00:07:01] Like it was this awesome challenge to get someone who's

[00:07:03] calling it.

[00:07:04] It's like.

[00:07:05] And bring that person to at the end to be like keeping it.

[00:07:11] Thank you so much for your help.

[00:07:13] Oh yeah.

[00:07:14] You know, it was the ultimate challenge and you know,

[00:07:18] it was a combination of like genuine sort of empathy and

[00:07:21] listening and like really hearing them out being

[00:07:24] empowered to actually have things that could solve whatever

[00:07:27] issues are at hand.

[00:07:29] Right?

[00:07:30] And then, you know, seeing that through and of course like

[00:07:32] some salesmanship and so on sort of involved in doing

[00:07:35] that.

[00:07:36] But yeah, it was it was it was something that I what like

[00:07:40] obviously I got through some training for but I just

[00:07:42] found like I had a skill set that was conducive to

[00:07:46] some of those.

[00:07:48] Right.

[00:07:49] Those areas.

[00:07:50] That's fantastic.

[00:07:51] Go ahead.

[00:07:52] I'm going to go back to little Taylor.

[00:07:54] Right.

[00:07:55] So you're way back elementary school, middle school.

[00:08:00] Did you have these traits?

[00:08:01] Like where did you start?

[00:08:03] Right.

[00:08:04] So I mean people that listen to college,

[00:08:06] it couldn't have been in college.

[00:08:08] People listening to show that they want to know the

[00:08:10] banana stand.

[00:08:11] You're in the banana stand somewhere.

[00:08:13] So, so I mean, look, um,

[00:08:16] I feel like there's a story here.

[00:08:19] Children's ministry.

[00:08:22] It wasn't like an introverted kid that suddenly,

[00:08:25] you know, like that was obviously not.

[00:08:27] I've always been extroverted and,

[00:08:29] you know, I think some of this,

[00:08:31] like my mother is a force of nature.

[00:08:33] Like she is just one of those people that can walk into

[00:08:35] a room and we just get so like I grew up a lot.

[00:08:37] I think with that in that type of environment,

[00:08:40] family sort of life that.

[00:08:42] And so yeah, I think I think these skills sort of

[00:08:46] have been really well-rounded.

[00:08:48] I just never had the connection point of sort of

[00:08:51] practical application.

[00:08:52] I wasn't tracking anything growing up that had to do with,

[00:08:55] you know, people management,

[00:08:56] relationship management and sales and so on.

[00:08:58] And so, um,

[00:08:59] Were you popular?

[00:09:01] As a kid.

[00:09:02] So my first job ever was working in a video store.

[00:09:06] Shout out video biz,

[00:09:08] eat and call around.

[00:09:09] I was going to say blockbuster, but all right.

[00:09:11] Okay.

[00:09:12] Got you.

[00:09:13] I'm not gonna go into some pop.

[00:09:15] Yeah.

[00:09:17] Yeah.

[00:09:18] Independent.

[00:09:19] In Oregon where I live.

[00:09:22] Oh, really?

[00:09:23] Okay.

[00:09:24] It's a franchisee.

[00:09:25] When he said that,

[00:09:26] I immediately thought of the movie clerks,

[00:09:28] which we're all going to, but yeah, got it.

[00:09:31] So it was so a video store.

[00:09:33] By the way,

[00:09:34] Quentin Tarantino also worked in the film.

[00:09:37] And like I wanted to be like a movie critic.

[00:09:40] To analyze.

[00:09:41] Yeah.

[00:09:42] Roger Ebert.

[00:09:43] Oh wow.

[00:09:44] That was like as I was growing up.

[00:09:46] Uh,

[00:09:47] a thing I had like I was really into film,

[00:09:49] I was really into moving critics.

[00:09:51] Like it was my first job so.

[00:09:54] Oh wow.

[00:09:55] Well, Quentin.

[00:09:56] I was a sort of Quentin Tarantino.

[00:09:58] You know, he was,

[00:10:00] that's how he watched as many videos because he was at a

[00:10:02] video store.

[00:10:03] Yeah.

[00:10:04] I always consume videos.

[00:10:06] Really relate to Tarantino.

[00:10:07] And ironically he was like

[00:10:09] favorite sort of direction.

[00:10:11] Like watching Pulp Fiction was like a change in my life.

[00:10:14] 100%.

[00:10:15] I watched Reservoir Dogs at the theater accidentally.

[00:10:19] Just went to the theater with my wife

[00:10:21] and just randomly picked a movie.

[00:10:22] Didn't know anything about it.

[00:10:24] Went into it, I came out of it going, oh, my life's changed.

[00:10:27] OK, got it.

[00:10:28] Fair.

[00:10:28] That's awesome.

[00:10:30] So were you popular in school?

[00:10:34] Yeah, I wasn't like the most popular,

[00:10:37] but I was not unpopular.

[00:10:40] Right, right.

[00:10:40] And so I was sort of hung with.

[00:10:42] So look, I went to a really small school

[00:10:44] and actually another interesting anecdote with me

[00:10:46] is we moved around a lot as kids.

[00:10:47] And actually this maybe I've underappreciated

[00:10:51] until I got older.

[00:10:52] So I went to probably six different schools growing up.

[00:10:55] So you had to make friends fast.

[00:10:57] Exactly.

[00:10:57] And I think that is something that helped me a lot with.

[00:11:01] Was it corporate movement or military movement?

[00:11:03] It was so my dad did come from the military

[00:11:05] but it wasn't really related to that.

[00:11:08] As he was coming out of school and so on,

[00:11:11] he was an accountant.

[00:11:12] Then he went to become a CPA and that

[00:11:13] required moving somewhere to go to school.

[00:11:14] And then he got job and moved somewhere else.

[00:11:16] My mom's like, I don't think it's big cities.

[00:11:17] We can move to a small town.

[00:11:18] It was just a sort of combination of factors

[00:11:21] that contributed to it.

[00:11:22] Yeah, that tracks.

[00:11:24] So Ryan has this question that I love.

[00:11:27] Is what would a younger tailor give advice to older tailor?

[00:11:33] What do you think younger tailor would have said to you

[00:11:34] now?

[00:11:37] Wait, what would younger?

[00:11:39] Younger tailor.

[00:11:40] Younger tailor.

[00:11:41] Yeah.

[00:11:41] So as a kid talking to your older self that didn't exist yet.

[00:11:46] Yeah.

[00:11:47] What would he say?

[00:11:48] It doesn't even have to be advice.

[00:11:50] No, look, that's a great question.

[00:11:52] Look, I will say that I think younger tailor was very much

[00:11:58] about taking risks.

[00:12:00] Like was very much about going for it.

[00:12:02] Right?

[00:12:03] Sort of being uncomfortable enough to like,

[00:12:07] I'm going to go for the big move.

[00:12:08] And I'm going to trust enough to sort of make that happen.

[00:12:11] And I have tried very much to maintain that as I've gotten

[00:12:14] older.

[00:12:15] But as you get older and more practical and more

[00:12:17] settled and so on, I guess, John,

[00:12:18] I think that would be a good tip.

[00:12:21] Has that impacted the different jobs

[00:12:24] you've taken through 100%?

[00:12:27] I've put some moves that at the time,

[00:12:29] I remember my mom was scratching heads.

[00:12:31] Like what are you doing?

[00:12:33] You're going to regret this.

[00:12:35] Yeah, yeah.

[00:12:36] You're making so much money.

[00:12:37] Why are you thinking about moving to a startup?

[00:12:40] That's crazy.

[00:12:41] Yeah.

[00:12:42] I got that bit when I left Walmart,

[00:12:45] when I called my dad and mom and told

[00:12:47] him I was leaving Walmart.

[00:12:48] They were like, you make more than your father ever did.

[00:12:51] Why would you ever leave?

[00:12:52] I'm like, eh.

[00:12:54] Because I can, mom.

[00:12:55] Yes.

[00:12:56] Because I can.

[00:12:57] You know, I couldn't tell her,

[00:12:59] I didn't have the words to tell her at the time.

[00:13:01] Now I understand 100 years later,

[00:13:04] I understand why I did all those things.

[00:13:06] But at the time, I'm just like, I just think it's time.

[00:13:09] I thought you were going to say you didn't have the words

[00:13:11] to tell her you got fired.

[00:13:15] Well, mom, they call me stealing.

[00:13:18] Absolutely.

[00:13:18] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:13:21] HR called.

[00:13:22] Taylor, when was that moment you went from,

[00:13:27] we'll just say like every day contributor employee

[00:13:29] to the next significant bump when you realized, OK,

[00:13:35] I'm no longer this young individual contributor, Taylor.

[00:13:39] I've got something real here and I can step up.

[00:13:43] What was in your mind?

[00:13:44] What were you thinking?

[00:13:45] So it's a great question.

[00:13:46] I'm going to kind of split it into two parts

[00:13:50] because I think I had sort of two pivotal moments for me

[00:13:52] that occurred.

[00:13:53] So the first was like the call center gig,

[00:13:56] I ended up staying with that company for like six years or so.

[00:14:00] Oh, wow.

[00:14:00] And when I ended up after college,

[00:14:03] yes, what ended up happening was that whole revelation of like,

[00:14:10] wow, I'm really good at this.

[00:14:11] Like that was not just me.

[00:14:12] Like the company was blown.

[00:14:14] You're almost leveling the best we've ever seen ever

[00:14:17] be done.

[00:14:17] So I moved quickly into like a.

[00:14:21] That goes straight to because that's churn.

[00:14:22] That goes straight to the bottom line.

[00:14:23] Yeah, no, exactly.

[00:14:26] All the Y on this position is like out of control.

[00:14:28] Right.

[00:14:29] And so so I moved pretty rapidly into like a capacity

[00:14:35] of handling like the hardest escalations of the company

[00:14:39] and then also training, like flying around

[00:14:42] and kind of like training people to do this.

[00:14:44] Right.

[00:14:44] And then that moved into like being a manager.

[00:14:47] And and then I was happy to see like,

[00:14:49] oh, wow, these skills can translate into like helping

[00:14:52] other people be good at this and I'll forever

[00:14:55] be grateful to call center because it is crazy.

[00:14:57] Cutthroat, you know, like I mean hundreds of people

[00:15:00] letting people go starting up new sites,

[00:15:02] like operational rigor and so on,

[00:15:04] like really intense role playing and stuff like that.

[00:15:07] Like it gave me this foundational skillset that was awesome.

[00:15:10] And my career grew pretty significantly with them.

[00:15:13] And I thought, Ryan, I kind of had that moment.

[00:15:15] Like at the end of that, I'm like,

[00:15:16] oh, you know, but I was lacking the perspective

[00:15:21] of the larger corporate world.

[00:15:24] So I made a decision that like, OK, this is great.

[00:15:27] But I'm not going to be in the call center forever.

[00:15:29] So I so I moved sort of loudly over to AEP giant company

[00:15:33] in sort of this account manager capacity,

[00:15:36] trying to take this skillset and go do something bigger.

[00:15:40] And that's when I landed in the identity space broadly.

[00:15:43] Right. They just acquired this company

[00:15:46] that was effectively like background screening,

[00:15:47] I nine and so on.

[00:15:49] And I and I was an account manager there for a while.

[00:15:51] And I did that for a number of years

[00:15:54] and against a great skillset exposed me to a lot of different things

[00:15:57] from sales to customer support, all kinds of different businesses.

[00:16:01] And then I had a leader that really believed in me

[00:16:04] and moved me to be a director of account management,

[00:16:06] basically go and oversee the entire team.

[00:16:08] And that was kind of the moment my career was at an ADP proper.

[00:16:13] I had that. Was that an ADP proper

[00:16:16] leader? Was that someone that came from the founding company?

[00:16:19] It was the an ADP proper leader.

[00:16:22] Wow. Where do you in Jersey at the time?

[00:16:24] No, I went to Jersey a lot,

[00:16:26] but this was at the acquisition was made out in Colorado

[00:16:29] and Fort Collins, Colorado, which was where that's originally where I'm from.

[00:16:33] I was originally born in Boulder.

[00:16:34] I grew up throughout sort of Colorado areas.

[00:16:38] And yeah. So you can snowboard. Got it.

[00:16:42] I can definitely snow. Yeah.

[00:16:45] Not me are younger than me and they snowboard.

[00:16:48] By the time I was good at skiing, I'm like, I'm not switching to.

[00:16:51] Yeah. No, no.

[00:16:53] So, Taylor, a question on so,

[00:16:56] wayman, I had these conversations a lot where

[00:16:59] the the success you've had as a contributor

[00:17:04] doesn't not you, but just in general,

[00:17:06] doesn't necessarily translate to a people manager and people fail at it

[00:17:10] miserably and they can never get out of that run.

[00:17:13] Then some people just aren't managers.

[00:17:15] But what? In your case, it obviously worked out.

[00:17:17] But what are your thoughts there?

[00:17:19] How does that? How does somebody go from

[00:17:22] an individual contributor where the company just loves them

[00:17:26] and puts them into a role of management or training other people?

[00:17:29] How do you handle that?

[00:17:31] No, it's it's it's a fantastic question.

[00:17:33] And and so look at a lot of thoughts on this.

[00:17:36] The first is that the person has to want it.

[00:17:39] Not everyone does.

[00:17:40] People are like, I just want to be an individual contributor.

[00:17:43] I'm an instant managing people and and all the stuff that comes with that.

[00:17:46] It also is not just about managing people.

[00:17:48] All of a sudden now it's politics, it's not what it means.

[00:17:51] Right. It's managing up.

[00:17:53] It's like there's a world of different dynamics that happen in there.

[00:17:56] I found in my case, I loved all that stuff.

[00:17:59] Like I just that was that just like that I'm built for business and this type

[00:18:03] of stuff, not everyone's like that.

[00:18:05] And so I think people have to be honest about that this sort of step.

[00:18:08] No one what what I would say.

[00:18:10] And then there's a whole sort of thing and get into around.

[00:18:12] I think like what you can do to bridge the gap and be better, be better.

[00:18:15] But like the thing that I'd say that I think it's lost in this conversation

[00:18:19] sometimes my current boss, Blake, the CEO of Ida, me is big on this.

[00:18:25] And I believe so firmly in this that like if you're going to lead something,

[00:18:29] you also need to be like the best at doing that.

[00:18:32] Like you can't read a function of whatever business development,

[00:18:36] lead a bunch of top star business and not be good at that yourself or

[00:18:40] whatever the instance is.

[00:18:41] And so I do think or I mean, you can and there's tons of examples of that.

[00:18:45] I don't think it works out.

[00:18:46] Yeah, right.

[00:18:48] And so so I think that it you have to be a good individual contributor

[00:18:53] or know the role and world really well to have the credibility

[00:19:00] and respect of the people that we're working for you is another dynamic.

[00:19:06] So what are some of the traits that you look for when you're the

[00:19:12] you know, I when I say it like this, there's there's certain types

[00:19:16] of people that thrive around me and that I thrive around.

[00:19:20] Sure. And so like and that might be that might be true for everybody.

[00:19:25] It might just be me.

[00:19:26] But like what do you look for?

[00:19:28] Because you've done a ton of hiring through the years.

[00:19:30] What do you look for in candidates that you know

[00:19:34] that it's going to be a good fit for you and a good fit for the company

[00:19:39] and all that other stuff, but just you know it's going to work for you.

[00:19:43] Yeah, good question.

[00:19:46] I mean, look, some of it, I'll just sort of caveat and get this out of the way.

[00:19:49] Like in a role like now where it's like highly specialized

[00:19:53] when talking about digital identity and so on, like, you know,

[00:19:55] I'm looking for things that skill sets and experience that relates to

[00:19:59] but to answer your question more broadly.

[00:20:02] To me, like one of the big things is I want to see someone who's hungry

[00:20:07] and wants it because like I can teach all kinds of stuff and I can rap.

[00:20:11] But I can't I can't teach them.

[00:20:15] And I want to know that really got ambition.

[00:20:18] And once it cares about doing a good job is really interested in it.

[00:20:22] Like there's so much you can do with a person like that,

[00:20:27] especially with the right leadership, the right guidance,

[00:20:29] the right training, right expectations, etc.

[00:20:33] And you know, look, one of the number one rules at ID me

[00:20:38] that I love is don't be a jerk.

[00:20:42] And I think that also.

[00:20:45] You remember the success factors thing that they had?

[00:20:48] It was the know whatever holds.

[00:20:51] They had that at their corporate office up on a big giant wall like this.

[00:20:54] This is a deal.

[00:20:55] Just don't be that similar at ID me, right?

[00:20:58] And so I think also that like we don't want jerks.

[00:21:01] We want good cultural fit.

[00:21:03] We want people that care about people that people like being around it.

[00:21:07] Right, you know, we're going to have each other's backs that are empathetic, etc.

[00:21:09] So I also think that's what we don't want big egos.

[00:21:13] That's not going to be helpful.

[00:21:15] And so I think there's some softer factors like that

[00:21:18] that also that also really have to come in.

[00:21:21] And so, you know, and then look also like again,

[00:21:25] the higher the position, you're also certainly looking for proof.

[00:21:29] Right? Like what beyond what you're saying you could do, like, what have you done?

[00:21:34] And then what do other people say about what you've done as well as also?

[00:21:38] So this trips me out all the time.

[00:21:40] And Ryan, you've heard me say this before when someone has

[00:21:43] on their LinkedIn profile or in their resume led 42 percent growth

[00:21:49] in 2022.

[00:21:51] Now, I struggle with that is that did you do that?

[00:21:54] Yeah, the team do that.

[00:21:56] We part of a 60 person team.

[00:21:59] Like the bullet point itself, there's a context to the bullet point.

[00:22:03] So like, like how do I get contact?

[00:22:05] OK, if I if you say I team of one did this.

[00:22:10] OK, OK, OK, I got context now, but most people don't do that.

[00:22:14] So like, how do you ferret that out when you're talking to people?

[00:22:18] Like it's a great thing you brought you grow the business 43 percent.

[00:22:22] OK, yeah.

[00:22:24] This happens all the time.

[00:22:25] And we literally I was literally just talking to some senior leaders

[00:22:27] the other day that were there were telling a story of interviewing

[00:22:29] like three different people who all claim they did the exact same thing.

[00:22:32] And it's like.

[00:22:34] One of you.

[00:22:36] You know, we're interviewing Jane tomorrow, right?

[00:22:40] Like, just want to let you know.

[00:22:42] I put them on.

[00:22:43] I put them all. It's like children.

[00:22:44] I put them all in the same room at the same time.

[00:22:46] OK, so you said.

[00:22:48] Yeah, you said you said.

[00:22:51] Anyhow, look, I think there's a way to dig in on that.

[00:22:54] That gets at the context you're saying.

[00:22:55] So like we'll talk more about how this was set up.

[00:22:58] Are you part of a larger team?

[00:22:59] What was your specific role in that?

[00:23:00] What did you end up, you know, I think there's a way to dig in on that.

[00:23:03] And then and then also look, I think it's just super important

[00:23:06] to back channel stuff to like actually get with references or kids

[00:23:10] or people that worked with them to understand further what that person

[00:23:14] you know, is that person instrumental to this happening?

[00:23:17] Were they sort of the lucky recipient of being part of a team

[00:23:19] that really excelled?

[00:23:21] Right. It's a great point.

[00:23:23] What so OK, so throughout your career.

[00:23:27] Where is the moment where you you were just down?

[00:23:30] You were out.

[00:23:32] And how did you motivate yourself?

[00:23:35] Who did you surround yourself?

[00:23:36] Who'd you pull into your circle to say I can keep going forward here?

[00:23:40] And kind of what was that if you can share it?

[00:23:42] What was that road?

[00:23:44] How'd you overcome that?

[00:23:46] Yeah, look, there's a there's a few.

[00:23:48] You should have me get my book out.

[00:23:50] You want you want this alphabetically or chronologically?

[00:23:53] Yeah, it just depends.

[00:23:55] I guess so I'll give you a kind of banger of a story

[00:24:00] that they can coincide with this question.

[00:24:02] So I had to wrap up a previous question.

[00:24:06] That's like the ADP was also my moment of jumping in, jumping in identity.

[00:24:10] And I became really sort of upset.

[00:24:11] Like it really clicked with me from a number of different angles.

[00:24:14] I'm like, this is super interesting.

[00:24:15] And it's like a huge miss across all kinds of different sectors.

[00:24:18] And right.

[00:24:19] So I ended up being recruited by a company, which is how I ended up in Portland.

[00:24:24] There was all in on identity that found me brought me up here.

[00:24:27] Boba, Boba, I moved out here.

[00:24:29] That was one of the moments where my mom's like, what are you doing?

[00:24:32] So why are you going here when the dog kills his head sideways?

[00:24:37] Like, mm hmm.

[00:24:39] You sure to basically like what was effectively

[00:24:42] effect of where you sort of impressed a startup and so on.

[00:24:46] But it started right.

[00:24:47] And after about six months, I realized two things happened.

[00:24:54] One, I realized the CEO and founder was not a good fit

[00:25:00] and was a problem for the company.

[00:25:02] And that's saying it very nicely.

[00:25:04] Right. Right. And then number two, there was basically

[00:25:07] a clear an incident that occurred where the services

[00:25:11] that the company was providing to the government.

[00:25:14] The government had a moment of like, oh, this private company is too powerful.

[00:25:17] We're going to do this ourselves and essentially kneecap overnight,

[00:25:20] like 70 million dollars in revenue and took this this big.

[00:25:24] And so the boss you listen to your mom.

[00:25:28] Yeah. That's the most I thought, buddy.

[00:25:30] That's thanks for the pile on.

[00:25:36] How am I going to go home now?

[00:25:38] Yeah. And so that was without question the hardest time in my career.

[00:25:44] And it was it got really bad.

[00:25:47] I mean, because the company would give it a lot of money by a major financial

[00:25:49] institution that, you know, flew on site.

[00:25:51] All the big investors came in it like turned upside down.

[00:25:54] We had to pivot to acquisition.

[00:25:57] And so what I did is one, I quickly found the right allies.

[00:26:02] So like I immediately like assess like, OK, who's yes, man to the CEO?

[00:26:07] Who's the problem? Who's the right allies?

[00:26:09] And how do I build trust with them and, you know, figure out a collaborative way

[00:26:14] working with them to make this better?

[00:26:15] And so that was a combination of investors and employees.

[00:26:18] I sort of built that that circle.

[00:26:20] The other thing I did is I led.

[00:26:21] I, you know, at the time, I sort of thought, OK, I'm in a position

[00:26:25] where if the worst happens, I lose this job.

[00:26:27] I'm OK. I'm going to land on my feet.

[00:26:29] Like I'm going to not operate from a sense of fear, which how a lot of the

[00:26:33] company was very much like, I don't want to lose my job.

[00:26:36] I don't want to make the CEO mad.

[00:26:36] And I sort of just fundamentally lean into it.

[00:26:40] And then, you know, the that process essentially played out over somewhere

[00:26:46] around six to nine months.

[00:26:47] And what ended up happening was we got the CEO out and also split the company

[00:26:56] and sold the company to Sterling William.

[00:26:58] And that's how I ended up.

[00:26:59] Yeah. OK.

[00:27:00] And so then I came into Sterling and, you know, ultimately became

[00:27:04] the head of identity and sort of worked that out.

[00:27:05] But it turned from a moment that was just crisis

[00:27:10] to probably the greatest learning experience in development experience

[00:27:13] in my career.

[00:27:14] So about five, I'd say three years ago, maybe, maybe longer,

[00:27:18] Ryan and I walking the floor of HR Tech, we noticed that a lot of the

[00:27:25] will say background screening companies just kept it simple for the audience

[00:27:28] had had had bled into because we grew up in town acquisition.

[00:27:33] And so using something like a background screen on pre hire made sense.

[00:27:38] Like if you didn't do it, you just that's just whatever.

[00:27:42] So it totally made sense.

[00:27:43] But they started to move into SAS and do more

[00:27:48] the more monitoring employee monitoring and basically continuing the OK.

[00:27:56] We're going to we're not just going to do a pre screen.

[00:27:58] We're going to do that for sure.

[00:27:59] What we're going to do is now get more into the business of understanding

[00:28:03] hey, this guy's been with you for seven years.

[00:28:06] You did a screen seven years ago.

[00:28:08] Of course, that was great.

[00:28:09] But he's up for murder too.

[00:28:11] And he doesn't and he doesn't necessarily have to disclose that.

[00:28:15] So what do you do as a company?

[00:28:19] How do you manage risk as an employer or as HR, etc.

[00:28:23] And why we found that fascinating is because, you know, the screen,

[00:28:28] you know, the screen market, especially back then was just up and down

[00:28:31] is up and down.

[00:28:32] You make money, you know, and all of a sudden that's great.

[00:28:35] Have great contracts.

[00:28:36] But SAS is more predictable.

[00:28:38] And so like getting into that space and getting into the monitoring space.

[00:28:43] So I thought at least at the time, I thought, that's genius

[00:28:47] because you can level out revenue.

[00:28:49] And yeah, you'll have some people that still just use you for pre hire.

[00:28:52] That's fine. So what?

[00:28:53] But if you can build up the business of monitoring,

[00:28:55] that's that's a business that people at Wall Street can then kind of confirm.

[00:29:00] So yeah, that's actually we like that.

[00:29:01] That's we like that consistency, if you will.

[00:29:04] So you lived in that world while all that stuff was going on with

[00:29:09] maybe your own company, but also kind of in larger

[00:29:12] of some of the other companies, some of the other players.

[00:29:14] Well, first of all, outside are looking in.

[00:29:17] We thought it is a great idea.

[00:29:19] What did you all see it as?

[00:29:20] Like what was the impetus on the inside?

[00:29:22] Yeah, I mean, look, there were two big

[00:29:25] realizations specific to the screening industry as I as I came into Sterling.

[00:29:29] And it was very interesting time as I came in.

[00:29:31] There was a new CEO that came in, a lot of sort of shift in the executive

[00:29:34] leadership and just broadly speaking, there were two giant priorities that happened.

[00:29:39] So one was identity, which was just fundamental like this is missing.

[00:29:43] This is crazy.

[00:29:44] We don't confirm someone is who they say they are before we screen them.

[00:29:46] And that was obviously my my bag and led to a lot of what I did there.

[00:29:50] The second was exactly what you're talking about,

[00:29:52] which is this similar sort of like this is crazy.

[00:29:54] People screen someone one time and then not afterwards.

[00:29:57] And like that's also doesn't make sense.

[00:29:59] And then all the downstream, you know,

[00:30:03] financial implications and sort of valuation implications and so on around

[00:30:08] ongoing revenue stream and SAS and just different models and so on.

[00:30:12] So so really leaned into it

[00:30:16] is what I saw from from both my company as well as the broader sort of screen set.

[00:30:22] I mean, look, I'm not directly in the industry anymore, but I think there's still

[00:30:25] a long way to go.

[00:30:26] I think the industry is still disproportionately slanted around

[00:30:29] pre-employment as a single check and disproportionately not including identity.

[00:30:35] But I think that it's inevitable that it all.

[00:30:39] Especially with a I mean, we haven't even touched on that when I know

[00:30:45] we will, but it's one of those deals like again, if we didn't know before

[00:30:49] that person was that person now, we've got a generative AI.

[00:30:53] How are we ever going to trust that that person is that person?

[00:30:55] It's it's a completely, completely different world we live in now.

[00:31:00] Most companies and individuals are not prepared at all.

[00:31:05] And the speed and scale at which AI is operating is incredible.

[00:31:11] So, you know, we're seeing everything from deep fakes and interviews to,

[00:31:16] you know, the you know, that you can imagine in terms of sort of how AI is in play.

[00:31:21] So, yeah, it's never been more important time of understanding who someone is

[00:31:25] and having the tools around to protect themselves.

[00:31:27] Have you heard this is when did we do this story on the investors or whatever it was?

[00:31:34] That was in Japan, I think it was or something.

[00:31:37] Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:38] It was a deep fake and it was everything was done with it was an investor

[00:31:43] call and everyone on the call was deep faked.

[00:31:47] And they got an investment out of this guy, out of this guy, this investor.

[00:31:52] None of it was real.

[00:31:54] And all these players were on Zoom and they're playing these parts

[00:31:58] and they're putting up presentations and it was it was manufactured in such a way

[00:32:02] where it had it looked real.

[00:32:05] It was real because they were arguing with each other.

[00:32:08] No, no, no, Tammy, you don't have that right.

[00:32:10] Let me let me pull up this slide and it looked real.

[00:32:13] Like it was all choreographed in such a way where it was a lot of money

[00:32:18] and this investor was like, I'm all in.

[00:32:20] I love it.

[00:32:20] I'm down.

[00:32:22] Give me the wiring instructions.

[00:32:23] Yeah.

[00:32:25] There's there's a lot of these stories now and they should all be awareness

[00:32:28] and wake up calls for people.

[00:32:29] I mean, there's one I'm thinking about where, you know, there was a CFO

[00:32:33] that was deep faked that, you know, approved some giant transfer

[00:32:37] of money that went through and the same.

[00:32:39] I didn't do that.

[00:32:40] You know, so we're just again, we're just fundamentally in a different spot.

[00:32:43] And the truth is it's not just employee.

[00:32:46] I mean, financial institutions, healthcare institutions, everyone

[00:32:48] is woefully underprepared for this.

[00:32:50] They're they're largely using tools that don't make the cut now

[00:32:55] in today's day and age because look, it's beyond deep fakes.

[00:32:59] Everyone knows about like chat GBT.

[00:33:00] There's also worm GPT and fraud GPT and there's these tools

[00:33:04] that have been twisted to bad actors to use and feel like

[00:33:07] I mean me as a front row seat with that and we protect the United

[00:33:09] States Treasury, right?

[00:33:10] Like we're the front door of the IRS.

[00:33:12] You guys can imagine the type of sophisticated fraudsters that are

[00:33:17] coming in there that are using every technique possible to come

[00:33:22] in with deep fakes and and and everything you can imagine.

[00:33:26] And so what we see from our weekly, we monitor the dark web,

[00:33:30] we learn from each of these instances, we trace them down to

[00:33:33] what country they came from, what tools they're using, etc.

[00:33:36] And it's we're in a very, very interesting time when it comes to fraud right now.

[00:33:41] Interesting.

[00:33:42] I want to hear some stories now.

[00:33:44] Well, like there's stories here.

[00:33:46] We need I don't think you really do want to hear these stories

[00:33:48] because it's going to set your weekend off in a bad way.

[00:33:51] So we would.

[00:33:53] So the you've mentioned leaders, a quest and the ADP and start up

[00:33:59] not to be named, be named as Sterling and your current leader.

[00:34:02] Is there anything that's gone across any traits that's kind of

[00:34:06] drawn across those leaders that you love like you're drawn to or maybe

[00:34:12] drawn away from?

[00:34:13] Actually, that is that's a great that's a great question.

[00:34:18] And it's something that I think is a huge part of my journey and career

[00:34:24] because without the leaders that I had, there's zero question

[00:34:30] I wouldn't be in the position that I am today.

[00:34:32] I would personally am today.

[00:34:33] I would have skillset I have today.

[00:34:34] Like I think some of it happened by luck and subconscious

[00:34:41] decision, whatever, as I was early in my career.

[00:34:44] And then I've been much more conscious of sort of lead.

[00:34:47] I mean, a huge part of why I'm at ID me is because the leader that's here

[00:34:51] and I had gotten lucky enough to like sort of know him for years prior

[00:34:56] to coming coming to this.

[00:34:57] But I mean, look, I mean, look, I'm drawn to people

[00:35:00] that you know, similar as I said, people that are ambitious,

[00:35:04] people that aren't afraid to take moonshots, people that see the bigger picture.

[00:35:09] Right. Like that that type of leader that is sort of unbound, unconstrained,

[00:35:15] willing to challenge norms that I'm really drawn to that.

[00:35:20] And I find that really empowering and has been really helpful for me

[00:35:26] throughout throughout my career.

[00:35:28] And I think I've been blessed to have a number of leaders

[00:35:31] that really believed in me, that powered me, that mentored me,

[00:35:37] you know, that helped when I made mistakes and so on that challenged me.

[00:35:41] So leaders are leaders are often everything.

[00:35:46] You know, they many times I think the old adages,

[00:35:49] people don't leave companies that leave managers or leaders or whatever

[00:35:52] that saying is right.

[00:35:53] And I think there's a lot of truth to that.

[00:35:55] Taylor, do you look at those leaders as mentors to you

[00:35:59] or just leaders in the company that you just aligned with?

[00:36:02] It's a great question.

[00:36:05] Look, throughout my whole career, there's been some of both.

[00:36:08] But what is what has happened is there's been a good number

[00:36:11] that I put in the mentor category, right?

[00:36:13] That relationships have been formed that have transcended

[00:36:17] the actual work engagement people that I've seen touched with

[00:36:20] throughout, you know, throughout I still talk to, etc.

[00:36:24] So a little bit of both, but really been blessed to have a number of mentors.

[00:36:30] Where's that crossover?

[00:36:31] So when how when do you consider that leader a mentor?

[00:36:35] That's a great question.

[00:36:36] That's a great that's a great question.

[00:36:38] Yeah.

[00:36:38] I don't know if I have a straightforward answer for you other than like

[00:36:42] when they start caring about you more than the outcomes.

[00:36:44] Exactly.

[00:36:45] Like I think that's it.

[00:36:46] I think that's it.

[00:36:47] When it wasn't given the answer.

[00:36:49] I know I got to make them struggle.

[00:36:52] You know, I am.

[00:36:53] I thought it.

[00:36:55] I'm like, well, yeah, that's fun.

[00:36:58] I mean, look, a great leader is going to be very effective with you

[00:37:02] in the capacity that you're working within that company.

[00:37:05] Right.

[00:37:05] It's going to really do everything they can for you to nail it within

[00:37:08] that company and for the team to nail it.

[00:37:10] And that that's a lot like we need a lot of people like that.

[00:37:13] I think when you get into mentor, it crosses over

[00:37:16] into best interests aligning with you.

[00:37:20] And really looking at the bigger picture with you.

[00:37:23] In other words, I'll give you some examples like caring about your

[00:37:26] career enough to where they're supporting your growth, even if it means moving

[00:37:30] outside of that's right.

[00:37:32] That's right.

[00:37:33] It's against their own personal interests.

[00:37:35] Their own personal interest would be to keep you like I'm thinking

[00:37:38] about the person at ADP in that particular in that particular instance,

[00:37:43] that person whom you had a great bond with.

[00:37:46] They could have easily, you know, not necessarily me capture,

[00:37:49] but they could have tried to keep you and because you were obviously great

[00:37:54] at what you did, they could have kept you.

[00:37:57] But they said, no, you need to actually go out and do these other things

[00:38:02] and to fly and be successful, make mistakes to all that stuff.

[00:38:07] So I think very, very mentors, they'll for at least for me in my definition,

[00:38:13] they'll do things that are against their own personal interests.

[00:38:15] Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great way to say it.

[00:38:18] And I mean, we work with a lot of great leaders that I think

[00:38:24] struggle with that.

[00:38:25] And so I think that's a great sort of challenge to all leaders

[00:38:27] to really think in that way.

[00:38:29] And I think the results they'll find over the course of their career

[00:38:33] will be incredible.

[00:38:34] So regrettable turnover is something I've been thinking about lately

[00:38:38] in the history of all my hiring

[00:38:42] and all the people that I've worked with, etc.

[00:38:45] I've only had there's only three people out of all of those people

[00:38:49] that I wish I could have kept them.

[00:38:52] I wish I would have known like in all three cases, I was blindsided

[00:38:56] that, you know, hey, will kind of talk to you real quick.

[00:38:59] Yeah, anyhow, I got this other opportunity, blah, blah, blah.

[00:39:02] And I did, you know, I always supported it and supported them.

[00:39:06] But I wish I would have known in advance because I would have

[00:39:09] not given them a kid, you know, seriously, like take my house,

[00:39:14] whatever, I don't care.

[00:39:15] Just please stay.

[00:39:18] But at three out of thousands.

[00:39:20] So do you have any stories of regrettable turnover?

[00:39:24] People people that have left that I've really regret.

[00:39:27] I like it. Yeah.

[00:39:29] Two of them and I'll tell you

[00:39:32] quickly and I feel it's about.

[00:39:34] So one was just unfortunate and I guess it goes back to the prior

[00:39:38] conversation, it was just this person that was incredibly skilled

[00:39:41] that was so obviously skilled beyond her current role.

[00:39:44] And we at the company I was at at the time

[00:39:48] just didn't have the right career like the career path

[00:39:51] wasn't there for because the person that was in the role

[00:39:53] which you want to go to was very strong, they were leaving

[00:39:54] anytime soon. And so it was just like an acceptance of like, look,

[00:39:57] this is what's best for you.

[00:39:58] You're absolutely right.

[00:39:58] I hate to live, but it was very unfortunate.

[00:40:00] The second one was when I was at ADP

[00:40:04] and she she left had an amazing opportunity went to went to Visa.

[00:40:11] And I ended up writing that ship and I have now brought her back

[00:40:14] into ID me and she's the driver.

[00:40:18] That's fantastic.

[00:40:19] Very nice.

[00:40:20] You left, but I will find a way.

[00:40:26] All right, genius.

[00:40:27] Tell our last question for me.

[00:40:30] Today is what is keeping you up tonight?

[00:40:35] Like, what are you thinking about?

[00:40:36] That's just like, I really need to solve this problem.

[00:40:39] Work related.

[00:40:41] Yeah, work. Yes, work really.

[00:40:42] Yeah, I don't care about your garage.

[00:40:44] I do.

[00:40:46] Why the box of wine doesn't show up or the case of wine

[00:40:49] doesn't show it up until Monday.

[00:40:51] It's a different it's a different issue.

[00:40:53] No, look, it's it's a it's a very appropriate question

[00:40:56] for sort of where I'm at in my career with this company.

[00:40:59] And here's what I'd say.

[00:41:00] And I'm trying to try to make this as concise the answer

[00:41:02] is possible. Like we are at this very interesting sort of cross

[00:41:06] roads within the space of identity where we really need to have

[00:41:10] digital identity.

[00:41:11] We really need to not have hundreds of passwords and user names

[00:41:14] and all these problems, but there's this real shift in terms

[00:41:16] of how identity is being done.

[00:41:17] So historically it's always been kind of behind the scenes.

[00:41:21] Users data is sort of sold by these data brokers

[00:41:25] and you punch in information of bank and they like,

[00:41:27] is this William is this right SSN and like,

[00:41:29] is the device he's on right?

[00:41:30] And you're sort of not a part of it.

[00:41:32] And what ID me represents is a complete difference in that model.

[00:41:37] It's all consumer permission, right?

[00:41:39] It's all, you know exactly what you're doing.

[00:41:42] You you own your identity.

[00:41:44] It moves with you.

[00:41:45] We don't ever sell information when you need to provide

[00:41:49] information, you consent,

[00:41:50] you see exactly what information you're sharing.

[00:41:53] And we're not the only there are other companies doing

[00:41:55] this, but it's it's it's winning that.

[00:41:58] It's winning the battle to reusable ID and consumer permission data

[00:42:03] and moving out of this of this age where all of our data is abused

[00:42:07] and used and we don't know intact and it's blah, blah, blah.

[00:42:11] And you're in control of your information.

[00:42:12] And what keeps me up at night is ID me is really close

[00:42:16] to accomplishing this like we are like have made incredible

[00:42:20] progress.

[00:42:21] We have 125 million members on 50 percent of the adult

[00:42:24] population as an ID me account 60 million or strongly identity

[00:42:28] proof like we've made a real real movement in this.

[00:42:32] And so it's seen that through, which I think there's a window

[00:42:35] of the next 12 to 18 months of really seeing that through

[00:42:38] really moving, really educating people about this shift.

[00:42:42] That's a big part of my job and that's a big part of what

[00:42:45] keeps me up at night.

[00:42:46] All right, last question for me, Taylor is you're going to write a book.

[00:42:51] What's the subject of it can't be about identity, by the way.

[00:42:53] It can't be.

[00:42:55] And so you're going to write a book.

[00:42:56] What are you going to write a book about?

[00:43:01] I'm like, why did I join this show?

[00:43:04] Yeah, right.

[00:43:05] How to avoid going to.

[00:43:07] No, I'm going to write a book about.

[00:43:10] Let me know how.

[00:43:11] How I what my younger self would have told me about taking risks

[00:43:14] about not being afraid to take risks.

[00:43:17] I've met too many people in my life and many people who I care about

[00:43:22] that had stunted their own growth, whether personally or professionally,

[00:43:26] because they're just not comfortable taking that.

[00:43:28] And I think that's a huge part of what what I've been proud of,

[00:43:33] what I've been able to do and something that I might be able to teach each other.

[00:43:37] So I love that no net want to be 75 and regret.

[00:43:41] Oh, I'd rather have failed at something by a mile than not

[00:43:45] then look back and say I should have done drops.

[00:43:48] Mike walks off, Stave Taylor.

[00:43:50] We knew you'd be wonderful.

[00:43:51] Thank you so much for coming on the show and breaking down things

[00:43:54] and telling us a little bit about your journey.

[00:43:56] Appreciate you both.

[00:43:57] Thanks to the absolutely.

[00:43:58] Thank you. Thanks to the audience.

[00:43:59] Love y'all.