I have been in the business world for over 27 years,  running large multi-million-dollar companies for over 2 decades. My entire life has been dedicated to developing a multitude of creative marketing strategies to grow sales. One of the most successful of those strategies was for my family’s Ford dealership.

 In the early 2000s, we needed to find a way to sell more pre-owned vehicles. We decided to take a shot with the online sales platform provided on eBay. I rebranded our small family-owned Ford dealership as: “Hammonasset World Car Headquarters” to reflect our vision for the company.

It wasn’t long before we started selling pre-owned cars and trucks everywhere with eBay. As a new eBay account, we started with 0 reviews. That was an issue. Who would buy a car from someone on the other side of the world with 0 reviews?

Surprisingly, a few people did. But, I knew we could not call ourselves “WORLD CAR HEADQUARTERS” and have 10 reviews.

That’s when we started selling car touch-up paint for a loss of $2 per tube.      Selling 1000s of tubes of touch-up paint resulted in 1000s of 5-star reviews plus a few 100 reviews from the car sales. It was enough to categorize      us as an eBay “Power Seller”, a label  that gave us better visibility on eBay and helped us promote our eBay store more easily.

The few $1000 that the paint sales cost us was nothing compared to the free visibility that eBay was giving us as a ”Power Seller”. The strategy was running like clockwork. We sold vehicles in every state in the United States and 37 countries. We even overnighted a Lincoln Navigator to Iceland!      

By the time the financial crisis happened in 2008, I quickly changed our marketing strategy to focus on “saving money”. I ordered fake arms and legs from the gag gift store to bring in a bit of humor at a time when a lot of people needed it. We placed them hanging out of the trunk and had signs for the side of the cars that read:

”I saved an arm and a leg at Hammonasset Ford.”           

 These strategies have not only allowed me to grow my business but also taught me the importance of profitability and ‘future-proofing” a business with a successful marketing strategy. Acquiring that valuable business experience through good and bad times helps me form a real connection with professionals, senior executives, and business owners today.

A few years down the line, I opened up an Insurance Agency in 2015. One of the services I wanted to offer our clients and the general public was identity theft protection. It was an issue that was close to my heart. I partnered with a California-based software company to launch a product called Identron.

Identron monitors and alerts users to credit activity associated with their social security number and personal information detected on the dark web. While introducing this product to the market, I quickly realized many people lacked knowledge about identity theft, cybercrimes, and scams.

My next challenge was to find a way to get in front of folks and help educate them about these areas. There were a few limitations along the way, of course. Firstly, I did not have the budget to advertise. I was also not a technical person in that field. Lastly, I had very few LinkedIn followers.

Despite these limitations, I decided to create online videos with tips and takeaways people could implement to protect themselves and their families from ID theft and cyberattacks. The knowledge didn’t need to be too technical to have value. But there was more I could offer.

As I was  posting my educational videos and building my LinkedIn following, I started my education in cybersecurity and ID theft. That journey led to a Harvard University certification for cybersecurity and risk in the information age and a C.I.P.A (Certified Identity Protection Advisor) certification at the Identity Management Institute.

I went on to attend a great bootcamp led by one of the best LinkedIn content leaders. All of that helped me further develop my content, understand the LinkedIn algorithm, and learn social media best practices for maximum visibility.

The proof was in the pudding. Those efforts helped me find the best strategy for LinkedIn. My LinkedIn videos now have over 3.5M views.       

As time passed, I      grew deeply passionate about cybersecurity and being a part of the cybersecurity community. Joining  the North East CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification) Coalition  allowed me to expand my network and boost my knowledge of the new CMMC model at the right time.

Especially since The Department of Defense will be requiring all government contractors to follow this new cybersecurity requirement.      

With my newfound knowledge and social media skills, I started a YouTube channel where I regularly interview CMMC cybersecurity professionals. The channel does quite well. We have over 750k views so far.

As that channel was growing, so was the demand for sponsorship. I began offering sponsorship options for the channel. But the buck didn’t stop there. I was also getting requests for additional social media marketing assistance. So I ended up applying my knowledge      to offer one-on-one training to cybersecurity companies throughout North America.

I then decided to package all my insights into  a self-paced on-demand program, #CyberSocial. #CyberSocial teaches Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) everything about cybersecurity marketing on social media. The program helps to “future-proof” IT/ Cybersecurity organizations.

I designed the program as a way to transform these organizations over a 12-14 week period. It is amazing to look back at the before and after snapshots of a company’s social media presence once they complete the program.

I have made it my mission to help as many people as I can to protect themselves, their families, and their businesses against identity thieves, scammers, and cybercriminals