August 11, 2025 • 46 mins
Who's really trying to join your club?
What secrets lie beneath that polished application and those glowing references?
Dan Klimek from Kennis Member Vetting pulls back the curtain on what truly comprehensive member screening can reveal and the results might shock you.
Traditional background checks barely scratch the surface.
Regulated by employment laws, they're limited in scope and depth. But when vetting potential club members, these restrictions don't apply, allowing for investigations that peel back layers of carefully constructed personas to reveal who applicants truly are when they believe no one's watching.
The conversation explores fascinating current trends emerging in member applications: pandemic PPP loan fraud that's only now surfacing, increasingly polarized political personas that might clash with club culture, and those mysterious "ghost accounts" – hidden online profiles where seemingly normal applicants participate in fringe communities. Perhaps most concerning are those joining with ulterior motives – not for the camaraderie or shared interests, but to gain access to wealthy members for business opportunities.
Most revealing are the detailed examples shared throughout: body camera footage showing how applicants behave during police encounters (a preview of potential club behavior), individuals maintaining completely separate online identities, and those with extensive litigation histories they've carefully omitted from applications. These real-world cases demonstrate how one problematic member can drive others away from facilities, causing financial and cultural damage far exceeding the cost of proper vetting.
While many clubs overlook this crucial step in membership screening, more are recognizing its value – particularly smaller clubs where each member represents a larger percentage of the community. With service options ranging from basic packages to comprehensive investigations, clubs of all sizes can now access professional vetting that protects their unique culture and ensures new members enhance rather than detract from the experience.
Ready to discover what might be hiding in your applicant pool?
Visit membervetting.com to request a sample report and see firsthand how thorough screening could protect your club's future.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club
Radio Show, where we give youthe scoop on all things private
golf and country clubs, frommastering leadership and
management, food and beverageexcellence, member engagement
secrets, board governance andeverything in between, all while
keeping it fun and light.
Whether you're a club veteranjust getting your feet wet or
somewhere in the middle, you arein the right place.
(00:20):
I'm your host, denny Corby.
Welcome to the show.
You know that one member atyour club who just doesn't fit,
the one that everybody quietlyavoids, or the one who somehow
turns every event into their owndrama.
Now imagine if you can spotthat person before they even get
into the club, before they evenget a member number.
(00:42):
That's what this episode isabout.
I am thrilled to be bringing onDan Klemek from Kennis Member
Vetting.
His team digs into the past andthey dig past the polished
applications, they dig past thehandshakes, they dig past the
glowing references and they findout who is really trying to
join your club.
And sometimes the stuff thatthey find will just absolutely
(01:06):
blow your mind.
And in this conversation, inthis episode, we get into the
biggest trends that Dan andtheir team is seeing right now,
from pandemic PPP loan fraudsthat are still surfacing and now
coming up a lot more.
And we're not just go in, it'snot just the obvious you know
the guy who bought the Ferraris,you know but it goes beyond
(01:26):
that.
We dive into politics, which isnow more polarized and loud
than ever, with online poststhat can clash hard with your
club's culture.
And, even more importantly,these so-called ghost accounts,
which we've talked about here.
We're going to talk about thema little bit more.
And these are the profiles inthese niche forum people that
(01:46):
people think are never going tobe found.
And guess what?
Kenes member vetting can findthese profiles.
And it's not just the largeclubs and these big clubs that
are doing this.
A lot of smaller clubs aretaking their vetting a lot more
serious now.
They're getting a lot morethorough, if not more, than some
of these bigger clubs, becauseit's important and they realize
(02:08):
how important every single newmember is to the club, and one
bad egg can really do somedamage, especially some clubs
that are doing these membershipdrives, which can be a minefield
when you're bringing in dozensand dozens of brand new members
in a month or two all at once.
So if you ever wondered what'sreally possible when you pull
(02:29):
back the curtain on an applicant, or how past behaviors predict
future behavior inside yourclubhouse.
This episode is for you.
If you and your club are notdoing the vetting that you think
it should be done, or if you'reopen or want to do maybe a
little bit more member vetting,please head on over to
membervettingcom.
Fill out the form.
(02:50):
Dan Paul or someone from theteam will get in touch with you.
Even if you want to see one ofthese sample reports of what
they find on applicants, head onover to membervettingcom.
Reach out, get one of thesereports.
You're going to be mind.
It's unbelievable the stuffthat they can uncover.
So I am so stoked for this one.
(03:11):
Private Club Radio listeners,let's welcome back to the show
Dan Klemek.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
The analogy is that generally, you never know how
many layers deep someone goesright.
You have the surface layer thatthey introduced to you and that
you see on the outside, but aswe start peeling those layers
back and looking at thebackground, looking at the
history, looking at the thingsthat we can find online, it can
be endless.
I mean, some of these accountsgo very, very deep and very far
(03:35):
back and are fairly well hidden.
When we get to them, you gothis was 10 layers deep.
I don't know that wenecessarily call it that, but
that's kind of what it feelslike.
So that analogy has worked fora long time because, it's very
true, you never know what you'regoing to get when you start
feeling the layers back.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, what's the average amount of layers
that you peel, or normal?
What's the normal?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
You know, your average person has what they
display to the publicprofessionally.
Generally that's layer layerone and that's what they want
you to see.
Then there's the family layer.
When you start getting into thepersonal accounts and then from
there, if they are someone thathas secondary accounts let's
say their social media accountstwitter x, instagram, tiktok,
all the good ones if they starthaving those secondary accounts,
those tend to layer and spinoff really quickly.
(04:24):
Because if you find a secondaryaccount that's into this one
focus area whether it'spolitical or it's some other
weird lifestyle thing thatthey're into those tend to lead
to other layers where like, okay, now we know what you're into,
now we know to look over here,because you mentioned something
over here and it's just keepgoing and going and going until
you get to the bottom of it.
But listen, your average memberis two layers deep and it's
(04:46):
their professionals, theirfamily, they seem to match up
and they're good people.
It's the ones that you catchwhere you're like well, we just
found something very unusual andwe have a long way to go to
figure this one out.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
We're midway through 2026.
Has there been any?
I know, I know I feel like thebeginning was super slow and all
of a sudden it was like hi,summer, but as we're in the 2026
, has there been any common?
The thing is not the word, buthas there been anything that you
guys have been finding morecommon now, or maybe into 2026,
(05:19):
maybe even the past year or so,that maybe hasn't been common in
the past?
You're like oh, this has beencoming up a lot, or like, or
we've been seeing a lot morelike.
So in my head I'm thinking nowlike I don't ask why, but I get
sucked down the YouTube rabbithole of like random stuff and
one of the things I enjoylistening to is like body cam
footage and like I don't I don'tknow why with doing stuff, it's
(05:45):
just like background noise, uh,but like, so I I've seen a lot
of like the covid pandemic, thechecks and the money.
There's a lot of like, a lot ofthat fraud's coming up now.
Has that been?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
has that been a thing that's been common and, like
what else, has been popping upthree things come to mind, and
and two of them are are, youknow, investigation related one.
You hit the nail on the head.
So the governments both uh, youknow, the state and the federal
government are finally catchingup on COVID relief dollars.
So that those PPP loans thereare investigations going on in
every state and every county onpeople that took those loans out
(06:14):
for non-existent businesses orbusinesses that they started in
order to get that loan money.
So you're seeing a lot ofpeople who have these PPP loan
fraud cases.
Now we have seen a lot of thosewhere it's like okay, you know,
in 2019, you had two employees,but all of a sudden, for the
PPP loan, you're claiming 25employees.
You took a $2 million loan out.
(06:35):
Now the government's going.
What did you do with that?
Because the business doesn'tseem to exist.
So, yeah, that is a huge theme.
The other theme, and I thinksince we talked last, is
political Things.
The politics have, you know,wherever you're at, they've
shifted.
They've gone far left, farright.
That has created some online,some heated online content that
we find, and you know, I mean,let's face it Some of those
(06:57):
people, no matter what sidethey're on, can be difficult to
be around right, and so whenthey're posting these things
online, the political posts havegone through the roof.
I mean, people have taken sidesand the ones that are vocal are
loud and vocal and, again, notsometimes the best members, or
at least somebody you should beaware of.
Depending on what your club'sculture is like, sometimes
(07:18):
that's not a great fit.
So that's what we've seen.
Those would be the two mainthings in the past year.
I mean, listen, the ghostaccounts are crazy.
I mean, when you find them,denny, you wouldn't believe.
I mean, you could meet someone,have dinner with them, play
around a golf with them, andthey're totally normal.
You'd hang out with them, you'dhave beers with them, and then
you would look at this reportand go, oh my gosh, they're into
(07:39):
that, that is something thatthey're into and it will
eventually come up when they'remembers.
I mean those those types ofthings that we find we'll just
leave it at, strange lifestylechoices, uh, outside of the
public view, but that tend tomake their way online.
There are forums, there aregroups, there are things that
people belong to that you wouldnever believe, right?
(07:59):
Mark the ceo, you're like coolguy had beers with him yesterday
.
He shot a 78.
It was fun.
And then you're like we shouldadmit him.
And then you look at our report.
You go oh my gosh, oh my goshhe's a no, it's called furry
denny.
Furries, oh damn it.
Come on, you knew that um.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
You knew that you found my account.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
You found my account, the animal in the background
there and now okay listen,listen okay you're.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
You're furry curious, so, okay, time out.
These are all things.
So these are some just books Ilike and this is stuff from like
shows and and just stuff.
This was so look, if you getall defensive now, no, that was
actually a.
Very curious, very curious.
I was doing a club show inFlorida and they said hey, what
(08:50):
do you want in your green room?
So to me I don't take anythingserious.
I was like bottle of vodka,bottle of wine, a charcuterie
board, puppies.
I just started listing off allthis stuff and, sure enough,
when I, when I got into like thegreen room, there was like the
stuffed animal dog, there waslike small, like nips of vodka,
(09:11):
there was like a charcuterie,but it was really funny uh, just
like, whatever the rollingstones get, I want that uh, well
, and then actually total sidenote.
Do you know where the green m&mscame from or why that started?
I do not so I don't know if itwas the rolling stones one of
the bands in in the writer said,uh, a bowl of green m&ms.
(09:32):
And now, mind you, this was.
This was back 80s, 90s maybe,and they did that for a very
specific reason.
There are people who put stuffin there in their rider for like
bs, just just because they wantit, but that was the tour
manager.
Because the tour manager putthat on there, because if they
showed up, because back in theday you couldn't just buy green
m&ms, like now you can just buythe colors, as is like a whole
(09:55):
bag of whatever I've been tovegas, I know yeah, so they did
that because if the tour managerwent into the green room when
they first showed up and therewas a bowl of green m&ms, that
means that they had somebodyread the rider.
They had somebody sit there andseparate all the m&ms, just to
put the green one.
So now they know it's probablygoing to be a safer venue.
(10:15):
Everything's going to be set upproperly.
Like it, that was like, thatwas their little like trigger
yeah, that was their like littletrigger to go like, because now
if he shows up and it's just aregular bull, it's like gosh.
I really got to go and let medouble check this, let me make
sure all that.
So I thought that was.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It's like in college when you sneak a bizarre
sentence into your essay just tosee if the professor reads it.
You got a 30-page essay and yousneak a sentence in there like
this professor's awful, and thenyou wait to see if he says
anything, because then you knowhe didn't read it.
So, yeah, no, that's no.
So the furry thing is very realand you know you can use your
(10:53):
imagination as to what elsethere is out there, outside of
the furry realm.
But once you find somethinglike that and I'll give you a
more mundane example, moremundane example If I find out
that you're a big car person,you have a whole bunch of
pictures of your, you know picka car.
You know we're going racing ina few weeks BMW, for example.
There are entire forums andcultures and websites and things
(11:16):
dedicated to that.
So I now know that about you.
And then I start down thatrabbit hole and I want to see
are we street racing?
Are we doing things nefariously?
Who are we hanging out with?
What kind of clubs and whatkind of places do we go to?
Because that leads to otherthings too and it leads to
connections.
It leads to things that you doand that's pretty mundane.
(11:37):
I mean most car people are.
I've got a.
I've got a Wrangler.
I'm on Wrangler forums becauseit's a, it's a nineties Wrangler
, so trying to keep that thingalive and running is you need
the forums, right?
So there are things that youknow people are into as hobbies
and you find those things andyou go down that rabbit hole and
figure out what those reallymean.
Sometimes those hobbies arequestionable at best.
And then you, you know, you godown those, those rabbit holes
(11:59):
and those sites and those forumsand those things that are not
traditionally found on Google.
I mean, you know we joke allthe time we talk about the
analogy of the onion, but theiceberg right, and I've got a
great picture of it somewherewhere you've got this iceberg,
where you've got just the tippytop showing on the surface,
that's Google.
Google only indexes about 5% to6% of the entire internet.
So that other 95% call it isnot indexed by Google.
(12:23):
So your average person isn'tgoing to find those things, and
that includes things like forumsand other strange sites that
are considered on.
I would say the deep web wouldbe the best way to describe it.
But it's that, under thesurface information that we
dredge up and find where all ofthis information is.
So that's really the benefit isfinding all of it and going
(12:51):
back to our trends.
So we have the political, we'vegot the weird alternative
lifestyle stuff, and the PPPloans are a big one.
I mean they speak to a lot offraud.
I mean generally, when you seethose, it means whatever that
person's primary business waswas failing or had a problem,
and there's lawsuits andlitigation and that was a way to
get some quick cash infusedinto a business where it wasn't
necessarily legitimate.
And then you have the crazyones where it's like you know,
guy who claimed 30 employees andbought two Ferraris over COVID
(13:11):
with PPP money.
Well, that's a more obvious one.
Those people were found first.
Now they're going after theones that are more questionable,
like did you really have 100employees and need a $10 million
PPP loan, or maybe it was thatinflated and they're going back
and getting those things.
The third trend is more businessrelated.
On our end is that we have seena lot more small clubs
(13:35):
contacting us, and when I saysmall, I mean by actual number
of members, but also from a coststandpoint.
Those clubs are contacting usmore regularly and finding value
in what we're doing becausethey are smaller.
So we kind of had a targetrange of the type of club that
was a good fit for us originallyand being new to the industry
(13:58):
only a couple of years ago a fewyears ago trying to learn
things on the fly.
But now we're finding that someof these smaller clubs are just
as interested and so we're ableto put together really nice
packages for them too that are alittle bit more cost conscious
but still give them a much morein-depth view of what that
applicant's going to be like.
And the other going along withthat is membership drives, which
(14:19):
was something that I had neverheard of before.
But sometimes clubs will domembership drives.
So they'll say you know, forthe month of July we're going to
try to sign up 100 new membersand we're going to publish stuff
and advertise.
And what that turns out to beis 100 new members that no one
knows they know nothing about,right.
So we've got 100 members of thegeneral public that no one has
(14:39):
referred.
They're just people thatapplied, and now we really feel
like we're under the gun to getmore information about these
people before we admit them in.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
So those are just some of the biggest trends that
I've seen over the last year,year and a half thing before we
connected and chatted, you know,with paul, like years ago, and
just a story of how you know thewhole thing just came about
when he, the a club that he wasa member of, um asked like hey,
(15:12):
with your business, can you dothis for us?
And like, and when he wastelling me that I just assumed
most clubs did a more thoroughbackground, which to me is
mind-blowing.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
It is, and so the two things that we run into the
most are clubs that don't doanything right.
They say, well, we've met theperson, they must be great.
But my story of meeting someoneand playing golf with them
doesn't always apply, becausethere are some strange things in
the background and the otherclubs are doing what you would
consider a pre-employmentbackground check if you were to
(15:44):
get a job.
And they run a background check, which the boring part of what
I have to do is explain thedifference, and that is the
pre-employment background checkis so heavily regulated by the
FCRA because it's an offer ofemployment, so you can only look
at this much of the person'sbackground legally before you
make a hiring decision.
With private members there's noprotections there.
(16:04):
You can look at whatever youwant to.
We get to do our act.
What we can actually do in ourwheelhouses is dig really,
really deep.
So you had also mentioned thebody cam footage.
I would mention that to youbecause you know body cam
footage is.
You know, let's say, body camfootage is about 10 years old
and the technology of policedepartments using them Almost
every department now has them.
I'm sure there's smallerdepartments over the country
(16:25):
that don't, but most policedepartments have these.
They are public record by andlarge.
There's a couple of states thathave issues where they don't
consider them public record orthey're harder to get, but by
and large, they're publicrecords.
The example I always give issomebody with a DUI arrest.
Right, let's say it's a 2018DUI arrest and you look at that
on paper and you say, okay, duiarrest, they did 30 hours of
(16:46):
community service and that wasit.
That's the last number.
Right, most of us know somebodythat's had a DUI arrest.
Let's face it and we say, okay,that's a normal guy problem,
normal person problem.
Looks like they moved on, nobig deal.
The question is, when you getthat body cam footage and
they're absolutely insane andthey have to be tased and thrown
in the back of the police carand all they want to talk about
(17:07):
is how important they are andwho they are and who they know
and how awful the cops are and Ipay your salary when that's on
video.
That's a different person thanyour buddy jim that just had one
too many and drove home and gotcaught got caught and just took
his punishment, moved on versussomebody that went absolutely
bananas when they wereintoxicated.
(17:28):
So those are two differentmember types and that's the
depth and the detail and thelevel that we give you.
So the body camphor is justeasier to get, it's faster to
get and it's pretty much astandard practice when we have
something like that.
That's happened in the recentpast because it can give you a
lot of insight into who thatperson is.
If they sit quiet, they thinkthey take their time and they're
(17:49):
just a normal guy that had abad day, totally normal stuff,
and the club gets to look atthat and decide if that's the
right personality, the right fitfor them.
So yeah, body cam footage isawesome and it's come a long way
in the last 10 years, even inthe last couple of years, I
think know where we are in MetroDetroit almost every single
department has it and DPD waslike the last to adopt it, but
now that they have it, it's beena really, really good tool for
(18:11):
us.
So that's a really nice featureto have.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And I've said this before too, and it's not up to
you, you don't decide who comesin, the club still decides all
that.
You just present all the fact.
You just give all theinformation, just all the
findings and it's up to them todecide, because because they can
still and I'm sure, and I'msure you don't know, because you
don't, you don't really followup or have like a need to care
to follow up, but I'm sureyou've probably sent stuff into
(18:38):
a club and go.
There's no way that thatperson's getting in.
Sure I'm sure they sure as hellgot in that that person's
getting in sure.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I'm sure they sure as hell got in well.
So here's the thing is ifyou're using us, then you care
about who you're letting in.
It's very true and so, yes, Iwill give you the the examples.
Yes, there are times wherewe're like there's no way that
this person's admitted.
But it is really up, it is 100up to club.
We highlight anything thatneeds to be looked at.
So your average report is verymundane.
It's Bill, he's a chiropractorand he's got a nice family and
(19:12):
he lives down the street andeverything he said on his
application because we get thattoo everything is set as
application is accurate.
Verifying the information thatwas provided to us is a big part
of it too.
So if the person says I'm this,that and the other, and I'm on
this board and I'm this personand I'm this and I went to this
school and I know these people,and it's on that application, we
verify that those things areaccurate, because people will
(19:34):
lie on those things.
Like any other type ofapplication, people don't always
tell the truth.
So, yes, there are times wherewe send the reports.
It's subjective.
One club might say, yeah, we'lloverlook that and it's fine.
One club might say absolutelynot.
One club might have aconversation with that person
and say, hey, listen, you hadfour alcohol arrests in the last
five years.
(19:55):
This appears to be a problem atsomething that we just can't
have.
We can't tolerate that here.
We don't want you gettingpulled over and getting another
DUI after leaving the club.
That's a bad look for us.
Local police departments don'tlike that when that happens.
So it might be a conversation.
(20:15):
Then there's the high-levelones, where not only do we
highlight everything, like wealways do, you might get a phone
call from me or from Janine orsomeone in our office, and the
phone call is going to be toactually help walk you through
what you're about to read,because there are some things
that are harder to explain inwords on a report.
(20:36):
So we have that customerservices there and it's like hey
, okay, you're going to get thisreport.
I want you to open it with mewhen you get it.
Let's go through it together.
Sometimes it's a matter of letme explain a little bit better
than we can on paper how we gotto that profile online is your
applicant, because it'ssometimes very difficult.
We had to go through sevendifferent avenues to prove that
(21:00):
that profile, that some randombizarre name online is your
person, but let me walk youthrough it so you know.
Bizarre name online is yourperson, but let me walk you
through it, so you know.
Or this is a really weird oneand I need to explain to you
what this means because I had togoogle it and I was.
It was awful to google and Ididn't want to have to google it
, but I googled what it is andthis is what the person's into
and I didn't want to write onpaper necessarily.
(21:22):
So I've had to have thoseconversations.
I've had to have thoseconversations.
I've had to have thoseconversations where it's like
you know, using your furry inthe background I'm not going to
assume that every membershipdirector or general manager is
up to speed on local furry terms, so I may have to Google some
things and explain what theperson's into and say you know,
if the club has stuffed animalslaying around, you might have to
(21:44):
hide those.
And there's nothing wrong withbeing what people are into no,
not at all, and I'm using thatas an example, because most of
the things we see are a littlebit more devious than that.
Um, but you know, I'm prettysure you're a pg podcast, so
we'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
No, I mean no, I mean this is.
I mean this is, this is a nicheshow and this is, this is a
very I mean.
To me this is like an importanttopic because, like clubs are a
very important and sacred placeand, you know, not every club
is for every person and thatthat always kills me too is, you
know, the clubs that just letanybody in and like and I guess
there's a place for those.
But it's like a club to me likehas a personality, like a, it's
(22:19):
like a living, breathing thing.
You know more or less, and ithas, like it's it's a thing and
you get those right people inthere.
Because you know, I'veperformed at clubs where you you
can tell like it is a vibe andit's a place and there's others
you can be like I'm just alittle off here like just like
mismatch or something.
Um, and then, and real quick,if people want a sample of a
report, can they go tomembervettingcom and request a
(22:42):
sample report of what a reportwould look like.
That that can get.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Absolutely so.
We've got a lot on the site.
We've got an inquiry form thatcomes straight to Paul and I and
one of us will answer rightaway.
We also have a white paper thatwe've written on some
statistics about membership andabout vetting and some examples
between what you would get in apre-employment report versus a
chemist report, and then alsoyou can request a sample report
(23:07):
on there.
We're probably going to callyou and talk about the level
that you're looking at, becausewe have many levels that we can
perform the service on.
So we can go really deep.
We can put a budget onetogether.
We kind of got a good rangewhere we are.
So we've got a lot of samplereports sample reports on good
stuff, bad stuff, all sorts ofdifferent stuff.
But just to give you a feel ofwhat you're going to get as a
dossier investigation on yourmember applicant to say, this is
(23:31):
what kind of person you'redealing with.
And, to your point, the clubvibe I mean the like-mindedness
and having a good culture at aclub is huge.
I think we talked about thislast time on the podcast, but my
example still holds true isevery time I talk to a GM, they
always go oh, that one guy or,oh, that one lady, right, but
they're a bummer and they bringeverybody else down when they're
(23:52):
in the room, when they'rearound, nobody wants to be
around them.
They keep members from showingup and they cause problems,
right.
And so that one member story.
And I tell that every time Ispeak, every time I do a
presentation, because it doesnot fail, when I'm meeting with
people, meeting with GM, themembership directors, that
that's exactly what they willsay Well, we got this one guy.
(24:13):
So still holds true, still myfavorite example, but that's
that.
That speaks to the vibe and theculture of the club a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
And do you so, and when you find information, you
just don't show the badinformation.
You find the good stuff andshowcase that too.
So I'm I would assume that onthe flip side, I'm sure you
probably have had people who,like on paper, you're like, oh,
they just seem like average andboring.
And then you start digging.
You're like these arephenomenal people.
Like they donate hundreds ofthousands that no one knows
about and they're like thesephilanthropic and just like ever
(24:43):
giving amazing.
You know superheroes.
And you're like why, where didthis come from?
Like how come they're notshowcasing that?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
100 and for for us, you know it's interesting
because it's not, it's neverpersonal.
We don't know the people, wehave nothing against them ever
and and so we're just trying toshow what they're all about as
best possible.
And, yes, 100.
So our highlight section in ourreport is bad stuff, negative
stuff or subjective things, butalso the very positive things
too.
And you get your perfectexample of very philanthropic or
(25:13):
on the board of a bunch ofnonprofits and takes one of the
things that detail is.
It's one thing to say thisperson's on 10 nonprofit boards.
It's another thing to saythey're on 10 nonprofit boards
and they're taking zero salaryon all of those boards.
They're zero salary on everysingle one of those.
Everything is 100% donatingtheir time.
That speaks volume to who thatperson is right.
(25:35):
They've made it, they're nottaking money from that nonprofit
and that's something that wecan display right.
Great family, travels a lot,gives money, takes care of
people yeah, all sorts ofpositive things and by and large
, most, most, are that rightwhat we're looking for, the ones
that aren't, because those arethe ones that the clubs want to
keep out, but by and large, mostof those people are great and
(25:57):
excellent members and peoplethat I would love to go hang out
with.
I have I've I'll be honest,I've seen some where I've
reviewed a report ago.
I want to know this guy, likewho is this person?
Like they're so cool, likethey're like they're in a
helicopter saving people inSouth Africa and they're, you
know, the next week they'reskiing with their family and
it's like what a cool family,what a cool guy.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You know the race car stuff because I'm a car guy, so
I see the guys with their carswant to go to that club and
speak, just so I can meet thatguy.
So no, it's uh it's fancyseeing you here, like good thing
, your vetting report lookedgood, uh, so yeah, no, no,
really.
Most of them are genuinelypositive and we highlight that
too.
So the club gets a really goodthumbs up feeling about those
(26:38):
people and they're going to makethat decision and they're
they're easy decisions, most ofthem so do.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Do you ever run into or like, how do handle a
situation?
Do you ever have a situation ora club?
Or does it happen where, let'ssay, you start a club has X
package and you start maybe it'slike middle or so and you start
digging and finding stuff andyou're like, hey, there's more
to this one.
Do you just do it?
(27:04):
Do you charge more?
How does that work then?
Then, if you're, if you're, ifthey get a certain package, and
all of a sudden you start likepeeling back the layers and you
start opening up the boxes andyou're like, ooh, there's a lot
more boxes here than we thought.
This is going to take some moretime.
Like, how does that work inyour, in your world?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
It, um, we do it.
So we just we.
We finish it.
We do the work product becauseit's subjective and the club
gets to decide, you know,whether we think it's something
that's like, you know they'reautomatically not going to let
this person in.
I can't say that that hasn'thappened, but it would be a
super rarity.
We're going to finish.
We charge a flat rate perapplicant.
So you know, some of the thingswe don't have.
(27:41):
We don't have like a monthlyfee, we don't have an annual fee
and there's no commitmentduration wise.
So you use us when you use us.
Our hope is it uses on everyapplicant.
So it's a fair process and we,you know that you include us in
your process, um, but you'regetting that report one way or
the other and there isn't an upcharge for, holy moly, this
one's really big um, it canhappen when most of the time it
(28:05):
will be, when someone isrelatively prominent, that's
that's.
Those are the hardest onesbecause there's so much content
out there.
A lot of times we'll summarizethe large quantity of content.
So you know, let's say you hada Congress person, for example.
They're going to be all overthe news.
They're, they're going to besomeone that's spoken about,
written about, and so we cansummarize the large quantities
(28:26):
of content and also put togetheran analysis of their political
views and, if they're going tobe a good fit for that club and,
you know, lay out what theirpolitical views are or what
their thought processes and whatissues they're big on.
So the club kind of knowsthat's what they're into and
that's their thing.
But yeah, prominent people areprobably the most challenging
because there's so much contentthat we have to go through and
(28:48):
analyze.
But no, no additional charges,that's on us and we handle that
because we also know that thebulk of the ones that we do are
going to be in that range ofpretty normal individuals that
are not going to take a lot ofextra time or collection of
information on.
So no, that's on us and then wetake care of those as well.
So we tend to quote based onyou know kind of the area and
(29:08):
what the club's like and whattypes of people.
We ask a lot of questionsbefore we quote anything.
We want to know a lot about theclub.
Who applies, you know, whereare your, where are your
applicants from?
Are they local?
Are they travel?
Are they from the other placeof the international.
Are they from out of state?
It gives us a good idea of whatthat population is going to be
like for the most part when westart to go do the vetting.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, because if I remember I was thinking I don't
know if it was for an episodePaul was talking or you know,
just talking on the phone orsomething too.
But just how you know, certainstates and counties have
different fees and proceduresand some people you have to go
in person to the place and fillout a form you have to go in
(29:50):
person to the place and fill outa form.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
You have to send somebody there to go and do that
, to get the information, tobring it back to you.
Yeah, rural communities thatare not as tech savvy and put
some of these records online Imean we have subscriptions with
every county and state that ispossible to have to get records
and to pull informationrelatively quickly because we're
still doing it the oldfashioned way, but the correct
way, and going straight to thesource for the data.
So we don't use third-partydata brokers that only get a
(30:12):
little piece of a case.
We're getting the entire thingso we can go directly to that
court and get the entire caseand review it so that we get all
those details, all that context, all the things that have
happened.
A good example of that would belike a divorce case.
Right In a docket sheet youwould see a divorce case.
It's just divorce, plaintiff,defendant and a bunch of
(30:33):
calendar events and whathappened.
But when you start pullingthose things especially if it's
a lengthy case you start to getmore information.
You get the information aboutthe abuse and the domestic
problems and the fight over thekids and the fight over the
assets and you look at theassets and are the assets
legitimate and based on whatthey've told us on their
application.
Is that true and accurate?
So you get more of that detailand context when you do it that
(30:56):
way, the way that we do it to goand actually get the doc.
This is the same thing with thepolice reports.
Getting the full police reportand the body cam footage is
better than just getting anexcerpt from the police that
says DUI, arrest 2018, becausethat doesn't give you those
details that you need to make adecision or at least evaluate
who that person really is sobecause if they're, if they're
(31:17):
that way drunk acting to apolice officer, they're
definitely the same way drunk atthe club bar.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yes, yeah, or maybe, but, or like close to it, or you
know, you know, give, give meanother drink.
You know who I am.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I've been a member here, since they're the ones
throwing the putters on the 18thgreen, you know.
So I can't putt either, but Idon't get mad about it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I don't think we've ever talked about on here, like
what does something like thiscost?
And I realize just from theconversation that we've had and
similar to like a lot of thingsthere's different um, like you
know, because, like, dependingon the who, what, where, when,
why is there's, there'sdifferent costs and pricing.
But, like you know, a what doeslike a basic background, like.
(31:57):
So if someone just were to justgo get like a normal background
check what, what you know, anormal, whatever verse, then
then to like you you know whatdo your so like kind of like
what does that cost?
Versus like what do you likeyour ranges cost from?
Like you know your entry level,your basic to what maybe most
clubs get to?
Um, to like the more like thehigher end, like what does that,
(32:19):
what does that range and scopelook like?
And how do you compare to likea normal like you know at at a
bare bones, for your bareminimum, to like a really good,
just public search people canget like what's that difference?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
like Huge difference.
Yeah, so no, that's awesome Aregular pre-employment
background check.
It could range anywhere from,you know, 75 to $200, right,
depending on where you're at.
And you had mentioned thejurisdictions matter a ton.
New York.
There's a premium on New Yorkand California because the data
is very difficult to get, ittakes a long time and those
(32:51):
counties and the state, in orderfor us to get that data, charge
us an awful lot more than anyother of the two states,
california and New York.
New York has a super highpremium of getting data Shocking
that that would be the mostexpensive state in the country.
So that would be your typicalpre-employment background check.
But again, heavily regulatedcan only look at this much
information.
(33:12):
In California, I think it'sfive years after the conviction.
You can't look at it and make adetermination, so you're only
getting a very small window andthere's no detail, no context.
That arrest for DUI in 2018,which now is already outside of
that scope that you could evensee in California, so you
wouldn't even get it, but itwould be arrest, dui, charge,
date, guilty, that's it.
(33:33):
That's all you're going to see.
Our most basic package.
Everything's customized.
Let's start there.
So we ask a ton of questionswith clubs.
The way that the process worksin getting a club onboarded is
we have about a 30 to 45 minutedemo that we do.
We go through an entire reportand all of the various searches
and all of the things that wecan do, and then we start to ask
(33:54):
questions of the club, reallyimportant questions.
If we ask the club and say,would you not allow someone in
your club, based on you know, goback to the DUI for a DUI five
years ago and they said, well,we don't really care about DUIs
because we're a local club andeveryone walks here, for example
, okay, then we're not evengoing to offer that search.
(34:15):
There's no point.
If you're not going to make adecision based on that search
that we're providing, thenthere's no point in even having
it and seeing it Right Now.
That's a bad one, because mostpeople would want to know that.
But, um, so we start to buildthese things based on what they
want.
If character and reputation isthe main thing and that's really
our wheelhouse, because that'sthe most challenging part of
(34:36):
what we do is finding thoseprofiles, finding what they're
really like in their personallife that comes into play in the
package too, so we include that.
And then we look at it and say,obviously we want to look at the
criminal, we want to make surethey're not a sex offender, we
want to make sure that the DUIsare there and the driving record
is okay.
And then maybe we want to startlooking at the business aspect
and what they actually do, theirprofessional criteria and what
(34:58):
they're claiming that they'reone thing right, I'm this person
and I've got these criteria andI'm on the board for this and
I'm involved with this thatthose things are accurate.
Right, that's a part of it too,to make sure that what they're
telling you they are, theyreally are, and that they're not
there for any other purpose,because we do catch I say catch,
we find members or applicantsthat are there to garner
(35:21):
influence.
So clubs are really, reallyconcerned about that, about
people joining up becausethey're in sales and marketing,
for example, or they've got ahot new startup and they need
investors and their goal is togo to the club and find
investors right and they'rethere for the wrong reasons.
They're not there for thecamaraderie, they're not there
for the atmosphere.
They're there to makeconnections.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
And you can kind of find that Like you can put those
pieces together or at leastformulate that story.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
We can form the basis to say you should look at this,
because they don't match allthe things they said they are.
They don't have all thecriteria that you would
typically have in one of yourmembers.
The cost point may not be agood match.
So there's a really easy onewhere it's like okay, this is a
very costly club to join, right,you have a very high initiation
(36:09):
fee.
This person doesn't reallymatch what we have typically
seen.
Maybe this is a corporatesponsorship, right?
Maybe there's a corporationsaying, hey, we want to get our
sales guy in there and so we'regoing to pay for that membership
, because the influence that hecan gain from being here, she
can gain from being there.
So we have actually seen many,many times where that's happened
(36:29):
, where it's like something's alittle weird here.
Or you find out that they'vegot a startup and they're
looking for investors, and it'svery public.
I'm looking for investors, I'vegot the startup and it's good
or bad, it doesn't matter, butthey're there and from the
minute they get there, they'regoing to be trying to make
connections, having lunches.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Passing out business cards.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Passing out connections, having lunches,
passing out business cards.
We do see that a lot.
We can formulate that and itactually becomes pretty obvious.
We've had several examples ofthat, even in the last month or
two, where it's like this is astrange one Doesn't golf,
joining a golf club but not agolfer or not a golfer, and you
can easily see that they're insales and marketing and they're
not a golfer and they've neverbeen to a club before.
Those are the types of thingsthat we can look for and find.
(37:11):
As far as pricing goes back tothat, we build everything
customized.
So from a range standpoint,from a dollar standpoint which I
hate to do, but I will give yousome dollars inside information
here, denny, on the podcast wecan build these packages from as
little as $300, $350, all theway up to $1,500, $2,000.
(37:34):
It's a pretty big range.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I would say and I'll give you some, you know the
middle range of that, that kindof $600 to $800, is really where
most clubs end up fitting in,and some of it comes to
initiation fee.
Do they charge an applicationfee?
And we're also creative withthat too.
If they're a club that doesn'thave an application fee, we can
actually be the application fee.
They can actually pay usdirectly for that.
(37:59):
We're flexible in that they cancreate an initiate or an
application fee that includesour cost in there.
So we can work with clubs toreally recover that money, those
dollars, to really make itworthwhile.
And most people and they'll findtoo clubs will tell you is that
when they have the applicationfees and they're notified that
we're going to be doing this,which isn't a necessity you
(38:20):
don't have to notify them, and Ican speak to that more.
They will also have somemembers that are like, yeah,
they're probably going to findthat out about me and maybe I
don't want that out there, andthen they bail on the process
anyways.
So from a cost standpoint, very, very customized.
I would tell any club that'shearing this that's like oh man,
we have a lower initiation feeand we don't have an application
fee.
But you're interested, I canwork with you on that.
(38:43):
I can really come up withsomething that works and makes
sense and gives you a muchbetter vetting product than you
could ever get on thepre-employment side of things,
because again it's heavilyregulated we can always come up
with a package for a club that'sinterested.
We've never had to turn anyonedown because it's just not.
We can't make it work.
We can make something work foryou.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
And I'm sure you've probably had a.
I've had a couple of clubs whoyou know hire you and they're
like, ah, himman and Hahn, youknow, hire you and they're like,
oh, himman and Hahn.
And then you come back withthat one report and you're like
here and they go, oh, then it'slike, oh, thank goodness.
It's like there we go.
That's that like breath offresh air, like, thank goodness,
like it's like when theyfinally like see it and get it,
you're like, oh, okay, worth it.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
You'll see on the site soon, as we're doing some
upgrades, we'll have some greatquotes from general managers and
membership directors that we'vegotten via email or over the
phone.
I was in Cincinnati for theirchapter association earlier this
year April or early May and Ihad a manager come up to me and
(39:43):
I literally joke with her.
I said can you please say thaton video or something Like, can
you put it in writing?
It was like, oh my gosh, did wedodge a bullet on that?
That's pretty much what thequote was and I was like hold on
, hold on here, say it here, sayit here.
I text Paul right away and Isaid, oh, this is fantastic.
Yeah, so we'll have some moreof those quotes from real GMs
(40:04):
and real membership directorsthat actually serve to some
degree as references for us,because a lot of clubs will ask
and say do you have references,do you have other GMs?
And then a lot of people in theindustry know each other.
When we say, hey, we've workedwith club A and you could talk
to the membership director wework with over there, like, oh,
I know her, that's great.
And then you know she gets aphone call and says that right,
(40:25):
dodged a bullet and it's likeyou know, listen, we did 30 for
that club.
27 of them didn't even deservea second look.
They were thumbs up, good to go.
Two of them needed a second lookand were subjective and one was
like, oh my gosh, don't let theperson in there, even as a
guest, right?
So that's a pretty typical howthe numbers work.
I mean, we want there to be 27of 30 that are thumbs up, no
(40:48):
questions, great people, ahandful of subjective ones where
you know we don't make thedecision, but some clubs might
say yes, some clubs might say no, it's kind of in the middle,
and then you're, you're going tohave the ones where it's like,
oh my gosh, stay away, right,burn the application, don't
return the calls, whatever thecase may be.
So big range, big range incosts.
(41:08):
But but again, we canaccommodate just about everybody
through some creativity andfiguring out what works best,
and a lot of it comes down towhat their process is and where
we can fit in that process arethere certain clubs that go like
hey for this one, can you giveus the big package?
Speaker 1 (41:23):
like, are there ones where, like, they might be a
little like hesitant, wherethey're like, hey, like this one
, can we spend a little bit moremoney and time on this, just to
make sure?
Or probably at that point, ifthey're that nervous, they're
probably not a good fit anyway?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Generally not and, to be fair to the process, doing
the same level of vetting oneverybody is what you want to do
now.
The other thing that we have iswe do have clubs with different
layers of membership, right?
So you have social memberversus full golfing member, or
maybe you have voting members.
I have heard it.
All all these things I'velearned.
I'm throwing terminology likeI'm an expert, but these things
(41:55):
I have heard and I've jotteddown social member, what's that?
And then I call somebody I knowand go what's a social member?
I just got asked.
I didn't know, right.
So they have different levelsof membership, so they might
have different levels of vettingbased on what that member has
access to.
So if, if they're a full votingmember, maybe they have package
six all the way up here andthen they use five on this one
(42:16):
and they use package four onthis one and they have
designated for them and theyjust tell us hey, this is a four
, this is a non-voting socialmember, or versus, this is
someone that's going to be onthe board, something like to
that degree.
And then we also have thespouses that we do too.
So something like to thatdegree.
And then we also have thespouses that we do too.
So some of the packages,depending on what you know the
club wants to do, can alsoinclude the spouse and or family
, if they have that person too.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Because hugely important, huge, huge.
The one episode I was chattingwith, with, with, with, with
Paul I think there was, you knowit was like like everybody was
fine but the son who justgraduated college, who's also
going to be using the club, hadlike a bunch of like sexual
assault things from like adifferent state.
But like from the from theoutside all looks good, but when
(42:57):
you start digging a little bitand it's like, ok, hey, do you
want this kid around the pool,like with all, like that sort of
exactly what that sort of stuffand different levels, yeah, and
this and this to me, like it'snot what it's what, not what it
is.
So different levels, yeah, andthis and this to me, like, like
it's not what it's what, notwhat it costs, it's what's going
to save you.
And it reminds me of I'mblanking on the episode, but I
(43:18):
think it was Aaron James.
He's in Asheville and it's likethe same but different.
But we were talking about cause.
We were talking about, likehealth and wellness and how they
spend a lot of time, money andresources on hiring good people
(43:39):
to come in and train the members.
He goes and we hire good,trained people, because if a bad
trainer comes in and trains amember wrong and they hurt their
back, now we're not just out,you know, like okay, now we have
to go find a new person, butnow, like that member's out,
they're not going to be comingto the club spending money.
They're not going to, you know,and it's like it goes down that
rabbit hole.
So it's like the same thing.
It's like what is this going tocost you?
Speaker 2 (43:56):
yeah, um, yeah, 100 same different, but yeah and
it's hard.
It's zero sum too, because youcan't always evaluate how much a
bad member or a problem membercan keep other people away.
But you hear the stories.
I I mean from that standpoint.
I hear people say all the timelike if that guy's going to be
around, I'm not playing in thatouting or I'm not going to the
restaurant because he's alwaysdown there, so those are the
(44:18):
types of things too.
I mean the ones that are sittingat the bar from nine in the
morning till five in theafternoon or that just are there
to cause problems all day andthey keep other people out of
the bar.
They keep other people out ofthe bar.
They keep other people out ofthe lounges.
So, yeah, those are the thingswe're looking for.
We're very aware of thosethings and we learn every day.
I mean some of the stuff thatthe stories that I've heard
(44:39):
about bad members get my headspinning.
I'm like, okay, how could wefigure that out?
How could we get to that trait,that personality or that piece
of detail, that or the data thatwould get us to allowing the
club to know that ahead of time?
Right, every time I hear astory about a you know member
getting kicked out or removed orhaving an issue or getting
arrested, whatever it's like,how could I have prevented that
(45:00):
through what we do in vetting?
Because you know, paul says thisall the time.
I hate to use his phrasebecause he's gonna give me crap
for it, but um, behaviorpredicts future behavior.
I'll rephrase it.
I think that sounds better thanwhen he says it, but it is true
.
I mean, what we see in the pasttends to repeat itself.
So when you have five DUIs inthe last five years, that's
(45:21):
something that comes up.
So yeah, we have heard all thestories and we're constantly
learning and looking for newways to add little things to our
searches and how we'reoperating.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Dan, as always, thank you, and Paul and the whole
gang for coming on.
Thanks for being show partners.
I appreciate you guys.
If people want to get a samplereport that they can learn, go
to membervettingcom.
Dan, thank you so much foreverything.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I appreciate it, Denny.
I'm happy to be here and I'mlooking forward to seeing you
next month.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Can't wait.
Management in Motionprivateclubradiocom slash
management in motion.
Hope you all enjoyed thatepisode.
I know I did.
If you would like to learn more, get one of those sample
reports or just have aconversation.
Head on over tomembervettingcom.
That is membervettingcom.
And hey, if you want to meetDan and learn more about Kennis
(46:09):
more thoroughly, you can come tomanagement in motion, my
leadership summit happening nextmonth at Monticello motor club,
to learn more.
Head on over to private clubradiocom slash management in
motion to learn more or sign up.
But that's this episode.
Thank you so much, Dan.
Thank you, Kenis, membervetting.
Until next time, I'm your host,Danny Corby.
(46:30):
Catch all on the flippity flip.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club
Radio Show, where we give youthe scoop on all things private
golf and country clubs, frommastering leadership and
management, food and beverageexcellence, member engagement
secrets, board governance andeverything in between, all while
keeping it fun and light.
Whether you're a club veteranjust getting your feet wet or
somewhere in the middle, you arein the right place.
(00:20):
I'm your host, denny Corby.
Welcome to the show.
You know that one member atyour club who just doesn't fit,
the one that everybody quietlyavoids, or the one who somehow
turns every event into their owndrama.
Now imagine if you can spotthat person before they even get
into the club, before they evenget a member number.
(00:42):
That's what this episode isabout.
I am thrilled to be bringing onDan Klemek from Kennis Member
Vetting.
His team digs into the past andthey dig past the polished
applications, they dig past thehandshakes, they dig past the
glowing references and they findout who is really trying to
join your club.
And sometimes the stuff thatthey find will just absolutely
(01:06):
blow your mind.
And in this conversation, inthis episode, we get into the
biggest trends that Dan andtheir team is seeing right now,
from pandemic PPP loan fraudsthat are still surfacing and now
coming up a lot more.
And we're not just go in, it'snot just the obvious you know
the guy who bought the Ferraris,you know but it goes beyond
(01:26):
that.
We dive into politics, which isnow more polarized and loud
than ever, with online poststhat can clash hard with your
club's culture.
And, even more importantly,these so-called ghost accounts,
which we've talked about here.
We're going to talk about thema little bit more.
And these are the profiles inthese niche forum people that
(01:46):
people think are never going tobe found.
And guess what?
Kenes member vetting can findthese profiles.
And it's not just the largeclubs and these big clubs that
are doing this.
A lot of smaller clubs aretaking their vetting a lot more
serious now.
They're getting a lot morethorough, if not more, than some
of these bigger clubs, becauseit's important and they realize
(02:08):
how important every single newmember is to the club, and one
bad egg can really do somedamage, especially some clubs
that are doing these membershipdrives, which can be a minefield
when you're bringing in dozensand dozens of brand new members
in a month or two all at once.
So if you ever wondered what'sreally possible when you pull
(02:29):
back the curtain on an applicant, or how past behaviors predict
future behavior inside yourclubhouse.
This episode is for you.
If you and your club are notdoing the vetting that you think
it should be done, or if you'reopen or want to do maybe a
little bit more member vetting,please head on over to
membervettingcom.
Fill out the form.
(02:50):
Dan Paul or someone from theteam will get in touch with you.
Even if you want to see one ofthese sample reports of what
they find on applicants, head onover to membervettingcom.
Reach out, get one of thesereports.
You're going to be mind.
It's unbelievable the stuffthat they can uncover.
So I am so stoked for this one.
(03:11):
Private Club Radio listeners,let's welcome back to the show
Dan Klemek.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
The analogy is that generally, you never know how
many layers deep someone goesright.
You have the surface layer thatthey introduced to you and that
you see on the outside, but aswe start peeling those layers
back and looking at thebackground, looking at the
history, looking at the thingsthat we can find online, it can
be endless.
I mean, some of these accountsgo very, very deep and very far
(03:35):
back and are fairly well hidden.
When we get to them, you gothis was 10 layers deep.
I don't know that wenecessarily call it that, but
that's kind of what it feelslike.
So that analogy has worked fora long time because, it's very
true, you never know what you'regoing to get when you start
feeling the layers back.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, what's the average amount of layers
that you peel, or normal?
What's the normal?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
You know, your average person has what they
display to the publicprofessionally.
Generally that's layer layerone and that's what they want
you to see.
Then there's the family layer.
When you start getting into thepersonal accounts and then from
there, if they are someone thathas secondary accounts let's
say their social media accountstwitter x, instagram, tiktok,
all the good ones if they starthaving those secondary accounts,
those tend to layer and spinoff really quickly.
(04:24):
Because if you find a secondaryaccount that's into this one
focus area whether it'spolitical or it's some other
weird lifestyle thing thatthey're into those tend to lead
to other layers where like, okay, now we know what you're into,
now we know to look over here,because you mentioned something
over here and it's just keepgoing and going and going until
you get to the bottom of it.
But listen, your average memberis two layers deep and it's
(04:46):
their professionals, theirfamily, they seem to match up
and they're good people.
It's the ones that you catchwhere you're like well, we just
found something very unusual andwe have a long way to go to
figure this one out.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
We're midway through 2026.
Has there been any?
I know, I know I feel like thebeginning was super slow and all
of a sudden it was like hi,summer, but as we're in the 2026
, has there been any common?
The thing is not the word, buthas there been anything that you
guys have been finding morecommon now, or maybe into 2026,
(05:19):
maybe even the past year or so,that maybe hasn't been common in
the past?
You're like oh, this has beencoming up a lot, or like, or
we've been seeing a lot morelike.
So in my head I'm thinking nowlike I don't ask why, but I get
sucked down the YouTube rabbithole of like random stuff and
one of the things I enjoylistening to is like body cam
footage and like I don't I don'tknow why with doing stuff, it's
(05:45):
just like background noise, uh,but like, so I I've seen a lot
of like the covid pandemic, thechecks and the money.
There's a lot of like, a lot ofthat fraud's coming up now.
Has that been?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
has that been a thing that's been common and, like
what else, has been popping upthree things come to mind, and
and two of them are are, youknow, investigation related one.
You hit the nail on the head.
So the governments both uh, youknow, the state and the federal
government are finally catchingup on COVID relief dollars.
So that those PPP loans thereare investigations going on in
every state and every county onpeople that took those loans out
(06:14):
for non-existent businesses orbusinesses that they started in
order to get that loan money.
So you're seeing a lot ofpeople who have these PPP loan
fraud cases.
Now we have seen a lot of thosewhere it's like okay, you know,
in 2019, you had two employees,but all of a sudden, for the
PPP loan, you're claiming 25employees.
You took a $2 million loan out.
(06:35):
Now the government's going.
What did you do with that?
Because the business doesn'tseem to exist.
So, yeah, that is a huge theme.
The other theme, and I thinksince we talked last, is
political Things.
The politics have, you know,wherever you're at, they've
shifted.
They've gone far left, farright.
That has created some online,some heated online content that
we find, and you know, I mean,let's face it Some of those
(06:57):
people, no matter what sidethey're on, can be difficult to
be around right, and so whenthey're posting these things
online, the political posts havegone through the roof.
I mean, people have taken sidesand the ones that are vocal are
loud and vocal and, again, notsometimes the best members, or
at least somebody you should beaware of.
Depending on what your club'sculture is like, sometimes
(07:18):
that's not a great fit.
So that's what we've seen.
Those would be the two mainthings in the past year.
I mean, listen, the ghostaccounts are crazy.
I mean, when you find them,denny, you wouldn't believe.
I mean, you could meet someone,have dinner with them, play
around a golf with them, andthey're totally normal.
You'd hang out with them, you'dhave beers with them, and then
you would look at this reportand go, oh my gosh, they're into
(07:39):
that, that is something thatthey're into and it will
eventually come up when they'remembers.
I mean those those types ofthings that we find we'll just
leave it at, strange lifestylechoices, uh, outside of the
public view, but that tend tomake their way online.
There are forums, there aregroups, there are things that
people belong to that you wouldnever believe, right?
(07:59):
Mark the ceo, you're like coolguy had beers with him yesterday
.
He shot a 78.
It was fun.
And then you're like we shouldadmit him.
And then you look at our report.
You go oh my gosh, oh my goshhe's a no, it's called furry
denny.
Furries, oh damn it.
Come on, you knew that um.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
You knew that you found my account.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
You found my account, the animal in the background
there and now okay listen,listen okay you're.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
You're furry curious, so, okay, time out.
These are all things.
So these are some just books Ilike and this is stuff from like
shows and and just stuff.
This was so look, if you getall defensive now, no, that was
actually a.
Very curious, very curious.
I was doing a club show inFlorida and they said hey, what
(08:50):
do you want in your green room?
So to me I don't take anythingserious.
I was like bottle of vodka,bottle of wine, a charcuterie
board, puppies.
I just started listing off allthis stuff and, sure enough,
when I, when I got into like thegreen room, there was like the
stuffed animal dog, there waslike small, like nips of vodka,
(09:11):
there was like a charcuterie,but it was really funny uh, just
like, whatever the rollingstones get, I want that uh, well
, and then actually total sidenote.
Do you know where the green m&mscame from or why that started?
I do not so I don't know if itwas the rolling stones one of
the bands in in the writer said,uh, a bowl of green m&ms.
(09:32):
And now, mind you, this was.
This was back 80s, 90s maybe,and they did that for a very
specific reason.
There are people who put stuffin there in their rider for like
bs, just just because they wantit, but that was the tour
manager.
Because the tour manager putthat on there, because if they
showed up, because back in theday you couldn't just buy green
m&ms, like now you can just buythe colors, as is like a whole
(09:55):
bag of whatever I've been tovegas, I know yeah, so they did
that because if the tour managerwent into the green room when
they first showed up and therewas a bowl of green m&ms, that
means that they had somebodyread the rider.
They had somebody sit there andseparate all the m&ms, just to
put the green one.
So now they know it's probablygoing to be a safer venue.
(10:15):
Everything's going to be set upproperly.
Like it, that was like, thatwas their little like trigger
yeah, that was their like littletrigger to go like, because now
if he shows up and it's just aregular bull, it's like gosh.
I really got to go and let medouble check this, let me make
sure all that.
So I thought that was.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It's like in college when you sneak a bizarre
sentence into your essay just tosee if the professor reads it.
You got a 30-page essay and yousneak a sentence in there like
this professor's awful, and thenyou wait to see if he says
anything, because then you knowhe didn't read it.
So, yeah, no, that's no.
So the furry thing is very realand you know you can use your
(10:53):
imagination as to what elsethere is out there, outside of
the furry realm.
But once you find somethinglike that and I'll give you a
more mundane example, moremundane example If I find out
that you're a big car person,you have a whole bunch of
pictures of your, you know picka car.
You know we're going racing ina few weeks BMW, for example.
There are entire forums andcultures and websites and things
(11:16):
dedicated to that.
So I now know that about you.
And then I start down thatrabbit hole and I want to see
are we street racing?
Are we doing things nefariously?
Who are we hanging out with?
What kind of clubs and whatkind of places do we go to?
Because that leads to otherthings too and it leads to
connections.
It leads to things that you doand that's pretty mundane.
(11:37):
I mean most car people are.
I've got a.
I've got a Wrangler.
I'm on Wrangler forums becauseit's a, it's a nineties Wrangler
, so trying to keep that thingalive and running is you need
the forums, right?
So there are things that youknow people are into as hobbies
and you find those things andyou go down that rabbit hole and
figure out what those reallymean.
Sometimes those hobbies arequestionable at best.
And then you, you know, you godown those, those rabbit holes
(11:59):
and those sites and those forumsand those things that are not
traditionally found on Google.
I mean, you know we joke allthe time we talk about the
analogy of the onion, but theiceberg right, and I've got a
great picture of it somewherewhere you've got this iceberg,
where you've got just the tippytop showing on the surface,
that's Google.
Google only indexes about 5% to6% of the entire internet.
So that other 95% call it isnot indexed by Google.
(12:23):
So your average person isn'tgoing to find those things, and
that includes things like forumsand other strange sites that
are considered on.
I would say the deep web wouldbe the best way to describe it.
But it's that, under thesurface information that we
dredge up and find where all ofthis information is.
So that's really the benefit isfinding all of it and going
(12:51):
back to our trends.
So we have the political, we'vegot the weird alternative
lifestyle stuff, and the PPPloans are a big one.
I mean they speak to a lot offraud.
I mean generally, when you seethose, it means whatever that
person's primary business waswas failing or had a problem,
and there's lawsuits andlitigation and that was a way to
get some quick cash infusedinto a business where it wasn't
necessarily legitimate.
And then you have the crazyones where it's like you know,
guy who claimed 30 employees andbought two Ferraris over COVID
(13:11):
with PPP money.
Well, that's a more obvious one.
Those people were found first.
Now they're going after theones that are more questionable,
like did you really have 100employees and need a $10 million
PPP loan, or maybe it was thatinflated and they're going back
and getting those things.
The third trend is more businessrelated.
On our end is that we have seena lot more small clubs
(13:35):
contacting us, and when I saysmall, I mean by actual number
of members, but also from a coststandpoint.
Those clubs are contacting usmore regularly and finding value
in what we're doing becausethey are smaller.
So we kind of had a targetrange of the type of club that
was a good fit for us originallyand being new to the industry
(13:58):
only a couple of years ago a fewyears ago trying to learn
things on the fly.
But now we're finding that someof these smaller clubs are just
as interested and so we're ableto put together really nice
packages for them too that are alittle bit more cost conscious
but still give them a much morein-depth view of what that
applicant's going to be like.
And the other going along withthat is membership drives, which
(14:19):
was something that I had neverheard of before.
But sometimes clubs will domembership drives.
So they'll say you know, forthe month of July we're going to
try to sign up 100 new membersand we're going to publish stuff
and advertise.
And what that turns out to beis 100 new members that no one
knows they know nothing about,right.
So we've got 100 members of thegeneral public that no one has
(14:39):
referred.
They're just people thatapplied, and now we really feel
like we're under the gun to getmore information about these
people before we admit them in.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
So those are just some of the biggest trends that
I've seen over the last year,year and a half thing before we
connected and chatted, you know,with paul, like years ago, and
just a story of how you know thewhole thing just came about
when he, the a club that he wasa member of, um asked like hey,
(15:12):
with your business, can you dothis for us?
And like, and when he wastelling me that I just assumed
most clubs did a more thoroughbackground, which to me is
mind-blowing.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
It is, and so the two things that we run into the
most are clubs that don't doanything right.
They say, well, we've met theperson, they must be great.
But my story of meeting someoneand playing golf with them
doesn't always apply, becausethere are some strange things in
the background and the otherclubs are doing what you would
consider a pre-employmentbackground check if you were to
(15:44):
get a job.
And they run a background check, which the boring part of what
I have to do is explain thedifference, and that is the
pre-employment background checkis so heavily regulated by the
FCRA because it's an offer ofemployment, so you can only look
at this much of the person'sbackground legally before you
make a hiring decision.
With private members there's noprotections there.
(16:04):
You can look at whatever youwant to.
We get to do our act.
What we can actually do in ourwheelhouses is dig really,
really deep.
So you had also mentioned thebody cam footage.
I would mention that to youbecause you know body cam
footage is.
You know, let's say, body camfootage is about 10 years old
and the technology of policedepartments using them Almost
every department now has them.
I'm sure there's smallerdepartments over the country
(16:25):
that don't, but most policedepartments have these.
They are public record by andlarge.
There's a couple of states thathave issues where they don't
consider them public record orthey're harder to get, but by
and large, they're publicrecords.
The example I always give issomebody with a DUI arrest.
Right, let's say it's a 2018DUI arrest and you look at that
on paper and you say, okay, duiarrest, they did 30 hours of
(16:46):
community service and that wasit.
That's the last number.
Right, most of us know somebodythat's had a DUI arrest.
Let's face it and we say, okay,that's a normal guy problem,
normal person problem.
Looks like they moved on, nobig deal.
The question is, when you getthat body cam footage and
they're absolutely insane andthey have to be tased and thrown
in the back of the police carand all they want to talk about
(17:07):
is how important they are andwho they are and who they know
and how awful the cops are and Ipay your salary when that's on
video.
That's a different person thanyour buddy jim that just had one
too many and drove home and gotcaught got caught and just took
his punishment, moved on versussomebody that went absolutely
bananas when they wereintoxicated.
(17:28):
So those are two differentmember types and that's the
depth and the detail and thelevel that we give you.
So the body camphor is justeasier to get, it's faster to
get and it's pretty much astandard practice when we have
something like that.
That's happened in the recentpast because it can give you a
lot of insight into who thatperson is.
If they sit quiet, they thinkthey take their time and they're
(17:49):
just a normal guy that had abad day, totally normal stuff,
and the club gets to look atthat and decide if that's the
right personality, the right fitfor them.
So yeah, body cam footage isawesome and it's come a long way
in the last 10 years, even inthe last couple of years, I
think know where we are in MetroDetroit almost every single
department has it and DPD waslike the last to adopt it, but
now that they have it, it's beena really, really good tool for
(18:11):
us.
So that's a really nice featureto have.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And I've said this before too, and it's not up to
you, you don't decide who comesin, the club still decides all
that.
You just present all the fact.
You just give all theinformation, just all the
findings and it's up to them todecide, because because they can
still and I'm sure, and I'msure you don't know, because you
don't, you don't really followup or have like a need to care
to follow up, but I'm sureyou've probably sent stuff into
(18:38):
a club and go.
There's no way that thatperson's getting in.
Sure I'm sure they sure as hellgot in that that person's
getting in sure.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I'm sure they sure as hell got in well.
So here's the thing is ifyou're using us, then you care
about who you're letting in.
It's very true and so, yes, Iwill give you the the examples.
Yes, there are times wherewe're like there's no way that
this person's admitted.
But it is really up, it is 100up to club.
We highlight anything thatneeds to be looked at.
So your average report is verymundane.
It's Bill, he's a chiropractorand he's got a nice family and
(19:12):
he lives down the street andeverything he said on his
application because we get thattoo everything is set as
application is accurate.
Verifying the information thatwas provided to us is a big part
of it too.
So if the person says I'm this,that and the other, and I'm on
this board and I'm this personand I'm this and I went to this
school and I know these people,and it's on that application, we
verify that those things areaccurate, because people will
(19:34):
lie on those things.
Like any other type ofapplication, people don't always
tell the truth.
So, yes, there are times wherewe send the reports.
It's subjective.
One club might say, yeah, we'lloverlook that and it's fine.
One club might say absolutelynot.
One club might have aconversation with that person
and say, hey, listen, you hadfour alcohol arrests in the last
five years.
(19:55):
This appears to be a problem atsomething that we just can't
have.
We can't tolerate that here.
We don't want you gettingpulled over and getting another
DUI after leaving the club.
That's a bad look for us.
Local police departments don'tlike that when that happens.
So it might be a conversation.
(20:15):
Then there's the high-levelones, where not only do we
highlight everything, like wealways do, you might get a phone
call from me or from Janine orsomeone in our office, and the
phone call is going to be toactually help walk you through
what you're about to read,because there are some things
that are harder to explain inwords on a report.
(20:36):
So we have that customerservices there and it's like hey
, okay, you're going to get thisreport.
I want you to open it with mewhen you get it.
Let's go through it together.
Sometimes it's a matter of letme explain a little bit better
than we can on paper how we gotto that profile online is your
applicant, because it'ssometimes very difficult.
We had to go through sevendifferent avenues to prove that
(21:00):
that profile, that some randombizarre name online is your
person, but let me walk youthrough it so you know.
Bizarre name online is yourperson, but let me walk you
through it, so you know.
Or this is a really weird oneand I need to explain to you
what this means because I had togoogle it and I was.
It was awful to google and Ididn't want to have to google it
, but I googled what it is andthis is what the person's into
and I didn't want to write onpaper necessarily.
(21:22):
So I've had to have thoseconversations.
I've had to have thoseconversations.
I've had to have thoseconversations where it's like
you know, using your furry inthe background I'm not going to
assume that every membershipdirector or general manager is
up to speed on local furry terms, so I may have to Google some
things and explain what theperson's into and say you know,
if the club has stuffed animalslaying around, you might have to
(21:44):
hide those.
And there's nothing wrong withbeing what people are into no,
not at all, and I'm using thatas an example, because most of
the things we see are a littlebit more devious than that.
Um, but you know, I'm prettysure you're a pg podcast, so
we'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
No, I mean no, I mean this is.
I mean this is, this is a nicheshow and this is, this is a
very I mean.
To me this is like an importanttopic because, like clubs are a
very important and sacred placeand, you know, not every club
is for every person and thatthat always kills me too is, you
know, the clubs that just letanybody in and like and I guess
there's a place for those.
But it's like a club to me likehas a personality, like a, it's
(22:19):
like a living, breathing thing.
You know more or less, and ithas, like it's it's a thing and
you get those right people inthere.
Because you know, I'veperformed at clubs where you you
can tell like it is a vibe andit's a place and there's others
you can be like I'm just alittle off here like just like
mismatch or something.
Um, and then, and real quick,if people want a sample of a
report, can they go tomembervettingcom and request a
(22:42):
sample report of what a reportwould look like.
That that can get.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Absolutely so.
We've got a lot on the site.
We've got an inquiry form thatcomes straight to Paul and I and
one of us will answer rightaway.
We also have a white paper thatwe've written on some
statistics about membership andabout vetting and some examples
between what you would get in apre-employment report versus a
chemist report, and then alsoyou can request a sample report
(23:07):
on there.
We're probably going to callyou and talk about the level
that you're looking at, becausewe have many levels that we can
perform the service on.
So we can go really deep.
We can put a budget onetogether.
We kind of got a good rangewhere we are.
So we've got a lot of samplereports sample reports on good
stuff, bad stuff, all sorts ofdifferent stuff.
But just to give you a feel ofwhat you're going to get as a
dossier investigation on yourmember applicant to say, this is
(23:31):
what kind of person you'redealing with.
And, to your point, the clubvibe I mean the like-mindedness
and having a good culture at aclub is huge.
I think we talked about thislast time on the podcast, but my
example still holds true isevery time I talk to a GM, they
always go oh, that one guy or,oh, that one lady, right, but
they're a bummer and they bringeverybody else down when they're
(23:52):
in the room, when they'rearound, nobody wants to be
around them.
They keep members from showingup and they cause problems,
right.
And so that one member story.
And I tell that every time Ispeak, every time I do a
presentation, because it doesnot fail, when I'm meeting with
people, meeting with GM, themembership directors, that
that's exactly what they willsay Well, we got this one guy.
(24:13):
So still holds true, still myfavorite example, but that's
that.
That speaks to the vibe and theculture of the club a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
And do you so, and when you find information, you
just don't show the badinformation.
You find the good stuff andshowcase that too.
So I'm I would assume that onthe flip side, I'm sure you
probably have had people who,like on paper, you're like, oh,
they just seem like average andboring.
And then you start digging.
You're like these arephenomenal people.
Like they donate hundreds ofthousands that no one knows
about and they're like thesephilanthropic and just like ever
(24:43):
giving amazing.
You know superheroes.
And you're like why, where didthis come from?
Like how come they're notshowcasing that?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
100 and for for us, you know it's interesting
because it's not, it's neverpersonal.
We don't know the people, wehave nothing against them ever
and and so we're just trying toshow what they're all about as
best possible.
And, yes, 100.
So our highlight section in ourreport is bad stuff, negative
stuff or subjective things, butalso the very positive things
too.
And you get your perfectexample of very philanthropic or
(25:13):
on the board of a bunch ofnonprofits and takes one of the
things that detail is.
It's one thing to say thisperson's on 10 nonprofit boards.
It's another thing to saythey're on 10 nonprofit boards
and they're taking zero salaryon all of those boards.
They're zero salary on everysingle one of those.
Everything is 100% donatingtheir time.
That speaks volume to who thatperson is right.
(25:35):
They've made it, they're nottaking money from that nonprofit
and that's something that wecan display right.
Great family, travels a lot,gives money, takes care of
people yeah, all sorts ofpositive things and by and large
, most, most, are that rightwhat we're looking for, the ones
that aren't, because those arethe ones that the clubs want to
keep out, but by and large, mostof those people are great and
(25:57):
excellent members and peoplethat I would love to go hang out
with.
I have I've I'll be honest,I've seen some where I've
reviewed a report ago.
I want to know this guy, likewho is this person?
Like they're so cool, likethey're like they're in a
helicopter saving people inSouth Africa and they're, you
know, the next week they'reskiing with their family and
it's like what a cool family,what a cool guy.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You know the race car stuff because I'm a car guy, so
I see the guys with their carswant to go to that club and
speak, just so I can meet thatguy.
So no, it's uh it's fancyseeing you here, like good thing
, your vetting report lookedgood, uh, so yeah, no, no,
really.
Most of them are genuinelypositive and we highlight that
too.
So the club gets a really goodthumbs up feeling about those
(26:38):
people and they're going to makethat decision and they're
they're easy decisions, most ofthem so do.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Do you ever run into or like, how do handle a
situation?
Do you ever have a situation ora club?
Or does it happen where, let'ssay, you start a club has X
package and you start maybe it'slike middle or so and you start
digging and finding stuff andyou're like, hey, there's more
to this one.
Do you just do it?
(27:04):
Do you charge more?
How does that work then?
Then, if you're, if you're, ifthey get a certain package, and
all of a sudden you start likepeeling back the layers and you
start opening up the boxes andyou're like, ooh, there's a lot
more boxes here than we thought.
This is going to take some moretime.
Like, how does that work inyour, in your world?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
It, um, we do it.
So we just we.
We finish it.
We do the work product becauseit's subjective and the club
gets to decide, you know,whether we think it's something
that's like, you know they'reautomatically not going to let
this person in.
I can't say that that hasn'thappened, but it would be a
super rarity.
We're going to finish.
We charge a flat rate perapplicant.
So you know, some of the thingswe don't have.
(27:41):
We don't have like a monthlyfee, we don't have an annual fee
and there's no commitmentduration wise.
So you use us when you use us.
Our hope is it uses on everyapplicant.
So it's a fair process and we,you know that you include us in
your process, um, but you'regetting that report one way or
the other and there isn't an upcharge for, holy moly, this
one's really big um, it canhappen when most of the time it
(28:05):
will be, when someone isrelatively prominent, that's
that's.
Those are the hardest onesbecause there's so much content
out there.
A lot of times we'll summarizethe large quantity of content.
So you know, let's say you hada Congress person, for example.
They're going to be all overthe news.
They're, they're going to besomeone that's spoken about,
written about, and so we cansummarize the large quantities
(28:26):
of content and also put togetheran analysis of their political
views and, if they're going tobe a good fit for that club and,
you know, lay out what theirpolitical views are or what
their thought processes and whatissues they're big on.
So the club kind of knowsthat's what they're into and
that's their thing.
But yeah, prominent people areprobably the most challenging
because there's so much contentthat we have to go through and
(28:48):
analyze.
But no, no additional charges,that's on us and we handle that
because we also know that thebulk of the ones that we do are
going to be in that range ofpretty normal individuals that
are not going to take a lot ofextra time or collection of
information on.
So no, that's on us and then wetake care of those as well.
So we tend to quote based onyou know kind of the area and
(29:08):
what the club's like and whattypes of people.
We ask a lot of questionsbefore we quote anything.
We want to know a lot about theclub.
Who applies, you know, whereare your, where are your
applicants from?
Are they local?
Are they travel?
Are they from the other placeof the international.
Are they from out of state?
It gives us a good idea of whatthat population is going to be
like for the most part when westart to go do the vetting.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, because if I remember I was thinking I don't
know if it was for an episodePaul was talking or you know,
just talking on the phone orsomething too.
But just how you know, certainstates and counties have
different fees and proceduresand some people you have to go
in person to the place and fillout a form you have to go in
(29:50):
person to the place and fill outa form.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
You have to send somebody there to go and do that
, to get the information, tobring it back to you.
Yeah, rural communities thatare not as tech savvy and put
some of these records online Imean we have subscriptions with
every county and state that ispossible to have to get records
and to pull informationrelatively quickly because we're
still doing it the oldfashioned way, but the correct
way, and going straight to thesource for the data.
So we don't use third-partydata brokers that only get a
(30:12):
little piece of a case.
We're getting the entire thingso we can go directly to that
court and get the entire caseand review it so that we get all
those details, all that context, all the things that have
happened.
A good example of that would belike a divorce case.
Right In a docket sheet youwould see a divorce case.
It's just divorce, plaintiff,defendant and a bunch of
(30:33):
calendar events and whathappened.
But when you start pullingthose things especially if it's
a lengthy case you start to getmore information.
You get the information aboutthe abuse and the domestic
problems and the fight over thekids and the fight over the
assets and you look at theassets and are the assets
legitimate and based on whatthey've told us on their
application.
Is that true and accurate?
So you get more of that detailand context when you do it that
(30:56):
way, the way that we do it to goand actually get the doc.
This is the same thing with thepolice reports.
Getting the full police reportand the body cam footage is
better than just getting anexcerpt from the police that
says DUI, arrest 2018, becausethat doesn't give you those
details that you need to make adecision or at least evaluate
who that person really is sobecause if they're, if they're
(31:17):
that way drunk acting to apolice officer, they're
definitely the same way drunk atthe club bar.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yes, yeah, or maybe, but, or like close to it, or you
know, you know, give, give meanother drink.
You know who I am.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I've been a member here, since they're the ones
throwing the putters on the 18thgreen, you know.
So I can't putt either, but Idon't get mad about it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I don't think we've ever talked about on here, like
what does something like thiscost?
And I realize just from theconversation that we've had and
similar to like a lot of thingsthere's different um, like you
know, because, like, dependingon the who, what, where, when,
why is there's, there'sdifferent costs and pricing.
But, like you know, a what doeslike a basic background, like.
(31:57):
So if someone just were to justgo get like a normal background
check what, what you know, anormal, whatever verse, then
then to like you you know whatdo your so like kind of like
what does that cost?
Versus like what do you likeyour ranges cost from?
Like you know your entry level,your basic to what maybe most
clubs get to?
Um, to like the more like thehigher end, like what does that,
(32:19):
what does that range and scopelook like?
And how do you compare to likea normal like you know at at a
bare bones, for your bareminimum, to like a really good,
just public search people canget like what's that difference?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
like Huge difference.
Yeah, so no, that's awesome Aregular pre-employment
background check.
It could range anywhere from,you know, 75 to $200, right,
depending on where you're at.
And you had mentioned thejurisdictions matter a ton.
New York.
There's a premium on New Yorkand California because the data
is very difficult to get, ittakes a long time and those
(32:51):
counties and the state, in orderfor us to get that data, charge
us an awful lot more than anyother of the two states,
california and New York.
New York has a super highpremium of getting data Shocking
that that would be the mostexpensive state in the country.
So that would be your typicalpre-employment background check.
But again, heavily regulatedcan only look at this much
information.
(33:12):
In California, I think it'sfive years after the conviction.
You can't look at it and make adetermination, so you're only
getting a very small window andthere's no detail, no context.
That arrest for DUI in 2018,which now is already outside of
that scope that you could evensee in California, so you
wouldn't even get it, but itwould be arrest, dui, charge,
date, guilty, that's it.
(33:33):
That's all you're going to see.
Our most basic package.
Everything's customized.
Let's start there.
So we ask a ton of questionswith clubs.
The way that the process worksin getting a club onboarded is
we have about a 30 to 45 minutedemo that we do.
We go through an entire reportand all of the various searches
and all of the things that wecan do, and then we start to ask
(33:54):
questions of the club, reallyimportant questions.
If we ask the club and say,would you not allow someone in
your club, based on you know, goback to the DUI for a DUI five
years ago and they said, well,we don't really care about DUIs
because we're a local club andeveryone walks here, for example
, okay, then we're not evengoing to offer that search.
(34:15):
There's no point.
If you're not going to make adecision based on that search
that we're providing, thenthere's no point in even having
it and seeing it Right Now.
That's a bad one, because mostpeople would want to know that.
But, um, so we start to buildthese things based on what they
want.
If character and reputation isthe main thing and that's really
our wheelhouse, because that'sthe most challenging part of
(34:36):
what we do is finding thoseprofiles, finding what they're
really like in their personallife that comes into play in the
package too, so we include that.
And then we look at it and say,obviously we want to look at the
criminal, we want to make surethey're not a sex offender, we
want to make sure that the DUIsare there and the driving record
is okay.
And then maybe we want to startlooking at the business aspect
and what they actually do, theirprofessional criteria and what
(34:58):
they're claiming that they'reone thing right, I'm this person
and I've got these criteria andI'm on the board for this and
I'm involved with this thatthose things are accurate.
Right, that's a part of it too,to make sure that what they're
telling you they are, theyreally are, and that they're not
there for any other purpose,because we do catch I say catch,
we find members or applicantsthat are there to garner
(35:21):
influence.
So clubs are really, reallyconcerned about that, about
people joining up becausethey're in sales and marketing,
for example, or they've got ahot new startup and they need
investors and their goal is togo to the club and find
investors right and they'rethere for the wrong reasons.
They're not there for thecamaraderie, they're not there
for the atmosphere.
They're there to makeconnections.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
And you can kind of find that Like you can put those
pieces together or at leastformulate that story.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
We can form the basis to say you should look at this,
because they don't match allthe things they said they are.
They don't have all thecriteria that you would
typically have in one of yourmembers.
The cost point may not be agood match.
So there's a really easy onewhere it's like okay, this is a
very costly club to join, right,you have a very high initiation
(36:09):
fee.
This person doesn't reallymatch what we have typically
seen.
Maybe this is a corporatesponsorship, right?
Maybe there's a corporationsaying, hey, we want to get our
sales guy in there and so we'regoing to pay for that membership
, because the influence that hecan gain from being here, she
can gain from being there.
So we have actually seen many,many times where that's happened
(36:29):
, where it's like something's alittle weird here.
Or you find out that they'vegot a startup and they're
looking for investors, and it'svery public.
I'm looking for investors, I'vegot the startup and it's good
or bad, it doesn't matter, butthey're there and from the
minute they get there, they'regoing to be trying to make
connections, having lunches.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Passing out business cards.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Passing out connections, having lunches,
passing out business cards.
We do see that a lot.
We can formulate that and itactually becomes pretty obvious.
We've had several examples ofthat, even in the last month or
two, where it's like this is astrange one Doesn't golf,
joining a golf club but not agolfer or not a golfer, and you
can easily see that they're insales and marketing and they're
not a golfer and they've neverbeen to a club before.
Those are the types of thingsthat we can look for and find.
(37:11):
As far as pricing goes back tothat, we build everything
customized.
So from a range standpoint,from a dollar standpoint which I
hate to do, but I will give yousome dollars inside information
here, denny, on the podcast wecan build these packages from as
little as $300, $350, all theway up to $1,500, $2,000.
(37:34):
It's a pretty big range.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I would say and I'll give you some, you know the
middle range of that, that kindof $600 to $800, is really where
most clubs end up fitting in,and some of it comes to
initiation fee.
Do they charge an applicationfee?
And we're also creative withthat too.
If they're a club that doesn'thave an application fee, we can
actually be the application fee.
They can actually pay usdirectly for that.
(37:59):
We're flexible in that they cancreate an initiate or an
application fee that includesour cost in there.
So we can work with clubs toreally recover that money, those
dollars, to really make itworthwhile.
And most people and they'll findtoo clubs will tell you is that
when they have the applicationfees and they're notified that
we're going to be doing this,which isn't a necessity you
(38:20):
don't have to notify them, and Ican speak to that more.
They will also have somemembers that are like, yeah,
they're probably going to findthat out about me and maybe I
don't want that out there, andthen they bail on the process
anyways.
So from a cost standpoint, very, very customized.
I would tell any club that'shearing this that's like oh man,
we have a lower initiation feeand we don't have an application
fee.
But you're interested, I canwork with you on that.
(38:43):
I can really come up withsomething that works and makes
sense and gives you a muchbetter vetting product than you
could ever get on thepre-employment side of things,
because again it's heavilyregulated we can always come up
with a package for a club that'sinterested.
We've never had to turn anyonedown because it's just not.
We can't make it work.
We can make something work foryou.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
And I'm sure you've probably had a.
I've had a couple of clubs whoyou know hire you and they're
like, ah, himman and Hahn, youknow, hire you and they're like,
oh, himman and Hahn.
And then you come back withthat one report and you're like
here and they go, oh, then it'slike, oh, thank goodness.
It's like there we go.
That's that like breath offresh air, like, thank goodness,
like it's like when theyfinally like see it and get it,
you're like, oh, okay, worth it.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
You'll see on the site soon, as we're doing some
upgrades, we'll have some greatquotes from general managers and
membership directors that we'vegotten via email or over the
phone.
I was in Cincinnati for theirchapter association earlier this
year April or early May and Ihad a manager come up to me and
(39:43):
I literally joke with her.
I said can you please say thaton video or something Like, can
you put it in writing?
It was like, oh my gosh, did wedodge a bullet on that?
That's pretty much what thequote was and I was like hold on
, hold on here, say it here, sayit here.
I text Paul right away and Isaid, oh, this is fantastic.
Yeah, so we'll have some moreof those quotes from real GMs
(40:04):
and real membership directorsthat actually serve to some
degree as references for us,because a lot of clubs will ask
and say do you have references,do you have other GMs?
And then a lot of people in theindustry know each other.
When we say, hey, we've workedwith club A and you could talk
to the membership director wework with over there, like, oh,
I know her, that's great.
And then you know she gets aphone call and says that right,
(40:25):
dodged a bullet and it's likeyou know, listen, we did 30 for
that club.
27 of them didn't even deservea second look.
They were thumbs up, good to go.
Two of them needed a second lookand were subjective and one was
like, oh my gosh, don't let theperson in there, even as a
guest, right?
So that's a pretty typical howthe numbers work.
I mean, we want there to be 27of 30 that are thumbs up, no
(40:48):
questions, great people, ahandful of subjective ones where
you know we don't make thedecision, but some clubs might
say yes, some clubs might say no, it's kind of in the middle,
and then you're, you're going tohave the ones where it's like,
oh my gosh, stay away, right,burn the application, don't
return the calls, whatever thecase may be.
So big range, big range incosts.
(41:08):
But but again, we canaccommodate just about everybody
through some creativity andfiguring out what works best,
and a lot of it comes down towhat their process is and where
we can fit in that process arethere certain clubs that go like
hey for this one, can you giveus the big package?
Speaker 1 (41:23):
like, are there ones where, like, they might be a
little like hesitant, wherethey're like, hey, like this one
, can we spend a little bit moremoney and time on this, just to
make sure?
Or probably at that point, ifthey're that nervous, they're
probably not a good fit anyway?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Generally not and, to be fair to the process, doing
the same level of vetting oneverybody is what you want to do
now.
The other thing that we have iswe do have clubs with different
layers of membership, right?
So you have social memberversus full golfing member, or
maybe you have voting members.
I have heard it.
All all these things I'velearned.
I'm throwing terminology likeI'm an expert, but these things
(41:55):
I have heard and I've jotteddown social member, what's that?
And then I call somebody I knowand go what's a social member?
I just got asked.
I didn't know, right.
So they have different levelsof membership, so they might
have different levels of vettingbased on what that member has
access to.
So if, if they're a full votingmember, maybe they have package
six all the way up here andthen they use five on this one
(42:16):
and they use package four onthis one and they have
designated for them and theyjust tell us hey, this is a four
, this is a non-voting socialmember, or versus, this is
someone that's going to be onthe board, something like to
that degree.
And then we also have thespouses that we do too.
So something like to thatdegree.
And then we also have thespouses that we do too.
So some of the packages,depending on what you know the
club wants to do, can alsoinclude the spouse and or family
, if they have that person too.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Because hugely important, huge, huge.
The one episode I was chattingwith, with, with, with, with
Paul I think there was, you knowit was like like everybody was
fine but the son who justgraduated college, who's also
going to be using the club, hadlike a bunch of like sexual
assault things from like adifferent state.
But like from the from theoutside all looks good, but when
(42:57):
you start digging a little bitand it's like, ok, hey, do you
want this kid around the pool,like with all, like that sort of
exactly what that sort of stuffand different levels, yeah, and
this and this to me, like it'snot what it's what, not what it
is.
So different levels, yeah, andthis and this to me, like, like
it's not what it's what, notwhat it costs, it's what's going
to save you.
And it reminds me of I'mblanking on the episode, but I
(43:18):
think it was Aaron James.
He's in Asheville and it's likethe same but different.
But we were talking about cause.
We were talking about, likehealth and wellness and how they
spend a lot of time, money andresources on hiring good people
(43:39):
to come in and train the members.
He goes and we hire good,trained people, because if a bad
trainer comes in and trains amember wrong and they hurt their
back, now we're not just out,you know, like okay, now we have
to go find a new person, butnow, like that member's out,
they're not going to be comingto the club spending money.
They're not going to, you know,and it's like it goes down that
rabbit hole.
So it's like the same thing.
It's like what is this going tocost you?
Speaker 2 (43:56):
yeah, um, yeah, 100 same different, but yeah and
it's hard.
It's zero sum too, because youcan't always evaluate how much a
bad member or a problem membercan keep other people away.
But you hear the stories.
I I mean from that standpoint.
I hear people say all the timelike if that guy's going to be
around, I'm not playing in thatouting or I'm not going to the
restaurant because he's alwaysdown there, so those are the
(44:18):
types of things too.
I mean the ones that are sittingat the bar from nine in the
morning till five in theafternoon or that just are there
to cause problems all day andthey keep other people out of
the bar.
They keep other people out ofthe bar.
They keep other people out ofthe lounges.
So, yeah, those are the thingswe're looking for.
We're very aware of thosethings and we learn every day.
I mean some of the stuff thatthe stories that I've heard
(44:39):
about bad members get my headspinning.
I'm like, okay, how could wefigure that out?
How could we get to that trait,that personality or that piece
of detail, that or the data thatwould get us to allowing the
club to know that ahead of time?
Right, every time I hear astory about a you know member
getting kicked out or removed orhaving an issue or getting
arrested, whatever it's like,how could I have prevented that
(45:00):
through what we do in vetting?
Because you know, paul says thisall the time.
I hate to use his phrasebecause he's gonna give me crap
for it, but um, behaviorpredicts future behavior.
I'll rephrase it.
I think that sounds better thanwhen he says it, but it is true
.
I mean, what we see in the pasttends to repeat itself.
So when you have five DUIs inthe last five years, that's
(45:21):
something that comes up.
So yeah, we have heard all thestories and we're constantly
learning and looking for newways to add little things to our
searches and how we'reoperating.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Dan, as always, thank you, and Paul and the whole
gang for coming on.
Thanks for being show partners.
I appreciate you guys.
If people want to get a samplereport that they can learn, go
to membervettingcom.
Dan, thank you so much foreverything.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I appreciate it, Denny.
I'm happy to be here and I'mlooking forward to seeing you
next month.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Can't wait.
Management in Motionprivateclubradiocom slash
management in motion.
Hope you all enjoyed thatepisode.
I know I did.
If you would like to learn more, get one of those sample
reports or just have aconversation.
Head on over tomembervettingcom.
That is membervettingcom.
And hey, if you want to meetDan and learn more about Kennis
(46:09):
more thoroughly, you can come tomanagement in motion, my
leadership summit happening nextmonth at Monticello motor club,
to learn more.
Head on over to private clubradiocom slash management in
motion to learn more or sign up.
But that's this episode.
Thank you so much, Dan.
Thank you, Kenis, membervetting.
Until next time, I'm your host,Danny Corby.
(46:30):
Catch all on the flippity flip.
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